The recent couple weeks have begun to shed light on what need we can attempt to meet as a family. We have been here in Corumba about 5 months now. We have gotten established, a decent home, some ministry relationships, a church family, a few friends and some things we like to do. There is still a lot of adjustment to do, living in such a remote location but we are getting there. The biggest struggle you can pray for is sickness. We all go through rough patches, seemingly lots of them.
I (Ben) had started to build a bit of relationship with Juninho who I mentioned last time. I have built some relationship with TT, Melissa is friends with his girlfriend Kaela, we have asked for prayer for their baby Joao (John). We have good relationship with Yara, Kaelas younger sister. We also have a varying number of neighborhood kids over most Saturdays for a game and bible study.
At the same time we have also been building relationship with people in the church, PIB (First Baptist). I have been able to go fishing a few times with a couple of the guys. I have coffee once a week with the pastor. We are building a friendship with a couple that doesn’t live too far from us. I am also teaching a youth class for Sunday school. We are continuing to try and aid them with their commitment to Porto Esperanca. We had a great time with a pizza night and then a good Friday fish feast at our house.
The reality is we exist in two worlds. One that is middle class and much like the world we come from. The other is a mess. Good Friday was an all out fish feast with our church, Easter was hot dogs and trying to teach neighbor hood kids to listen to a message.
Last week TT who is crippled and I had talked to a bit about doing some woodworking training with got into some trouble. He in an effort to feed his family of 6 began helping capture exotic animals for export (more illegal then killing people here do to the tourism industry and Brazil’s desire to look good internationally). He is now in prison trying to get a lawyer, facing about 14 years in jail. His girlfriend Kaela sits in their little house with no power and little food. With their baby, two little boys 2 and 3 years old and another daughter of Kaela’s. We are making effort to help but know we can’t solve their problems. The idea is to disciple her and him if he gets out to help themselves.
Also it seemed Juninho might have been getting involved. Now him and his family seem to have disappeared. Melissa has seen the little girls around but we aren’t sure where the mom or Juninho have went.
All this though has led to Kaela being more open with us, also to her visiting the house a bit more. The problem is she needs to learn to solve her own problems. She hints for us to pay her power but the bill in her name has been shut off long ago, it is now split with several houses in her moms name and the bill is over 400 reais. Her desire was for us to give the neighbor 50 reais to run a wire from their house. In the end the brutal reality is she isn’t going to die without power, the kids aren’t in danger, it is just boring. We loaned her a little flashlight but when the batteries died she asked for more. I understand she doesn’t have money but we have to be careful not to have her dependency on a boyfriend twice her age switch to dependency on us.
This situation along with Juninho and others has highlighted the need I talked about in the last blog. Discipleship, vocational training a helping hand that isn’t a hand out but a long term solution. I haven’t been able to quit thinking maybe if I had something in place to offer work to TT or Kaela they would have made a different choice.
Frankly it may be too late for Kaela. It doesn’t mean we wont keep trying but it means we are fighting against a lifetime of bad decision making. Over time and through friendship we will see some change, hopefully see her grow into a relationship with Christ, I believe we will. It is more than enough to change her eternal destiny.
What about her sister Yara though? Can we offer a bit more for here. She has recently stayed the night here, then asked if she could live with us. She told us she would like to be a Veterinarian. She wants to move to Sao Paulo and study. She wants more for her life then a shack and a string of boyfriends leading to kids and dead dreams before she is 20.
Last week we began to talk seriously about how best to help people move from one world to the other. We began talking about forming an ONG, non-profit, that would concentrate on education, training and discipleship. We are moving forward, we believe this will be the best way we can be a bridge between two communities, between two worlds and between churches and the hurting communities they often minister in. We do evangelism/outreach with 10-15 kids. One or two of them are showing potential. We know of many churches or people with similar outreaches. The idea is to have a non-profit that is doing vocational training, selling product, providing emergency assistance, bible classes, educational assistance to those 1 or 2 kids or youth.
For those youth who are changing, growing and show desire to break free we would hope to provide no interest voluntary payback loans for college, to start businesses, get documents whatever. Doing this in a way that encourages them not only to change but help change their own neighborhood, go back and help others. This would be an opportunity for churches to connect youth like Yara who want to change and grow with resources. Also for people in the churches who are professionals to offer help to others.
We are not sure exactly what all this will look like but it is a continuation in the development of what we were doing in Foz, what we are trying to do here and where we dream of going. We are working on the paper work with our friend Buster, communicating with our church here in order to have the hope of Brazilians taking this on one day and to build a resource list of who and what is already in place to help people.
We need to get the mission statement down, paper work filed with a name and logo, thinking of Ponte (bridge). We need to get a location that allows us personally to cast a bigger net with outreach but also a location to begin to build and restore furniture and other things. We are working on these things. We hope to have the foundation in place when we visit the states this summer and to come back ready to work hard at developing this further. It is exciting and we really feel like we are on the right track. I am sure it will mold and change more as we go but hopefully this gives you some idea of the need and how we can be a bridge seeing kids discipled in Christ and in life.
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