While we are (still) in Brasil...

Somewhere close to the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, there is a walled neighborhood with only one entrance. Across that street lies a big, heavy log. If you want to enter this place, you need to negotiate permission with the gang in charge. Armed teenagers stand next to the log and will drag it away with thick iron chains if you have permission to enter or leave. Even if you want to enter this community on foot, you must be invited by someone living there, who will then meet you at the log and walk with you through the neighborhood. If you go inside without a member of the community, you run the risk of being shot…

A few years ago, we were invited to visit this community. YWAM had worked there in the past, but the work had stopped. Would it be possible for our students from the Children at Risk School to revive this work?
 

The Children at Risk School in Rio de Janeiro

The good guys

A pastor who had been leading a church in the middle of this neighborhood for over 20 years, invited and met us at the “logged” entrance. The distance from the log to the YWAM house can be covered in about 5 minutes, but it took us 45 minutes that first time. He stopped at every street corner and took time to introduce us to all the local gang members, emphasizing that we were “good guys”.

We walked through small alleys and through some wider, nicely swept streets. I saw some characteristic slum sheds, but also some big mansions with walls around them. One even had a huge circular waterslide sticking out above the wall—it splashed into a private swimming pool. Cars were parked on the side of the road, in contrast with the rest of Brazil where cars are put in garages to avoid being stolen overnight. “In this neighborhood, nothing gets stolen”, the pastor explained, “even though the police aren’t allowed to enter this neighborhood. The local gang maintains ‘justice’ here!”

War

Many people who live here were born and have lived all their lives here. But life expectation is far lower than in the rest of Brazil. Last year, a bloody war was fought with the gang from another neighborhood. Many young people died. But now there is peace again, as all the drug-selling locations have come under the control of just one gang.
 

Another slum in Rio de Janeiro where YWAM has a wonderful ministry 

Christian drug dealers?

I was so surprised to see painting and writing on the walls in happy yellows, pinks, purples and greens, with big clear Bible verses. Yes, they told me, the leaders of this gang are Christians… They claimed that God was on their side, so whoever would turn against them, “would fight against God”, according to their theology. It seems to work. They are holding the people in their power with an unhealthy fear of God. What a strange, twisted world, right in the middle of a world-class city like Rio de Janeiro!

The long haul

A group of our students restarted the work with the children and teenagers in that community, and last month we were able to visit them to see how they are doing. How do you explain to children in such an environment what it means to be a true Christian? Who God really is? That a whole other real world exists outside those walls? Our former students, now staff with YWAM, had beautiful stories about the kids who had participated in their camps, who were deeply touched by the Lord. But work like this is really for the long haul. We were so happy to see the hearts these missionaries have for this community, for the children and their families.
 

On the YWAM base in Fortaleza

300 teenagers in Fortaleza

After coming home from Rio, I started building a website for International Children at Risk Schools, while Johan traveled to Fortaleza. The YWAM base there is doing a great job discipling more than 300 adolescents through sports ministry. In August, the Fortaleza base is planning to run their first Children at Risk school, so more staff and students can be trained in working with children and teens.
 

An adventure with God awaits: Children at Risk School!

Street children in Recife

After this, Johan will go to Recife. Our good friends Mati and Julie Gali are leading the YWAM base there. They got to know each other some 25 years ago on the base here in Belo Horizonte. I wrote about Mati in my book “A Cry from the Streets”, about how he was abducted by the police, tortured and almost killed because they thought he was the leader of a street kids’ gang.
 

Julie and Mati, the leaders of the YWAM base in Recife

Mati and Julie have led the base in Recife for many years, and the Children at Risk school has been running there for more than 20 years to train staff and students. The base has a large, beautiful location. Besides lecture halls and apartments for staff and students, it has a reintegration house for ex-street children, plus a preschool/primary school for children of the surrounding communities. Johan will teach in the current Children at Risk School. While there, he will have the joy of processing new plans and dreams with staff, students and other ministry leaders.
 

Staff and students from the YWAM base in Recife

Soon after this trip, we will start our long trip to the very north of Brazil, close to the border with Venezuela, where we will work with refugees and conduct some seminars. We will cover that in our next newsletter😊.

Our kids will live in 4 different countries

When we took the difficult decision to obey God and become missionaries 40 years ago, one of the hardest things was leaving behind friends and family. For our parents, brothers, sisters and friends it was equally difficult, and of course, we did miss each other a lot.

Now we have lived in Brazil for 35 years—in Belo Horizonte, the city where our kids grew up and which we call “home”.

We find ourselves in the same position our did parents so many years ago, with our kids not just leaving home, but also the country where they grew up… Pieter, our oldest son, is on the verge of moving with his family to the USA. Dilma lives in Holland, while Johanneke and her family live in England. Michele is the only one of our kids who still lives in Brazil with her family, and Davi, our youngest, also lives in Holland.

A bit complicated? Certainly! 

We haven´t been able to all be together as a family since 2011. I hope and pray that we will be able to gather with our entire family sometime in the near future! When we are in Brazil, we miss those who live in other countries, and when we are in Holland it is the same! Besides that, we ourselves travel for months at a time to different countries around the world to teach.

Even so, we have been able to spend some quality time with each of our kids almost every year. Sometimes it’s very brief and it doesn’t happen as often as we would like, but God is faithful! Nowadays we have the great advantage of the internet with WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook, emails and all, to stay in touch with each other. Still, it’s not the same as seeing each other face to face and hugging one another! Maybe I do suffer from a bit of the empty nest syndrome? 😊
 

Thank God, Johan and I enjoy being together very much, serving the Lord together. We know God is faithful in His care for all of us, including our kids, family and friends, whether they are close or far away.

We want to thank all of you who have been in touch through WhatsApp or email, who have prayed for us or financially supported us. We are so grateful! We wish you all God’s richest blessings!

Prayer points:

• Please pray for the work among the children in Rio, Fortaleza and Recife. That God will guide the leaders and staff with the right strategies and provide the needed staff, volunteers and finances for all these initiatives.
• Pray for all the lectures we are planning to give during the trip to the northeast and north of Brazil. That it will be a blessing and encouragement for all those students.
• Pray for us, our kids and grandkids. That God will help us to find time to be together even though we may not be an average family and live far apart.
• Please continue to pray for my sister and brother-in-law Sieb who is very sick. Also, for their children and grandchildren, that they will experience God’s presence in a very special way during this difficult time.