This week was spent in Sao Paulo and started off interesting...I felt like junk...I didn't have a sore throat, fever, runny nose, or any of that, it's like I just had the aches and pains of the flu with nothing else going on. It's not too much fun.
While in Sao Paulo we worked with Ministerio Restauracao (Restoration Ministry). This is a ministry that goes into favelas (slums) and runs some ministry programs. They have what they call a day center in each favela. Pause, I should define this term for you so you have a slight idea of what I'm talking about...
Favela- A slum in which poor(er) people congregate and build houses from anything between cardboard and concrete. They rip power and water off from the city so that they don't pay for it. Favelas are run by the drug lords and there is no chance of success in life without working for them. Most people in Brazil don't go into the favelas because "it's too dangerous." Those that live in favelas don't even count as citizens of the city, they are nothing...nobody...nobody cares about them, nobody loves them, nobody wants to be them...nobody even thinks about them. Can you gather why Ministerio Restauracao is so important?
In each day center kids gather to eat breakfast or lunch, sing songs, learn Bible stories, and participate in other activities that involve anything but drugs and illegal activities. Their goal is to get kids hooked on God before they are hooked on drug dealing...sound like a fun job to anybody? It's not at all fun sounding to me if I'm being honest. I was exhausted every day at 5 when we were done. Each morning we woke up I had to peel myself out of bed and search for a little energy before charging into the day for more skits, songs, crafts, and soccer.
I just want to highlight two things about this week, Fifi and the favelas. First off, these favelas. Anybody seen City of God? It's super depressing and sad, don't watch it without expecting lots of violence and lots of violence coming from kids and directed at kids in the favela. I saw this before I left and thought, surely this is a little blown out of proportion. No...I promise you this is not. I know that short terms like this don't get the full picture, and I don't pretend to know it all, but I believe this movie is an excellent portrayal of life in the favelas. The people at Ministerio Restauracao helped us gather the true feeling of the favelas. By this point in the trip I could manage basic conversation with the kids. These convos solidified to me that the Ministry was not just exagerating.
Kids in these favelas are not hopeless despite the situation. They are only poor because we call them that, they are hopeless because that's how we would feel in that situation. These kids don't know the extremes that we do, they only know their life. These kids were filled with love for God, with a hope for tomorrow no different than us, and with a joy that is undescribable. That's what I want to highlight about the favelas, the joy and contentment of these families in spite of their situation. It's amazing...and humbling.
This brings me to highlight number two of the week...Fifi. What's Fifi? No, who is Fifi? He's a 17 year old guy that lives in the slums. It's his nickname, kinda funny to me, how is that a cool nickname? Kinda sounds girly to my American ears. Let's face it though, he's got a cool nickname!:) He lives in a favela near the main center for the Ministry and has been attending there since he was 7. Now he helps out a couple hours per week and he tagged along with out group one day to help with the kids. Mostly he played soccer and smoked us up beyond all belief with his friend Rafael.:) He has gotten the chance to attend school and is trying to get into a university for next year (school starts in February or so and runs til November or so). He used to have 9 brothers and sisters, only 6 are still alive. The others fell victim to the drug trade in the favela. His dream is to play professional soccer one day in Brazil, he's had several try-outs for teams but never made it. If this doesn't work out, he wants to work with computer web programing some day. He's a talented, gifted, loving, and amazing individual.
I never felt more connected to anybody this whole trip than I did with Fifi from my limited interactions with him. He showed me why I am down here, for encouraging and loving people. I am in Brazil for the people. I am a relational person and I come alive when I meet people like Fifi. I thought I should share this story with you.:)
Monday, May 28, 2007
Brazil (Week 1)
So how was it? That's the question that everybody wants to ask. Some do, and you get a response such as fine, good, great, mixed, interesting, etc. Just depends on what one-word answer comes to mind first. Others are a little more timid and aren't sure if it's ok to ask. It's ok, I'm like the latter of those two people. I want to know, but I don't want to ask. I think that by asking, if we are truly interested, we give that person complete reign of saying it was great or it was crappy. It's kind of intimidating really, this person could unload on us...by reading this I feel that you give me complete reign...=)
I more or less filled you guys in on the week here with a brief e-mail, so I will break it down in the following favorites:
Cultural experience:
We went to a pizzeria one night and it was amazing. I can't describe the pizza well, but it's just crust with toppings. No sauce, and these aren't the typical toppings. There are regular dinner pizzas such as sweet corn, beef stroganoff, etc. The best part though are the sweet pizzas for dessert! There's grape ice-cream, chocolate (regular and white), chocolate with strawberries, bananas with cinnamon. It's amazing! The waiters continually come around asking if you want a piece of whichever pizza they are holding. Wow...it was pretty freaking sweet! We got a chance to go later in Sao Paulo also, but by then most of the group was sick and our intake was down significantly...
