This afternoon Laura and I (Beckie) were able to visit this boys family, it wasn't easy, but I'm glad we went. It felt like we were able to grieve with those who are grieving. Check out Laura's blog where she shares of our experience.

At the moment it seems like we are only hearing sad news. A lot of things are going on here, some things to do with drug gang tension, others are purely accidental.
Yesterday evening, the little yellow bus was doing it's normal (very full) run through the slum, on it's descent the brakes failed. As far as we've heard the driver tried to avoid crashing down the hill full of passengers and swerved into a wall. Unfortunately a young boy who was crossing the road was badly injured. The driver was seen a bit later running down the hill, distraught, trying to get help, covered in blood and having just been threatened by some people in the community. The boy died a bit later.
Today, I discovered it was a boy from my group last year. This is very sad for me, he was a sweet boy, with a difficult background, who lived with his grandmother. However, I am consoled by the fact that he was here, he did hear about Jesus and his Father God's love for him. We would like to visit the family, to see if we can help in any way, maybe offer some of the photos we have of him.

Many times it's easy to forget that we live in a slum here. We have a nice house, trees in the garden, even a swimming pool. Of course, we sometimes hear the crazy loud music, have kids jumping the walls and at times hear gunfire in the middle of the night.
Dave has had more experience of the reality of the slum in his many walks and talks in the community, but I have had a more sheltered experience here. Even when the drug traffickers here have been at war with the neighbouring slum (which is happening now), we have heard about what is happening, sensed the fear, but continued the same.
However, last night was the first time I felt afraid. At 1.50am a helicopter arrived, quite a strange time for a helicopter. The police send helicopters when they are looking for someone in particular. Normally, they pass over the whole favela and circle in a few places. Last night, they were incredibly low and circled mainly around our area of the community center. It really felt like they were going to land here. This circling continued for 25 minutes, which felt like an incredibly long time as we were lying there, wondering why they were here. Had a bandit jumped the wall to find refuge here? This is one of the best grassy areas here and has great places for hiding. I began to hope that our dog wouldn't notice anything, because if he started to bark, what should we do? Normally I send Dave out to have a look, but I didn't want to send him out to meet a nervous armed bandit on the run from the police. Would the police want to enter here? When would it end? Even after the helicopter left I couldn't sleep, wondering what had actually happened.

Here is a picture of the Lighthouse team. This was taken last week. Gideon didn't want to be in the picture, unfortunately.

It has been a while since I (Dave) last posted anything here and Beckie has convinced me it is about time. The thing is, I get so used to certain things being 'normal' that I do not consider them worthy of a blog so I only tend to write about things which are extraordinary for me. Anyway, here is what I did yesterday afternoon:
I ate lunch with my lovely family at 12pm. We had rice, beans, lettuce mixed with a kind of shredded spring-green type vegetable, green raw pepper and meatballs with gravy. It was delicious.
At 12.30 I walked in the heat of the day to collect a volunteer from his house in another part of the city just the other side of this favela and walked back with him so he would know how to walk to here on his own next time. This took about 45 mins.
At 1.20 the volunteer, Maarten and I met together to pray before going out into the community and to explain about our work to the volunteer. Just after 2pm we left .
As we were walking through one particular alleyway, a lady who we didn't know, stopped us and asked if we could go to her house to pray with her. So, we went. We discovered that she had suffered a trauma about 4 years earlier and had been living a difficult, medicated life since that time, suffering from profound depression among other things. We do not have any expertise in this area at all so we did the best we could do and that was to pray for her and her mother (who was also in the house) and share with her what God put on our hearts. We stayed there a while and drank some sweet, strong coffee.
Next, after a bit of a climbing ramble through alleyways and across roads, we visited a pregnant lady and her children. One of them is not going to school and the consequence of that for her is that she would lose the government allowance that is given for this. This was made clear to her and we were also able to pray for her and see the kids in their home to better understand their life. Then we left and continued our walk.
In the 'shopping area' we met a homeless friend of ours who was selling records to make a bit of money. He even had an Isaac Hays 70s album! We had a good chat and are trying to get him into an old peoples' home, which is what he really wants, so he can get off the streets and live the rest of his life in peace.
When we arrived at the praça (A kind of village square) we asked the owner of the vegetable shop there if he could give us the address of a lady addicted to drugs which he asked us to visit on a previous occasion. Instead of giving us the address, he showed us the house. So, we talked with this lady and it seemed that she is motivated go to a drug rehabilitation center as she does not want to end up like her 2 sisters who died as a result of using drugs, leaving her mother all alone. At the same time, we met a lady who had been badly beaten by her husband (2 black eyes, a cut elbow) who fondly talked to us about an Englishman called Matthew who set up a dance school for street girls in 1999. She also told us about her first child that she used to dance with at that time, holding her in her arms. But the child only lived for 1 month and 15 days. She was very much a lady trying to live in the fond memories of the past to escape from the present. Again, we were able to pray for them and hopefully we will be able to help the first lady to go to a rehab house.
Back to the Lighthouse! We prayed, thanking God for our afternoon.
10 minutes later (5.10pm) I took Gideon to his weekly drumming lesson, which went really well. The tutor let him play for an extra 1/2 hour after the lesson which Gideon loved.
That was my Tuesday afternoon......quite normal for me.

