Week 1

Today marks our one week since arriving in Brazil, and oh, what a journey it has been. A snapshot of where we are staying: our team has been incredibly blessed with a Brazilian family. Not only Mãe e Pãe but also a sister and some aunts, uncles, little brothers and Vovo – the grandma of the crew! Brazilian culture is very open, welcoming and hospitable so right away we were brought into the family and treated with immense love, through hugs, conversation, food, laughter and many other blessings! The place we get to stay is very comfortable and our team of 6 (including Kelly, our group facilitator from Crossworld) has three rooms, a beautiful open courtyard and walled yard, a kitchen where delicious food comes out of and we get scolded if we try to come in and help clean up after meals.

Our first few days were an opportunity to rest, recover from travelling, adjust to the heat, the time change, new places, new language and new family. Sunday included Brazilian BBQ for lunch with friends and family, playing in the pool, playing volleyball and starting Portuguese ‘lessons’. I have become known for my new dictionary – a notebook where I write an English word and Junior, one of my ‘little brothers’ will write the Portuguese word! It has been a great way to learn bits of the language and increase my vocabulary every day! In the evening we attended church with our host mom and were able to bless their small congregation with English songs and pray for them with Kelly as our expert Portuguese translator.

Monday was our final rest day – we spent our afternoon at the “Shopping” (known as the mall in English), where much laughter and adventure was had with our new Brazilian family. We learned many new words from Junior and his brother. We met a fellow English speaker in the supermarket who is the same age as us and she is now an English teacher here in Belem! She was very excited to meet Canadians and we were excited to find someone else to speak English with and to encourage her in pursuing her dreams of traveling the world and her relationship with God.

Tuesday, we got to start our time with ProVida. We joined their weekly meeting and time of prayer for their ministries and found unique ways to work around the language barriers including a three way translation from Portuguese to Spanish then to English and back. Oh, yes, the language barrier has been real. In some ways it allows us to find other ways of sharing God’s love through the simple gesture of a smile or laughter. It has definitely been growing creativity and patience in me because hand actions are a very comical way to express ideas but communication does takes twice as long and can make it difficult to keep a specific train of thought. Tuesday afternoon we had the opportunity to share our DRIME and testimonies in a juvie prison. Walking in, the desire on my heart, and the team’s, was simply to see the guys as sons of God and to love them unconditionally.

Our DRIME is set to “Reckless Love” by Cory Asbure and in it, we depict Jesus breathing life into us, Satan attacking us with self-doubt, lack of self-worth, drugs, alcohol and attempted suicide. Jesus comes in and lights up “the shadow” by giving love to each of the struggles we experience and welcoming us into his presence. It was powerful to share this and to share a personal testimony to a time in my life where I experienced a lot anger and it took a long time for me to fully surrender it to God and accept his love in my life again.

Wednesday we visited another prison and participated in their Mother’s day celebration! It was beautiful to see the love when the mothers and their sons were reunited and got to spend time together. We were blessed with delicious food and drink in traditional Brazilian style and laughed with the guys as we tried to bridge the language gap with broken Portuguese. In the afternoon we joined Word of Life organization and played floor hockey with some kids (age 8-14 or so). It was very fun and they were excited to play Canada vs Brazil.

Thursday we visited a women’s prison/ halfway house where girls who have been arrested wait for the judge to give them their sentence. Our team loved the opportunity to get to know some of the stories of these girls yet were heartbroken to know that at the age of 17, some of them already have two year old kids who are now being taken care of by their families. In the afternoon we helped with PePe – a program for 4-6 year olds who come from broken families. We sang some songs in Portuguese and English, taught the kids English colours and numbers (with the assistance of skittles!). After a snack we played games with the kids! It was beautiful to see how the different members on our team bring different gifts to our times of ministry. Mel and Maria are great teachers and Jo had the patience to sit with a little boy who was very shy until he was comfortable enough to play with the big group!