Language to speak while in Londrina:
Well, there's the Irish missionary, he's pretty great. His names Nigel and we get to learn phrases such as "give it a wallie!" Which he says when he's trying to say, "put your back into it." He also asks you questions like "how's she cuttin'?" Apparently the correct answer, if all is going well, is "full of the blade." Oh Nigel, he's great, I love him. Then there's British Dan...he's a 20 year old guy down there for 6 months to help around the camp. He mainly gives us the joy of talking in an American accent while we talk in British ones. He's better at it than we are, (both American and British accents). I'm not sure why that is. His humor took a while to catch on because as he put it, "a lot of times I could tell a joke and none of you will even notice." Then there's the Portuguese, oh yes, the Portuguese...we'll cover that later.
Service project/job:
We sort of partnered up with Webb Idiomas (an English school) for an all day camp on Saturday and a week-night class on Wednesday. I thought it was going to be one of the most boring and least eventful weeks for this reason, but I love the English classes! This is a good thing since I'm teaching them next year.:) We got to meet all sorts of people from all over Londrina who ranged from broken English to near fluency. It was great to meet all of these people who were so interested in getting to know us because we spoke English. They could practice with a native! After all these years of studying Spanish, is this what all you native speakers have felt like around me?=)
Lesson/challenge/random:
We seemed to be sitting around a whole lot and the group was doing a lot of bonding. I can't put my finger on it, but I was not feeling so into the bonding this first week. I was a little sick perhaps, a little adjusting to the new culture, a little bitter finding out that Portuguese actually does sound more romantic than Spanish, I don't know what exactly it was.:) However, that's how I felt. Towards the end of the week Nigel asked me as I was working by myself on painting a window...he said, "Zach, I noticed that you tend to be working a lot by yourself. All of the group is working together, but whenever I see you you're by yourself a lot. So I'm curious, why did you come here?" Wow...I thought...I'm about to get grilled and embarrassed by the Irishman...However, we had a great little convo about it. I told him that basically I am here for the Brazilians, I'm not here for my team. My team is great, and I love all of them, but ultimately what I came to do was make an impact on the lives of the Brazilians and encourage the missionaries down there. I didn't go to Brazil to get close with Americans, I believe that's a by-product of the task at hand and will come along later. He asked if I was interested in missions and I told him not really...I think that we both have a similar view about missionaries who serve no purpose, which in our opinion a lot don't serve one other than God. Now, I realize I may have just stuck my foot in my mouth, so let me explain this in the next paragraph. (you can skip it if you don't want to hear it)
A lot of missionaries seem to go to Londrina, Brazil or Madrid, Spain or wherever else in the world to preach the name of God. I have a news flash, God is already in all those places and chances are most people have even heard about him. We are living in the information era where kids in Favelas have MSN messenger! Trust me, these kids and these people have heard the message, but few have experienced it. We are called to show Christ's love, not just preach it. It's great to be a missionary and I value each one of them. How awesome would it be though to one day not need international missionaries? What if we woke up tomorrow and other nations had enough of their own leaders trained in the church that instead of us sending missionaries to lead them we sent missionaries to learn with them and serve them. I highly value the missionary who is a dentist, nurse, engineer, teacher, etc. who simply serves the people to show them God's love. Does that make a little more sense now? I hope so.