Sometimes, I (Beckie) am amazed at how hard some people work. Today, as I was out walking up one of the many hills near here (not the crazy steep one I'm pleased to say), I saw a lady (about 40) with her horse and cart. She travels all over the city collecting rubbish (to recycle) and old vegetables (to eat / feed the animals with). Many times the whole family is involved. Today it was just her and the horse. The horse isn't strong enough to get up the hill with the full cart on it's own, therefore the lady has to help push the cart.
I was on the other side of the road, I could have passed her and kept walking, I wanted to. Yet, I had a niggle, telling me to help. How can I really help? Sometimes it feels almost impossible for me to get myself up these hills. I wanted to keep walking and pray that God would strengthen her. I couldn't. So, I asked if she needed help. She didn't know how to respond, and found it difficult to accept my offer, but did accept.
So, we were both trying to push up the cart, resting frequently when the horse couldn't keep going. All of the time, through her panting breathing the lady was saying it was too hard for me, I should leave her or I would get very sweaty. She was saying that only God can help her, enable her to keep going. When we got past the worst bit she told me to go and that she would be OK then, and really asked God to bless me for all that I had done. I was rather pleased as I felt unable to continue. I only helped her for 20 minutes, she does this all day, almost every day.

Today, it is raining, and when you walk out in the streets the atmosphere is quite different. Nobody likes the rain, so you see very few people. Just a Mum and her daughter hurriedly walking under an umbrella. Two more people huddled in a shop doorway, waiting for the bus. Otherwise the streets are deserted. However, I really noticed the bars, they (2 opposite one another) were FULL. It was 8.30am and the bars were full of people (mainly men), downing many beers.
It seems that these are people who work Monday to Friday to get enough money to spend the whole weekend drinking. There has to be more for their lives than this, yet they seem quite content.
How can we reach them? Is their a way into their lives to show them a God who loves them deeply? Does anyone have any ideas?

A Celebration for the parents

We like to organise parents meetings, but through experience we have learned that very few parents will come to a "meeting", so we organised a celebration. We started planning about a month before the date. When we had decided on the snack we wanted to offer (based on budget, numbers and what we have available), we asked the food bank (a place from which we receive regular donations) if they would be able to separate fruits for our celebration, so we could make fruit salad.We received 6 BIG boxes of fruits, and most of it was pretty good. So, at 9am we started preparing, mashing bananas for cake and then peeling and chopping a LOT of oranges. We had a team of 7 preparing the food (thankfully, as there was a lot to prepare)


This is the finished fruit salad, we made A LOT!!!
Also, the small court was prepared, and decorated with the childrens' artwork.
However, the clouds were building, and as our activities we wanted to do were based on being able to fully use our outdoor space, we were praying that the rain would come quickly and leave quickly too. It sure did rain a lot, so we all hoped that the afternoon would go according to plan A (dry plan).

Unfortunately, the weather couldn't decide what it was going to do, at 2pm, we had very few parents (probably because it was raining a bit). It seemed like nobody was going to come.
Eventually we almost filled the small court (about 120 people) and the first part of the programme began, including a preach, some hip hop dancing and presentations from the groups. All of this time we are wondering "plan A / plan B"? The rain started and stopped, then started again.....Plan B

Some of the children went with their parents to do puzzles and play games
Some did group games and songs.
At moments it felt like a disaster, it was POURING with rain, to the extent that families were almost trapped in their room, and nothing felt very organised. However, for those not organising it, they had fun.
Everyone was very happy at the end when it was time for the snack. This is the part that the children and their parents particularly enjoy. Some of the more hungry children were trying to sneak up to the table as often as possible. At last, we got to taste the delicious fruit salad that took all morning to prepare.