Friday, we participated in another Mothers day event at a new women’s prison. The girls performed songs, dances and spoke words to their mothers and we performed our DRIME and had a chance to chat with them a little bit as well as do a little dancing to the Brazilian music (Thanks Johannah for teaching us a little bit of dancing at the retreat – it definitely came in handy!) It was encouraging to see the relationships the girls have with the support workers and even though they may not see their families very often, they are being cared for and people are teaching them their school subjects even while they are in prison.

We went to a small family owned restaurant for lunch where we got to experience more authentic Brazilian food – more rice, beans, farofa, and carne! The afternoon was spent at a children’s home where kids age 0-6 are taken care of (like a big foster home). Rafael (from ProVida) shared a Bible story with the kids and then we got to play with lego, play dough and crayons with the kids! They loved it when we would pick them up and lift them into the air or sing and bounce them!

This morning we visited another male juvie prison. We got to introduce ourselves to the guys and then sang “Here I am to Worship” (followed by the Portuguese lyrics by the ProVida team). Kelly shared her testimony and ProVida shared a message. The guys were very attentive and receptive to the word. One of them gave us papers that he has had for a long time that speak of God’s goodness and faithfulness and he gave us his pen. Another one of the guys gave me a bracelet he had made. This was similar to Tuesday where almost every cell that we visited, one of the guys would give us a small gift of something they had made. It is powerful because they are so generous with the little that they have and reminded our team about how God wants us to give everything like the story in Mark 12 where the woman gave everything she had to the church.

A little more overview of general life here in Brazil:

A member of the ProVida team is with us at every ministry we visit. They are amazing men and women of God who are passionate to serve. In the prisons, they will share a brief message and pray with the guys and gals. And they have beautiful personalities that express just how much they care to the people we are serving and they build long-term relationships with people in the prisons and with the kids. We are so thankful for the long-term investment ProVida is making in these places where darkness is prevalent but they are being a light in darkness.

Our car rides back and forth to ministry (30mins-1.5 hours depending on location and traffic) involve either a lot of sleeping and napping (the heat really can zap the energy from us) or a lot of laughter and singing! Thursday night we sang for almost 2 hours straight on our drive home and could not stop laughing once we got back home. Hot sauce is a regular part of meals for some of the members of our team (I unfortunately lost a “what are the odds’ and had to eat some hot sauce covered lasagna the other night with dinner!). Breakfast is a consistent bread, eggs, ham, cheese and fresh fruit! Lunch is the big meal after which most people siesta in their hammocks! Dinner is typically coxinhas (similar to Dutch bitterbollen!) and grilled cheese sandwiches! They LOVE their sugar here in Brazil, whether it is in their coffee or drinking pop or chocolate milk or ice cream – everything seems to have a little extra sweetness here! Every day are 2 pm, there is a thunder shower and rain. It keeps everything a lush beautiful green and bananas growing in the backyard! In the evenings there are often friends and family over and there have been many an Uno game already!!

So after being here for a week we definitely have a better idea of what the next three weeks will look like. There is so much that has happened and that God has been doing, so I feel like I have barely skimmed the surface. Hopefully this gives a good window into what we have been doing. Thank you for your support through prayer. Our team really appreciates it and we have so much to be thankful for of what God is already doing!

Some specific prayer requests going forward:

• that the girls in the prison would get along and support one another
• that the boys would experience God’s healing and grace in the dark and difficult parts of their lives.
• For all the youth in the prisons to understand God’s unconditional love for them; that their lives would be changed and they would repent of their actions and seek a new life for themselves when they leave the prison.
• that they would continue to pursue their relationships with God once they leave
• That God would continue to soften hearts and change the hearts of those who are hardened towards him.
• For long-term transformation in their lives.
• For restoration and God to work in the corruption in Brazil as a whole because in general, the people are corrupt and money is not well distributed.
• The missionaries of ProVida and their families
• For continued strength and health for our team as well as unity with Christ in our serving.
• For opportunities to reconnect with the same youth that we met in this first week