'My' Servant Team

Reflections by By Emily Paul, Brazil Servant Team member

The following are excerpts from Emily’s updates to her friends, family and supporters during her Servant Team in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Upon Arrival

I can hardly believe this much time has passed....this neighborhood and city that initially seemed a world away is starting to become familiar...like home.  At the same time, I have seen that there is more than one cultural barrier I face each day. One being the culture of Brasil, the other being the culture of poverty. As I am learning, the poverty that surrounds us is a culture of its own....and as much as I wish I could identify quickly, I understand that the gap is wide and each day will hopefully be another step towards connecting and building trust with those around me. I have been blessed by the Brasilian people who attend my church here....people who show me the reconciliation that is experienced through life in Christ.

As our team has begun to settle into life here, we have come across the obvious language barrier that exists. No worries...in order to combat this, we have spent several intense hours in the classroom with our dear friend and teacher, Lugimilla....who so patiently and graciously sharpens our Portuguese skills. 

Along with language learning, we have started going down to Lapa (a section of Rio) where the street children live. Most of the kids we spend time with are boys between the ages of 13-18, although there are some much younger who call the street home.  Thanks, in large part, to the strong relationships already built between these boys and the Word Made Flesh staff, they have been incredibly receptive to our presence. There are many questions I have at the end of each night, and it is impossible to make sense in my mind of why these children have had to endure what they have...against their choosing. I long for these boys to experience that innocence that they have been robbed of. But there is much I will not be able to explain about their circumstance and about a God I know for certain loves them and longs for them to call Him Father. I am excited for our time with them these next few months and the conversations and times to be had....they are a lot of fun, and when you are in their presence, it is hard not to smile.

True Hospitality

Two times each week my team and I take a bus down to Lapa (section of Rio) where the boys, girls, men and women have us to their home between the aqueducts of a busy street in Rio. There will talk, dance, play games, and draw for a few hours before going our separate ways. They make room for me to sit on their worn-in foam padding and we save a seat on our small sofa. Some nights, our time will be interrupted by police officers who search through their backpacks, throw over their mattresses, or take whatever possessions they have and throw them in the police car. Other nights we will sit undisturbed.

I sit around a small square table with a new friend I have recently met. As her elderly mother prepares a meal for us just a few feet away, she shares her story with me--a story of pain, struggle, abuse, and the redemption she has found in Christ. In her modest two-room home around the corner from shootings and drug trafficking, she tells me how faithful God is...how perfect His timing is...how she longs for the day to spend eternity with Him. I have no words to respond.

An eight-year-old boy comes over to the house after a long day on the streets.  He empties his pockets before me and counts out 3 rejas (less than $1.50) and tells me it is for food for his mother and five siblings; I spent twice that on my lunch today. He is frail, and I know very hungry. But he lays on my lap, running his hands through my hair, laughing and playing like any other eight-year-old I know. He is most likely a short time away from being on the streets like the other children I have met.

These are stories of a few individuals who have changed me while I was not even paying attention. They are people who have shown me true hospitality in a way that I can only hope to extend in my home someday.  Not only have they invited me into their homes, whether that be the streets of Rio or a small apartment, they have invited me into their lives--lives which courageously display the pain, suffering, and brokenness they have experienced. They have given new meaning to Jesus' words:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Blessed are they, I am beginning to understand, who cannot cover up their brokenness.  Blessed are they who vulnerably share their lives with others. Blessed are they who are in a posture ready to receive the love, healing, and grace of God...who know they cannot fight this battle alone.

Band Aids

Sometimes (actually most of the time) I want to be a problem-solver. It’s the social worker in me I think. J Two months have passed, though, and I’m learning through relationships and experiences that our ministry here is usually not one of problem- solving. If anything, it seems more like a band-aid at times, providing sporadic care, attention, and love to a child’s life…whether that be cleaning an infected wound, preparing sandwiches and milk, providing a shower, playing a game of cards, or letting them spend the night when the streets are unsafe. I wish that our time spent with these young men and women were an answer to their problems. I wish that our love removed them from life on the streets and made their pain disappear in an instant. Yet for most of them, they will still be on the streets when all is said and done.

So what then, I have wrestled with, is the purpose behind it all? What is the point of placing a band-aid on when it will only be torn off or fall away with time? What is the significance of caring for R’s bloody wounds only to have him return the next day in the same condition? Why give C a sweatshirt when it will probably be stolen before the week is over? Why try to feed a dozen children when their hunger will return the next morning?