Today, I (Dave) went for a quick trip to the centre to buy a few things. I parked the car in the usual spot and walked the rest of the way. Part of the walk involves crossing a main road on a foot-bridge and on this occasion there was a beggar there asking for money. She is often there and it seems it is her regular spot. I gave her some money, had a quick chat and continued my walk into the centre. On return I saw her in great distress. She was handcuffed to the railings and some police were going through her things. I approached and heard her shouting that they were stealing her money, which they were. She had accumulated a lot of money - she had bags of it - and they were accusing her of stealing it from people and therefore confiscated it. It was a sad sight to see her in such distress and I felt helpless as this injustice went on right in front of me. It is normal for beggars to hoard the money they get from begging...they have no other means of looking after their money and a lot of the time they do not know what to do with it. They are easy targets for exploitation and, in this case corrupt justice. I prayed as I passed.....God is the God of justice.....but wondered if there was more I could have done.....

Just want to post a quick link to our friend's blog. They have written a post with photos about something Josiah did here.....but you will have to read it on their blog to find out what it was :-)
Click HERE to see it or, if you prefer to do it manually have a look at: http://www.thematiasfamily.blogspot.com/

Gideon had his first proper drum lesson last night.....it went really well.
Here's how it happened:
We went for a walk in a nice area of the city and decided to pop into a music shop. While we were there, Gideon convinced me to let him have a go on a kit in the shop and during his playing I asked the shop assistant if he knew a good drum teacher. He gave me the number of a guy called Jimmy.
We called this guy about a week later and managed to arrange the lesson. Turns out he is an American....and we found out on the internet that he is quite famous here in Brazil, even being endorsed by a drum company called Gretch. On top of all this, after a conversation with him at the end of the first lesson about what we do here in Brazil and how we are supported, he decided to give us a discount so that Gideon was able to have a lessen every week!! Also, we have been invited to hang out with him at his studio next time he has some folks round for a recording session. Gideon really enjoyed it too and it looks like this will continue.
It could not have gone better....Praise God.

I (Dave) am feeling sad. Today I received the news that my Grandma has died.
It is a strange thing living so far away from England at times like this, when I would really like to go to the funeral of this extraordinary lady but simply can't because of distance / money / time etc.
I have not seen her for many years as she has been in a nursing home and has had dementia for nearly the last 23 years but I have fond memories from my childhood of her.
She is the only person I ever knew that has lived through 3 centuries (yep...not kidding). She was born in 1899 and lived until 2010. She was 111 when she died. Now that is an innings!

Are you like me (Beckie)? I want to continually hear the confirmation of God in what I do, where I am etc. Many times I wonder if God has directed me in something else and I've failed to hear it. I seem to have a problem of a mid-year slump when I wonder if I'm doing what God wants me to do. That said, I'm not miserable or depressed, I just find myself questioning what I do and where I'm going. I also realise that sometimes, I put too much focus on 'doing' and not enough on 'being'.
I ask questions such as "is what I do able to make a difference?" "is what I do actually making a difference?" "will these children grow up to know who Jesus is?" "will the families be reached?" "is there another way?" "is the cost of being here worth it?". I get anxious to know that God is at work in the lives of these children and their families. I want to see more results.
I found myself telling God how I was feeling, that I needed Him to say to me again exactly what I should do, or to show me more results. I know I shouldn't demand God do things the way I want Him to, or respond when I want Him to, but I asked.
I have recently been reading the book of Isaiah, always fascinating (particularly as I'm trying to read in Portuguese), but many times I don't understand. At the weekend I read:

Isaiah 49:4 (New International Version)

But I said, "I have laboured to no purpose;
I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing.
Yet what is due me is in the LORD's hand,
and my reward is with my God."

It confirmed to me that many times we don't know how we are being used by God, many times we think it's about our own effort, many times we get frustrated (even Isaiah felt this), many times we won't see the fruit. Yet, I clearly felt God wanted me to be at peace with this, that the work I do (and the results I see) are in His hands.

A bit of a long post, I'm afraid, but maybe you too have wrestled with some of these thoughts.

My group has been learning about their 5 senses, I thought it would be fun to incorporate some activities using their senses. They had great fun playing with cornflour 'gloop', something that is quite common in nurseries in the UK, but not something any of these children had experienced before. They thought it was something magic.

