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Speaking from Her Experience

And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him.-Mark 12:17

I have posted about Janaina several times in this blog. However, for the sake of those who are not acquainted with her yet, I will give a brief introduction. Janaina is 30 now and we have known her since she was about eleven years old. The girl we knew then was a tough teenager who had grown accustomed to the homeless lifestyle. Even at a young tender age, she had made up her mind that it was her destiny to be a homeless person. She would not entertain any conversation in regards to leaving the streets. At the same time, she was always open to us. She always talked with us and did not hesitate to show that she liked us. She was orphaned when she was about six or seven and had spent her early years in a state orphanage. State orphanages are known for being overcrowded and understaffed. Consequently, she and her brothers did not last long there and they eventually ran away and ended up in the streets. It didn’t take for the siblings to go their separate ways. Janaina once again ended up being alone and abandoned. Fortunately, the other homeless children welcomed her into their fold and over the years they became the closest thing to a family she ever had. Understandably, she did not want to leave behind this newfound family when we first met her. Now, Janaina is married and mother of a one year old baby, Mariana. She has been successfully off the streets for almost ten years. This wasn’t easy for her. She still keeps in touch with her street family who have all grown up as well. For Janaina, relationships are really important and they determine the kind of lifestyle she wants to lead. Her relationship with the missionaries helped her think about a better future. When she met her husband, she was able to make the bold step of leaving the life she had grown accustomed to all these years. Today, she makes decisions based what is best for her daughter. She wants to give her best in a newly discovered role as a mother.

Janaina found us first literally. We were working in the streets when we heard someone calling out our names. We turned around and saw her bright smiling face. It has been almost two years since this reunion. We are amazed how God brought this young woman back into our lives after all these years. She was once closed to our opinions and help and now she seeks them out on her own accord. It took us all these years to come to this stage in our relationship and it was worth it. We pray that there will be many more like her in the future. We are discovering that the key in any missionary work is patience. It is a virtue that requires us to trust and wait for God’s timing. It also reminds us that we are not in-charge and God does not need to work according to our timetable. As we get older, the thought of waiting for our children and teens to open up to us in ten or fifteen years does not sound too bad. Time flies by quickly when you are older.

Janaina and her husband attend a Pentecostal church that is adherent of the so-called prosperity gospel. This has been a struggle for them as the church equates spiritual blessing with material wealth. They wondered why they were struggling so much financially even though they have a strong and lively faith in God. Janaina does not necessarily want to be rich. However, these churches preach that poverty is a curse and she wanted to know if she was in some way hindering God’s blessing in her life. She told us that one day as she was thinking deeply about this matter, she read the part of the gospel where Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” At this moment her eyes opened to see a deeper meaning behind this verse. Before she shared what she understood from this experience, she made sure to let us know that she wasn’t using any drugs or hallucinogenic substances at this time. She wanted us to know that she had a clear mind when she heard a still voice speaking in her heart that the blessings of God are not to be accounted for according to Caesar’s standard. It was at this moment she realized that she had gathered much spiritual wealth over the years. For her, the most valuable things in her life are her relationships. Even from back then when she was in the streets, all her relationships had made her hard life joyful. There was never a moment she was away from God’s blessing. His grace was with her even when she did not acknowledge his presence. It was her epiphanic moment. For us, it was one of the most gratifying things we heard from someone who used to live in the streets.

Just as footnote, I am sure some people are wondering why don’t they find another church that is not steeped in prosperity gospel. The situation is quite complex. The members of these churches tend to be from the lower classes and these churches are usually in poorer neighborhoods. People go to these churches for the familiarity and geographic convenience. Besides this, it is the hope of the very poor to have a better financial circumstance and the doctrine of these churches perhaps gives hope for a better material life.

Janaina is presently unemployed. Her husband works as a contract painter. His job is unstable and the pay fluctuates drastically. We asked her what kind of work she would like do. The only response she could give us was that she wanted to be with people. She needs the human contact to be motivated. We told her about a hairdresser school that provides scholarships for low-income families. We visited the school once and the director of the program said that the bulk of training was based on building relationships with the clients and the care and maintenance of the hair is secondary focus of the school. This school is a project that helps underprivileged families. It has acquired such a fame since it started that people from all walks of life want to get trained there. Consequently, there is a long waiting list for students. Janaina’s face lit up when we mentioned this but nothing was said at that moment. A week later she called and asked about the school and we offered to go there with her. Janaina was excited about the possibility at the same time she was trying to figure how to pay for the school. When we got there, the receptionist recognized us from our previous visit and immediately asked if Janaina wanted to apply for the full scholarship. We were surprised that they made this offer to us. We accepted the offer and Janaina will begin her training in a week’s time.

We heard about this school through a friend who is a hairstylist in one of the top salons in the country. The director of this project is his friend and colleague. Janaina got into this school for free because of her friendship with us. We are just amazed how God uses relationships to provide the needs in our lives.

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English Lessons with Igor

I must admit that sometimes my posts seem to be a little erratic. I share about our interactions with some particular child or teenager and then the following weeks there is hardly any news about them.

I do not mean to be erratic. However, this is the nature of the work. Some days we have meaningful interactions with a particular child and then he or she just disappears, not literally of course. The center covers a wide geographic area. The children and teens do not usually stay at one place. They do sleep at the same place every night but they like to wander during the day. The young ones think that life is an adventure. They go from place to place seeking food and frequently causing some mischief along the way; nothing really sinister. They just want to see how much they can get away with in the streets. The older teens don’t like to be in open spaces during the day. They are susceptible to police’s scrutiny. They feel safer if they move around to avoid any suspicion. We have to wander around as well in order to find them and when we do, they are usually high from sniffing paint thinner or another form of drugs. We have to wait for the right moment to speak with them. Usually we get this chance perhaps with at least one child or teen almost everyday but not always with the same child or teen. This is why there is not always a follow-up story in my posts. However, this time I am going to do something different. Something new is happening. We are excited but at the same time we are cautious. We don’t want our excitement to rush things or create unrealistic expectations. We are excited about a young man named Igor. I want to share his story but it is impossible to do so in one post. It is a story of a relationship that has been slowly developing over the past year. It is not just Igor’s story but it is also our story.

