Dear friends,
“Hi Auntie…” with a deep frown she took me in, “I hope
you’ve done this before?” Without waiting for an answer though, she stretched
her leg on the bench at the busstop, and pointing at the dirty plastic bag around
her foot and up to her knee, she said in a high trembling voice, “but I’ll remove
the bandages myself, okay?
Josie,
on the run from the police
Johan had met her during his daily run. She caught his
attention, a teenager obviously living on the streets, with a huge infected
wound below her knee and walking with crutches. He stopped to chat with her.
She said her name was Josie and explained she had broken her leg at various
points when hit by a bus two months previous. After eight weeks in the hospital
she had finally run away out of fear that the police would pick her up for some
crimes committed on the streets months before. So here she was on the streets
again…
Gathering
courage…
Armed with a first aid kit full of bandages and antiseptic
fluids, I went with Johan to check it out and see how I could help her. Johan
had promised Josie he would get me as I am a registered nurse. She was waiting
for us at the same spot where he had left her. She made it quite clear that she
wouldn’t go back to a hospital, afraid as she was of the police. She had tried
to go to a medical post, but because it was a national holiday, all medical
posts were closed.
Carefully we helped her untie the plastic bag around the
bandages.
“I put those around it because of all the flies”, she
explained.
Under the plastic, her whole leg was covered with
greenish bandages, deeply stuck to the horrendous wound. I swallowed hard, took
a deep breath and gathered my courage. If this wasn’t taken care of properly,
she could lose that leg.
Carefully I poured sterile fluid on the bandages as Josie
herself pulled to loosen them. Soon her brow was covered with big beads of
perspiration. Luckily I had brought disposable gloves, plenty of fluids,
medical sprays and bandages.
“Oh, thank you, uncle and auntie,” she finally sighed.
She happily looked at us and then at the clean white bandages around her wound.
12
years old and totally stoned
Josie and her brother both live on the streets and were
already known by the Rescue House team. But she was not yet ready to give up on
her life in the streets. “Tomorrow I will go to the medical post,” she assured
us. A street boy, totally stoned and who appeared to be no older than 12 years
old had come slowly up to us, and putting his arm around Josie’s shoulder,
asked her with a slurring voice if she already had a boyfriend. She pushed him away aggressively, shouting:
“Stop it Alex, you’re much too young.” He looked at her confusedly, as if not
really understanding, and then dejectedly shuffled away.
Gone
The next day we went to pay her a visit on the street
where she used to hang out. We found her quickly, and with a beautiful and
happy smile, she assured us that she was much better. But by the next day, she
had disappeared. The Rescue House team finally informed us that she was now
living with one of her boyfriends in a slum.
Street
kids
There are a lot less children on the streets now than
15-20 years ago. But still they have not totally disappeared. Every now and
then, the police round them up and put them in juvenile detention centers, in
order to clean up the city for a big event. So on occasions, it looks as if
there are no street children anymore, but the team from the Rescue House is still
very busy reaching out to them. Please pray for kids like Josie and Alex and
for the Rescue House team.
“Highway
to Hell”
Girls like Josie often get boyfriends who abuse them. We
hear all the time about the sexual abuse these girls suffer and how they become
victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation. One of the areas that we are very concerned
about is the notorious highway which runs all the way from Fortaleza in the
north of Brazil, to Rio de Janeiro in the south. It is nicknamed, “Highway to Hell’
and covers 4,385 kilometers or almost 3,000 miles. Along this highway thousands
of girls, often as young as 10 or 11 years old, are being forced to sell their
bodies. Studies show that on an average of every 16 kilometers or 10 miles, there
is an area of sexual exploitation along that highway.
Teaching
freedom
Some of our staff produced an information packet for
schools, to teach teenagers from 11 to 17 years old about the dangers of human
trafficking and sexual exploitation. The packet contains a letter of
presentation to the school director, various classes, a power point presentation,
3 short mime dramas posted on YouTube, a flash drive with the music that
accompanies the dramas, as well as some posters and leaflets.