When Jesus said provide a cup of water, feed the hungry, welcome strangers, clothe the naked, and look after the sick, He made no mention of fixing a person. He simply tells us that when we pour a glass of milk and provide a sandwich, when we give M a pillow to lay his head or S a pair of sandals, when we attend to the cut on R’s leg -- to do it all in His name. Band-aids don’t fix, but band-aids symbolize care, attention and love.  Band-aids show a person they are not beyond repair--that their problem, however big or small, did not go unnoticed. Band-aids may not always heal, but they validate the wound.

I pray that as our team gently applies bandages, whether that be once or a dozen times, the transforming love of Christ will be revealed a bit more each time. Until eventually they come face to face with a God who heals even the deepest scars.

Perhaps I won’t have the privilege to witness this complete transformation during my four months in Brazil. But I will take heart knowing that with every band-aid, every sandwich, every shower or good nights sleep, the presence of Christ becomes increasingly real until one day, they too, will reflect His glory.

If you feel burdened, pray for those I have mentioned in this letter. Pray that they be transformed by God’s love. Pray for our team...that on days when it seems hopeless and out-of-reach, that we will know not one of these kids is beyond healing. Not one of them goes unnoticed by God.

Divine Distractions

The sun is setting on the streets of Lapa and just as we are getting ready to head home, M says he wants to color one last picture. All I can think about is how tired I am, what a long day it has been, and how crowded the bus will be. Yet he colors carefully, making sure each stroke of the crayon is perfect. Why, I wonder, can’t he finish this another day? Or at the least, why can’t he color a bit faster? My impatience builds with each passing minute.

We walk in the door late Friday night eager to eat dinner. It has been a memorable day with some of our Brazilian friends, yet now I am ready to retreat to my English-speaking surroundings. We enter to find R, D, and R sitting on the floor making bracelets. Our warm dinner quickly cools on the table as their tiny hands delicately string beads. It is getting later and the rain is beginning to pour down. In order to hurry things along, I offer my umbrella to the kids so they can return home. They finally leave and at last, we eat.

I realize later that M, R, D, and R did not want to color pictures and make bracelets as much as they wanted to sit in the presence of Christ. And as I read about Jesus’ encounters with people in Scripture, it seems they almost always take place during unplanned, unexpected times. Yet Jesus used those less-than-convenient instances in order that others could experience God’s love. The Gospels tell of a God who would not check his watch as M colored or loan R an umbrella so He could eat dinner. Rather, Matthew 20 tells of a God who stops, calls out to His children, and has compassion on them. And Mark 10 talks about a Father who, when brought several children, blesses each of them, despite His disciples rebuking Him in the background.

I am sad to confess that many times I act as one of the disciples, trying to hurry Jesus along, instead of taking each child, one by one, and blessing them as Jesus would have.  What appears as a distraction is oftentimes God’s perfect way of placing somebody in our path. I hope the next time my schedule goes off-course; the next time a “distraction” gets in the way—that I will welcome it as an opportunity for somebody to come face-to-face with a living God. I pray that those divine distractions will find each of you this week.

Learning by His grace,

Emily

A Final Letter

Friends and family,

This will be my final letter before flying out on Thursday. I have many thoughts and emotions as I say my good-byes this week. This city will always remain a large part of my heart. I fear that the longer I am away, the harder it will be to remember this place.  Yet as I walk down the streets of Jacarezinho, the favela in which I live, I am flooded with dozens of smells and sounds that will forever connect me to this time. These smells and sounds will hopefully trigger a prayer or memory each time they cross my senses -- garlic cooking for the afternoon meal, shouting of praises from the church across the street, fireworks signaling the entrance of police, laundry hanging from the clotheslines, fish being sold in the market....and countless more.

It is strange to think that in less than one week, I won’t turn the corner to find older men dancing the Samba; I wont wake up to delivery trucks unloading fruits and vegetables; I won’t fall asleep to the loud music that fills the streets. Next Tuesday, I won’t walk up the stairs at Missionaries of Charity to find my friend, E, waiting for me. And Thursday night, I won’t be sharing sandwiches and milk with the kids in Lapa. In less than one week, life will be very different for me...but very much the same for the people I now call my friends.

Pray for these friends. Pray for M as God continually stirs his heart; pray for E as he struggles to know his purpose and value...as he fails to believe he is loved; pray for C, our dear friend from the streets who is now at home with his mom...that God would continually make a way for him to stay there. Pray for Ericha, our friend who is a new sister in Christ. And pray for the many others, that they would experience the presence of Christ, that His aroma would linger on the streets after we leave.

Thank you for your loving support, prayers, and encouragement these past four months.  Thank for you letting me share in life with you. I look forward to sharing stories face to face when I return home next week.

Love,

Emily