Last week we had some friends of ours (the Berkleys) and a group of students from Crossroads Church here with us (both of the groups are from Georgia, USA). We were on-the-go all week and there was no time at all to blog, so we’re re-capping the trip each day this week, so here’s where we left off yesterday:
Wednesday afternoon we visited an orphanage in Curitiba. When we arrived we were greeted by the founder and director of the orphanage. He was a nicely dressed older man, probably in his 60’s, who told us the story of how he founded the orphanage. You could see the passion in his eyes as he spoke about what God had done in and through him.
He was formerly a pastor who was a part of the Baptist Convention (actually he was in leadership with the convention as well) and one morning he was backing out of his driveway going to the office. He had eaten watermelon the night before and had thrown the rhine away into the trash. When he was backing out of the driveway he saw something that would change his life and ministry forever... there was a mother and her small children eating the watermelon rhine, right out of his trash. The same trash that he had put out at the street the night before. When he saw it he knew that as a christian he had to do something. So he did. Long story short, he resigned his pastorate and opened up a home to rescue children. Currently he has 9 houses that have between 10-12 children in each home. He’s also had over 600 children come through these homes! The cool thing is that he doesn’t look at these kids as orphans but as his actual children. The kids are between the ages of 0-18 years of age. I asked him what happened when the kids turned 18. Did they have to leave? What was the next step? He asked me what I did with my kids when they turned 18. He asked if I kicked them out (then he literally kicked me in the butt to illustrate someone getting kicked out of the house)? I said, “no, of course not.” He said, “and that’s the same with all of my children. They stay until they either get adopted, get married or go off to college.” When I heard that, in my mind I knew that this place was different than the other orphanages that we’ve seen and the heart of what they were doing was exactly what we wanted to duplicate in our ministry.
When we began to tour the facilities, it just confirmed in my heart that “this is exactly what we need to create in Terra Boa.” Each house was set-up like an actual home. They had bedrooms that actually looked like bedrooms rather than dorms in an orphanage. The living rooms were decorated like homes and not empty and stark like most of the orphanages we’ve seen. The house mothers (he referred to them as missionaries) all seemed happy to be there and the whole feel of the place just seemed peaceful. They each had their own kids in their own houses and they were very affectionate toward the kids (and the kids toward them). We were able to hang-out with a few kids from each house and the housemothers. We sang and danced with them, shared the Gospel and just loved on them a little before they all had to return to their houses. If you could’ve seen these kids... they were beautiful (I know I say that a lot, sorry). It just blows my mind that these kids were orphaned though. What were their parents thinking? I know people have problems and things in life are tough, but man, it shouldn’t have to be this way for the children. But, in spite of whatever each kids background was, the thing that stuck out to me was that you couldn’t tell that these kids were orphaned or in an orphanage. These kids were different. They seemed happy and stable. They were in a safe place with people who loved them. It was a good day.
To me, this is an excellent model of what we need to do. So, please pray for us as we begin the process of trying to set-up a program like this on the property. For those of you who partner with us, I’ll be sure to give more specific information in our next E-Newsletter coming out in a few weeks. We’re very excited about what’s happening here in Brazil and we’re still blown away that God has allowed us to be involved in His activity.
Tomorrow we’ll try to wrap-up Spring Mission 2012’ and then next week we’ll be back to our regular blogs. See you tomorrow: )
Love Ya,
Jim
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