God
seems to be opening doors
During the months of March and April we plan to reach 10,000
teenagers with this program through our local YWAM base in Belo Horizonte. But
the potential is much bigger. Other organizations are also showing interest in
this program, including some organizations that work along the notorious
“Highway to Hell”. And all throughout Brazil, in the twelve host cities for the
World Cup, we have Kickoff coordinators interested in using this material.
Amazing how God seems to be opening many doors!
Libertodos
This program for schools is called “Libertodos”:
liberdade = freedom, todos = every one, all. So literally: freedom for all.
Please pray for this program.
Come
to Brazil during the World Cup
We’ve made a special website, inviting teams from all
over the world to sign up to come to Brazil and help with the outreach during
the football/soccer World Cup in June and July this year: www.ywamkickoff2014.com. It
is expected that 600,000 foreign tourists, in addition to another 3 million
Brazilian tourists, will come to the twelve host cities for a very special
holiday.
At the same time we plan for hundreds of teams to come
and, alongside Brazilians from local churches, share the Good News with these
tourists. They can share the Bible and the Jesus film in many different
languages through Bluetooth on their mobile phones, go to groups of teenagers
and share the “Libertodos” program, participate with a 24/7 prayer room in a
red-light district, or join in with many other types of outreach.
Free
download
If you access the website, www.ywamkickoff2014.com and
click on “resources”, you can download a free and beautiful match schedule, so
you can keep track of which teams play in which cities at what times during the
month-long tournament.
I personally am excited about the fact that Iran will
play in Belo Horizonte. I will certainly download an online Bible and the Jesus
movie in Farsi and hope to share it with someone from Iran on the day of that
game.
Give
a donation?
If you would like to help pay the costs of the Kickoff
outreach or the production of the Libertodos program, please make your gift
available as indicated on this link of our donations and contact info. Please make sure to add
that it is designated for “Kickoff” and/or “Libertodos”.
Unity
One of the things we are very happy about is that so many
churches and organizations are joining together around the World Cup and starting
to work together. This is also what Jesus prayed for, that we would be one.
Together preparing and praying, together proclaiming the message of God’s
Kingdom and fighting against the evil of human trafficking and sexual
exploitation. . .
A year in Rio de Janeiro
We are praying about living for a year in Rio de Janeiro
during 2016, when the Olympics come to Brazil. We would like to offer a training
program that combines a “Discipleship Training School” and a “Children at Risk
(C@R) School” to a group of up to 150 young people. Imagine the many
opportunities that the city of Rio offers to practice what you learn during a training
program like that! Who wouldn’t like to spend a year in the beautiful city of Rio
de Janeiro? We will keep you posted on developments.
Kids
What a blessing our children and grandchildren have been
to us. We are so thankful.
Our daughter Dilma, who is deaf, came for a month on holiday
to Brazil. It was amazing to see how well she can communicate in the Dutch sign
language already. She told many funny stories of her life in Holland, and we
are happy to see how well she has already adapted to this new culture.
The health of our son Davi is fairly stable, but his
kidneys continue to be a point of concern. He is being monitored regularly by a
good team of doctors.
Our oldest son and his wife just had their third child, a
beautiful daughter. Her sister is really enjoying having a little sister, but
the 4-year-old brother wanted to know if it wouldn’t be better to exchange her
for some useful toy…
We would like to thank all of you who have stood so
faithfully with us in prayer and support over the past months. We pray God’s richest
blessings upon you!
Love, Johan and Jeannette
Prayer
points
- Thank God for the Rescue
House team and the variety of ways they use to reach the street kids. Pray that teenagers like Josie
will take the opportunity to leave the streets.
- Give thanks for the many
opportunities we have to share about the dangers of human trafficking and
sexual exploitation in schools. Pray
for the thousands of children and adolescents who are being sold along the
“Highway to Hell”.
- Thank God for the
cooperation and unity among many churches and organizations. Pray that many more teams will
sign up to come to Brazil and that we will see dramatic change so that
this World Cup will be known for its all-time low in cases of human trafficking
and sexual exploitation.