Alright, back to the Londrina week, this is about all I have to say about it for now. If you have questions about those things fire away. I believe that I am slowly learning the value of God's church, not the human church which has drawn boundaries and lines we resist crossing. We are all one body and one people, one church called to love and serve...what a privelage.:)
I more or less filled you guys in on the week here with a brief e-mail, so I will break it down in the following favorites:
Cultural experience:
We went to a pizzeria one night and it was amazing. I can't describe the pizza well, but it's just crust with toppings. No sauce, and these aren't the typical toppings. There are regular dinner pizzas such as sweet corn, beef stroganoff, etc. The best part though are the sweet pizzas for dessert! There's grape ice-cream, chocolate (regular and white), chocolate with strawberries, bananas with cinnamon. It's amazing! The waiters continually come around asking if you want a piece of whichever pizza they are holding. Wow...it was pretty freaking sweet! We got a chance to go later in Sao Paulo also, but by then most of the group was sick and our intake was down significantly...
Language to speak while in Londrina:
Well, there's the Irish missionary, he's pretty great. His names Nigel and we get to learn phrases such as "give it a wallie!" Which he says when he's trying to say, "put your back into it." He also asks you questions like "how's she cuttin'?" Apparently the correct answer, if all is going well, is "full of the blade." Oh Nigel, he's great, I love him. Then there's British Dan...he's a 20 year old guy down there for 6 months to help around the camp. He mainly gives us the joy of talking in an American accent while we talk in British ones. He's better at it than we are, (both American and British accents). I'm not sure why that is. His humor took a while to catch on because as he put it, "a lot of times I could tell a joke and none of you will even notice." Then there's the Portuguese, oh yes, the Portuguese...we'll cover that later.
Service project/job:
We sort of partnered up with Webb Idiomas (an English school) for an all day camp on Saturday and a week-night class on Wednesday. I thought it was going to be one of the most boring and least eventful weeks for this reason, but I love the English classes! This is a good thing since I'm teaching them next year.:) We got to meet all sorts of people from all over Londrina who ranged from broken English to near fluency. It was great to meet all of these people who were so interested in getting to know us because we spoke English. They could practice with a native! After all these years of studying Spanish, is this what all you native speakers have felt like around me?=)
Lesson/challenge/random:
We seemed to be sitting around a whole lot and the group was doing a lot of bonding. I can't put my finger on it, but I was not feeling so into the bonding this first week. I was a little sick perhaps, a little adjusting to the new culture, a little bitter finding out that Portuguese actually does sound more romantic than Spanish, I don't know what exactly it was.:) However, that's how I felt. Towards the end of the week Nigel asked me as I was working by myself on painting a window...he said, "Zach, I noticed that you tend to be working a lot by yourself. All of the group is working together, but whenever I see you you're by yourself a lot. So I'm curious, why did you come here?" Wow...I thought...I'm about to get grilled and embarrassed by the Irishman...However, we had a great little convo about it. I told him that basically I am here for the Brazilians, I'm not here for my team. My team is great, and I love all of them, but ultimately what I came to do was make an impact on the lives of the Brazilians and encourage the missionaries down there. I didn't go to Brazil to get close with Americans, I believe that's a by-product of the task at hand and will come along later. He asked if I was interested in missions and I told him not really...I think that we both have a similar view about missionaries who serve no purpose, which in our opinion a lot don't serve one other than God. Now, I realize I may have just stuck my foot in my mouth, so let me explain this in the next paragraph. (you can skip it if you don't want to hear it)
A lot of missionaries seem to go to Londrina, Brazil or Madrid, Spain or wherever else in the world to preach the name of God. I have a news flash, God is already in all those places and chances are most people have even heard about him. We are living in the information era where kids in Favelas have MSN messenger! Trust me, these kids and these people have heard the message, but few have experienced it. We are called to show Christ's love, not just preach it. It's great to be a missionary and I value each one of them. How awesome would it be though to one day not need international missionaries? What if we woke up tomorrow and other nations had enough of their own leaders trained in the church that instead of us sending missionaries to lead them we sent missionaries to learn with them and serve them. I highly value the missionary who is a dentist, nurse, engineer, teacher, etc. who simply serves the people to show them God's love. Does that make a little more sense now? I hope so.
Alright, back to the Londrina week, this is about all I have to say about it for now. If you have questions about those things fire away. I believe that I am slowly learning the value of God's church, not the human church which has drawn boundaries and lines we resist crossing. We are all one body and one people, one church called to love and serve...what a privelage.:)
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