juvenile detention center

by

Tragic Tales of Three Mothers

We saw Alan, 12 years, carrying a small plastic bag with a yellowish substance in it. It was something we haven’t seen for a long time. It was cobbler’s glue. The children used to sniff it a long time ago and now it is back in the streets. Someone was selling it to the children and Alan was the distributor. Most likely, he does not get paid much for his work, maybe protection and a few dollars. It was enough for Alan. He makes him feel like a tough guy and a gangster. We were wondering who was the adult behind this operation and then we saw a tall woman in her late thirties dressed very conservatively in the way that many of the traditional Pentecostal church women do here in Brazil. It made her look awkward in the midst of the children and teens. She was involved in a heated argument and a small crowd of homeless people gathered around her. The commotion did not last long and once it calmed down we noticed that this woman looked a lot like Bruno. Bruno is one of the boys we have been visiting in the Juvenile Reform Center. He has made some positive progress with us and recently he was released to his family. We tried to get in touch with him but his mother who always answered the phone said that he was at his relatives whose contact number she did not have. Right now she was in front of us in flesh and blood. His mother was the one selling the glue to the children. Our main concern was Bruno at this moment so we asked her about him. His mother recognized me from twenty years ago. She had spent all her childhood homeless in the streets. I remembered her from twenty years ago. She was nineteen then.

We found her behavior to be strange when we spoke to her about her son. She did not appear to be the least interested in her son. She appeared like a empty shell of a person. She told us that her son was with her mother but she did not know the physical address of her mother’s house. We told her that we wanted to visit her son. He asked for our help to get enrolled in an art classes. Nothing appeared to interest her. She was not rude but she just appeared empty of any human emotions. Our encounter with her helped us understand Bruno better. He always appeared subdued and quiet. This woman was his mother and she grown up in the streets. She was not a bad person. She just passed onto to him what she had received. Unfortunately she did not receive much.

On the same night, Eric, 9 years old, was playing with some of the children in the streets when his mother showed up and asked him to go home. His mother looked thin and haggard. We are not sure but we suspect that she is homeless or living as a squatter in one of the abandoned buildings. She could even be a drug addict. However, she did not want her son to be near the children that were sniffing glue and using other drugs. Unfortunately I saw Eric sniff paint thinner before his mother came. He refused to leave with her and started getting aggressive with her. The poor mother appeared helpless in trying to get her son out of the environment. All the other teens and children felt sorry for her. They tried to help the mother by trying to convince Eric to go with her. For many of them, they never had their mothers concerned for them like her. Unfortunately Eric threw himself onto the filthy floor and refused to move and his mother just sat there next to him without knowing what to do. It was quite a difficult scene to witness.

João Vitor is only 11 but he acts and talks like he is 18. He is relatively new to the streets and he got involved in the drug trafficking as soon as he arrived. Unfortunately, João Vitor is a hardened criminal even at such a young age. His mother wanted to see him and she got in touch with us. She was a single mother. She has four children and João Vitor is the youngest. Her husband died at a young age and she was married to another man who adopted the children as his own. However, the marriage did not last and now she is back on her own. She has to wake up very early in the morning to work and travel a couple of hours to work. The children are left on their own all day. The only housing she could afford to rent with her salary was in the outskirts of the city and her neighborhood is a hotspot for drug trafficking. Only her youngest chose this path and she does not know what to do with him. Her life has gone from bad to worse and João does not seem to care. We met this woman at the subway station to take her to her son. On the way she shared her burdens with us. We just listened. There was so little one could do to help this mother. When João saw her mother, he ran up to her and gave her a hug and kiss. He acted like his age. However, she was not too enthusiastic about seeing her son. She looked tired and disappointed at what her son had become.

These three mothers we have met this week. We know them superficially but enough to know that they are working with the resources that they have. João Vitor is the one who has the best mother of the three. Yet, he is the worst situation of the three boys. Reality does not come ready with the answers. There is no easy formula. None of them are hopeless cases. We don’t have the answers for these mothers and not all of them are looking for answers. We have a strong conviction that the power of the gospel can bring Light in the lives of these mothers and sons. Our conviction can only mean something when we are willing to encounter the tragic realities of these mothers and sons and still say, “Yes! The Gospel can transform these tragic realities.” This is our hope.

Share Button
by

Bruno’s Intellectual Awakening

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.-Romans 12:2

“Why is it dark on one side of the earth and light on the other?”

“Do we live inside in the earth or on the earth’s surface?”

“If we live on the surface, why don’t we fall off the face of the earth since the world is round?”

These are common questions that a child would ask a parent at a young age. They don’t ask just anyone but only people whom they trust to help them understand the world. In our case, these questions came from a fifteen year old. Normally this would be sad. We expect a fifteen year old to know these basic questions. However, for us, these questions marked a new beginning. They were questions that we answered joyfully because they were signs of a mind that is being renewed.