Wow, August has been a busy month (and July in fact), but it's been great. We've seen 2 teams come and go, both very different and both contributing to the work that's going on here. I have particularly enjoyed chatting with them about their impressions of this place and the way that God has been revealing himself to them. It has also been a pleasure to have fellow tea-drinkers here (both teams from England), and being able to enjoy 'tea fellowship'.Then, after the busyness we had a family holiday, our first real opportunity to travel (for more than 3 days) and see some of the beauty of Brazil.We went to Ilha Grande, not far from the coast of Rio.

We really were very blessed to be able to go to this tropical island (it has to be one of the perks of living in a foreign country). It was a perfect opportunity to rest, spend quality time together as a family, switch off from 'work' and enjoy the beauty of God's creation.

So, time has flown by, we've been very busy and we've had a great time. The first team (from our home church) has actually been and gone, and as I type, we are waiting for the second team (also from England). At the lighthouse, we had 2 weeks of slightly different activities, hopefully giving a flavour of the community and the vision of this place to the team. We opened up to a schools holiday program, visited families, climbed and prayed on mountains, ran a crazy "olympics" week (for the children from the groups here), among other things. The team also helped us to embark on 2 major painting projects, both finished after much hard work (and paint in hair).
Here is a photo of the finished mural, just before the entrance gate. It's visible from far away in the slum, because of all of the bright colours.

In 3 days time the first team from England will arrive here.....and they are from our church. Nearly everything is ready for them with just a few little things to iron out, if possible.
We, with the exception of Josiah, have been ill this week and hope to be fine and dandy by Saturday (tomorrow would be better, of course).
May they discover more about God in their time here as they see him at work in a different culture and also may they have a lot of fun too......it is quite different to England here....

An update on the humming bird
The bird was with us for 2 days and 2 nights, occasionally flying a little and then falling or getting stuck somewhere. It did not know how to feed itself. Then one lunchtime we were sitting at the park with the bird on our finger. It was chirping and we heard the sound of other birds too. Suddenly the hummingbird flew to a nearby tree and immediately it's mother swooped over and started feeding it. It was really beautiful to see, she seemed very pleased to find it again.

Josiah found a baby humming bird that had fallen out of a tree, isn't it beautiful? We are now trying to work out what to do with it, one advantage is that the humming birds cannot smell, so the mother shouldn't abandon it, but where is it's nest.
Josiah has fed it and is now going to research a bit more about what to do.

PASTOR'S BARBECUE
Once a month we normally have a Pastor's breakfast here, the idea being to promote unity amongst the Churches in the community, for them to get to know and support one another.
It was decided to try a "Pastor's BBQ", a more informal time, to invite their families as well, to bless them and to have fellowship together. We had more then 50 people book up (the numbers kept going up in the week leading up to it), plus also the team who were preparing the food.


As you can see, the barbecue area is not very big, so it was quite a challenge to cook SO much meat, but Dave and Tijs did a great job. It was even ready before everyone came. We had a team chopping in the kitchen all morning preparing salad and fruit salad (and then washing up all afternoon). This was made even more challenging by the fact that we had no running water (the house had been without water entering for 2 days and the tanks had run out). However, there was such a good atmosphere as we served together, with joy in our hearts.
The food was wonderful, many Churches were able to meet together, eat together, share a word together, pray together and (for the children) play together.

A tiring day, but SO worthwhile.

Funny the little miracles that God produces sometimes.....
I, Dave, went to a meeting with some others in a taxi and on the way there I was asked if I had any money because the person in question had forgotten to bring any to pay for the taxi. I rooted around in my pockets and produced a R$5 note (kind of bluish in colour) and I searched all of my other pockets but to no avail. We needed R$11. The person sitting next to me found a R$1 coin in their pocket so I decided to search my pockets again and the R$5 note had turned into a RED R$10 note!! So we had just enough to pay the driver. Cool, huh?

Often we learn most from when we fail, miss an opportunity which we know we should have taken, or simply have a hard time. It is during these times that the true nature of who we are gets exposed and we get to see our weaknesses.....often not a pleasant experience. But, also, it is an opportunity to grow, to ask God to continue to change us in specific ways so that we can be more effective in demonstrating love to those around us.
2 days ago I, Dave, went to take a DVD back. It was due to be back on Saturday but the shop was closed so I had to take it there on Monday. I had my excuse prepared in advance so that I did not have to pay a "late" fine. When I got there, I asked the owner why he was not open on Saturday because I wanted to take the DVD back but he was closed. He then told me that he had had some problems and needed to go to hospital. I asked him more and he said, in a quiet, embarrassed way that he has epilepsy and suffered from a seizure. I then said I know what it is like because I too have epilepsy and, as a result of this, we had a really great conversation about struggles and difficulties with the condition. He had fallen and hurt the entire left side of his body.
It was at this point that I missed the opportunity. I was in the shop on my own with him. I wanted to pray for him but didn´t because of 1) I did not feel confident enough with Portuguese to pray exactly what I wanted to and 2) It is difficult for me to pray for someone who has epilepsy when I have not been healed from it. These may seem rational and good excuses to the reader but to me, they are lame and pathetic. The focus of these excuses is ME. God is powerful and able to work in greater power through my weakness, when I can´t do it than when I think I am able. It was the IDEAL opportunity.....but has now passed.
I will ask God for another opportunity with this guy so I can offer more to him than empathy.
It showed me that there is still too much fear inside me resulting in a lack of faith. May God rip it out of me so I can be a more useful tool.