I mentioned Igor before. Actually I have mentioned several Igors. It was a popular name in São Paulo twenty years ago. Consequently, there are several different Igors about the same age in the streets. This particular one came to the streets when he was 8 years old. It was the tragic death of his mother that drove to the streets. She was killed over a trivial argument and the life of her son was changed forever. Igor’s father had died in prison a few years before and he was all alone in this world. His aunt took him in out of obligation and Igor sensed this strongly. As an eight year old child, he made a decision which no child of this age should ever make in an ideal world. However, he did not live in an ideal world and he ended up in the streets. Crime and drugs are part of the street life so is incarceration and Igor experienced all of these. By the time he was eighteen, he had been incarcerated fifteen times. He told us that he never cared for anything or anybody. He would leave the detention center and go back to the streets to rob. He did not believe that life had anything to offer him. Then he fell in love with another homeless teen, Ana Paula. She is four years older than him with a similar background. The two orphans found solace in each other. It did not take long before Ana Paula was pregnant and Igor was incarcerated for the last time as a minor during her pregnancy. Igor told us that it was the first time he seriously thought about changing his life. This time when he left the detention center, he was determined not to return.

When we first met Igor, we did not know much about him. Only thing we knew was that he was interested in languages. He had memorized some French phrases just from hearing some Africans speaking to each other. He told us that he always wanted to speak in English and French. We asked him if he was interested in learning English. He said that he was willing to learn anything if he was given the chance. This was the beginning of a series of English lessons with Igor.

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Death and a Conversation about the Resurrection and Life

Sadly, another young girl died in the streets this week. Her name is Raianne. She was nineteen. This is the third person to die in this streets this year. Mary and I never met this young girl but the team had been ministering to her since she was a young child. On Sunday, she and another girl had a fight over a trivial incident. One girl pushed the another in anger and Raianne fell and hit her head on a rock. We know the girl who was involved as well which makes it even more tragic. Raianne left behind two young toddlers.

Needless to say when we met the children in the streets they were upset and pensive. Whenever something like this happens, the question about their own mortality becomes alive. Raianne had survived many dangerous situations in the streets but it only took a misplaced rock to end her life.

Nobody wanted to talk when we arrived, but they did not ignore us as well. It seemed like they wanted us to be there but they did not know what to say to us. We stayed and waited. Then Eduardo, one of the older teens, opened up. He asked us what happens to our soul when we die. He wanted to know whether we lose our identity or does it remain intact. This started a long and serious conversation about God, life, and the resurrection. Our conversation lasted for almost an hour and it was truly a conversation and not an one-sided lecture. Personally, we were amazed at the profundity of the questions Eduardo asked.

One of the things he wanted to know was whether our memories remain with us for eternity. He especially wanted to know that if we would remember negative events and continue to bear grudges against the people that hurt us for eternity. His concern about this made sense. Eduardo’s life has not been easy. He has been in the streets since he was a young child and it was unfair circumstances that brought him here. He wants to shake all the negatives memories of his life and live a new life. He doesn’t want to continue a life of crime, but he is big and intimidating looking young man who is 19 years old. Not many people want to give someone like him a chance. He does not rob but we suspect that he deals in drugs. However, despite his tough exterior, there is a tenderness in this young man. He wanted to know if, in the afterlife, he would be free from all the baggage of this difficult life.

Speaking about the afterlife is not easy. No one can speak authoritatively about this subject. We told him that we can only speculate but we can know something about Resurrection because there is One person who resurrected from the dead. The Resurrection helped us to address the question about memory. The Resurrected Body of Jesus bore the marks of the hatred and anger, but its resurrected state changed the affects of its scars. We told him that the act of Resurrection is truly a divine act and it can only be understood by faith. Jesus believed that He was to be resurrected by God and this influenced the way He lived his life in the body. He did not succumb to hatred and anger even though he was assailed by these. Instead He chose to find His strength in the Love of God. This Love transformed the scars of hatred into symbols of victory. However, only through faith we can understand the meaning of this.

We told Eduardo that whatever he does in this life with his body will bear the mark for eternity like in the Resurrected Body of Jesus. He can decide in this life what he wants to be remembered for eternity. His past memories do not have to determine everything he becomes now. God is able to take what we have and transform it into a miracle.

Eduardo asked us how our bodies would restored if they suffer decomposition. We told him honestly that no one knows how this is going to work but it is not impossible to imagine God using these materials to create something new and wonderful. This, of course, served as a wonderful analogy of the bad childhood and rejection that Eduardo had and how God is able and willing to use all these materials to create something great. We told Eduardo that the Bible has examples of people whose histories were radically transformed; people who suffered great injustice like Joseph. God used the rejection and injustice and made it into something wonderful. Even St. Paul who persecuted Christians and the Resurrected Christ changed his history forever.

There were several moments of our conversation which moved Eduardo to tears. Perhaps in a strange way, Raianne’s death opened the door for us to speak about Life to Eduardo. I believe that something happened this day. We changed the nature of our relationship with these young people. They know now that we are willing to converse with them on serious and complex questions about Life without pretending to know all the answers. We don’t need to know all the answers and we don’t want to give easy answers. We can only share with them what we have and we have Hope in the Living Christ that transforms our lives in the here and now.

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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.

 

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