Bruno was born an adult. He was never given the chance to be a child. His whole family is involved in drugs. His mother is in her early thirties and she was living in the streets when we first worked here. She does know not anything else but the streets and the only way she learned to survive was through dealing drugs. Unfortunately, it was the only trade she could teach her children.

Bruno is a lanky soft-spoken fifteen year old who loves to draw and he does this very well. He has been incarcerated for the past nine months for dealing drugs. All the staff working in the center say that he is an obedient and well-behaved teenager. We visit him every other week. It takes us quite a while to get to the detention center. The center is on the other side of the city where his family lives in a nearby slum. It takes his family about five minutes to walk to the detention center but he has yet to receive a visit from his mother or any of the relatives. He told us this without any hint of disappointment or sadness. For him, it was just part of his reality.

Bruno hardly speaks whenever we visit him. He listens intently to whatever we have to say and then he prays together with us. He speaks with a low voice and sometimes it is hard to hear him. At the end of our visit, he hugs all of us. He doesn’t show much emotion but enough to let us know that he appreciates our visit. One thing Bruno has been consistent and vocal about is his decision to leave the streets. He told us that he was afraid to die and he did not want to spend his life in prison. We told him that we would walk together with him and help him figure out how to survive as well as flourish in life. We reiterate at every visit that it is going to be tough and he made his first tough decision last month.

Bruno was entitled to be released to his home if he wanted. However, he made the hard choice and decided to remain incarcerated until they found him a shelter or a halfway house. Bruno never said anything negative about his mother but he knows that change is not possible unless he is willing to leave behind his family and seek a better life. The challenge of Jesus is a reality for Bruno.

“If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”- Luke 14:26

Bruno’s family would most likely interpret his refusal to return to the family as rejection and even hatred. Bruno has made the hard choice of leaving behind his family so that he could discover Life.

All his life, Bruno was never given the chance to be intellectually curious. He never had the opportunity to ask questions about the environment around him. In fact, none of the children in the streets have demonstrated any intellectual curiosity about anything. Therefore, when Bruno asked the above-mentioned questions, it was a good sign. It was a sign that his mind is slowly changing. He is learning to allow the child that is trapped within him to come out and marvel at the world around him. He is beginning to realize that there is a world out there for him to discover and he feels secure to ask us about it.

Bruno turns fifteen on May 9th. He hopes to be in shelter or halfway house by then. It might not be a possibility. Either way, we are going to visit him and celebrate this day with him. You can join us by thanking the Creator for his life and pray that Bruno will continue to discover the beauty of this Life that God has given him daily.

Share Button
by

Cooking with Yuri

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. -Romans 8:5-6

Last Tuesday, all the men from the team went to visit a fifteen year old boy, Yuri, to teach him how to cook. You never know where this work in the streets might lead you. It led us to the kitchen in a poor neighborhood in the outskirts of São Paulo.

It was the first time I met Yuri even though I have heard about him for months. The team has known him since he was ten years old. His father abandoned the family at a young age. His mother remarried and her husband died suddenly which led to his mother having a nervous breakdown and disappeared. Almost all the kids in the Yuri’s family left for the streets except for their oldest sister, Suely. Yuri wasn’t always a pleasant boy in the streets and was deeply involved in theft and drug trafficking.  Eventually he ended up in the juvenile detention center where our team spent months visiting him. It was in the center where Yuri had the chance to seriously think about his life. He wanted to change. He himself admitted that he needed to change the way he thinks.

Yuri was released from the center about a month ago. His sister was able to receive him into her simple home which she shares with her husband. However,  he only stayed there for a week. Boredom got the best of him and he decided to visit his old friends. One thing led to another and Yuri almost got arrested. He did not succumbed to drug trafficking but he was with people who did. The police decided to let him go but it shook Yuri up. He got in touch with us and asked us to help him to change his ways. He returned to his sister’s house and we visited with him. We encouraged Yuri to learn how to be a contributing member of the household. We decided together that the best way he could help the family was to cook for his sister while she was at work.

My first impression of Yuri was that I could not imagine this sweet boy being involved in any crime. He cleaned the kitchen for us so that we would have a clean place to work. He was willing to learn even though it was a little awkward for him to be working in the kitchen. In his cultural environment, the women always did the cooking. We used our food preparation time to disciple Yuri.  We spoke about practical implications of changing one’s way of thinking. Yuri wanted to change but he just did not have any idea how change would come about. We told him that changes can be gradual or radical and in his situation, he might have to make a radical change from his past which includes leaving behind friends who can be bad influences. Yuri listened intently. He did not say anything but he listened. This is the first step.

It is also our first step moving into an area that requires much reflection and thought on our part. No matter how we look at it there can be no genuine change without repentance. We need to preach the message of repentance to Yuri. However, we need to know how to preach it in a way that he can act upon it. No room for generalities. We have to speak to his heart. For this, we need to spend more time cooking with Yuri.

 

Share Button