Yesterday I (Beckie) messed up an opportunity to give Jesus some clothes.
I had been out for an evening with a friend from another house here, we both popped into the bank to get some money out, as we climbed the steps there was a homeless woman huddled on the steps.
I thought she would ask me for money on my way out and had begun to wonder how I would respond. As I left (without money as the bank often doesn't allow us to withdraw money), I already had my answer. Then she asked me, "Can you give me some trousers or a jumper?". This wasn't what I had expected, of course I couldn't give her trousers, you can't get home without trousers, can you? A jumper? I had a thin jumper with me, it is one of my favourites, you know the sort that goes with everything? I didn't want to give her my jumper.
I left, and walked on, but I had such a conviction of Matthew 25:34-46....I had an opportunity to clothe Jesus, and I had walked away, because of selfish motives, I liked my jumper, but she needed it.
I had to return, I still didn't want to, but sadly when I returned, she had gone.
I pray that God will continue to expose my selfish heart, so that I can change.

Can you imagine the world cup in Brazil? I can't.... I'm waiting to see what it will be like for the game on Tuesday.... everyone is getting ready for football fever

We are still waiting for a permanent answer for the boy I mentioned. He is spending every day here, playing lots with Gideon and occasionally hindering the groups (he really doesn't manage well in a group setting). Many people have spoken to his parents, but they genuinely have thrown him out. It seems so crazy to me that social services are unable to do anything, because they have a lack of resources/ people. They know the situation of this family, but have not intervened.
Please keep praying for him, he seems to really feel at home here as is open to receiving the love offered by the staff here. Please pray that he will receive the love that his heavenly father has for him.

I don't really know how to write about a very sad situation that is happening here. A young (14 years old) boy is currently spending his daytimes here, and returning to his aunts house to sleep at night. Why? Because nobody wants him. His mother left him with his father, his father returned him to his mother, she gave him back, he ran away..... (this story goes on like this over a course of many months). On Friday, his father pushed him out of the house and said not to return, he came here. Some other workers here have contacted his mother, hoping for him to return to live with her, she refused to accept him. The social services doesn't work at weekends (or if they do they are very difficult to get hold of). This boy is just hanging around, flying kites with Gideon and Josiah, he doesn't seem particularly upset by it (maybe he is numb to it all), yet he is hardly talking at all.
It could be very easy to judge these parents, yet we also know how difficult this boy can be. He has caused many problems in his family, he can be extremely aggressive and has some type of personality disorder. I can understand that they are unable to cope. Yet, here is a boy, completely abandoned, how does he feel? What is his future?
I am very thankful that because of the work of the community centre here he feels that he can come to us, he must feel safe here. In the past, several people have worked alongside this family, maybe they have failed, maybe there is still something that God will do. Where else would this boy be? On the streets? Being used and abused by the older boys?

As part of our work with the children we go into the community to visit them in their homes and get to know the families. It is always interesting to see, and a few times I have been pleasantly surprised to see homes that are clean and presentable. However, this week I really saw a needy home. It was small, most of them are, however this family has 8 children. They have an entrance with a shower and toilet, plus a sink for washing clothes, then they have 2 rooms. Both of these rooms has bunk beds (not enough beds for the 10 people that live there) and one of these rooms also serves as a kitchen (it has a cooker and gas bottle in it). I cannot imagine living there.
The mother was very happy to chat us, she invited us in to see her house, but then we returned to the alleyway to chat. This family has had links to our community centre for many years, how can we make a difference to this family? What is God wanting to do here?

Here at casa Luzeiro, we have been blessed with a new life! Laura and Felipe (2 of the leaders here) are now the proud parents of beautiful Sophia Grace. Today, I had my first cuddle, she is just perfect.
When I look at a tiny baby, so perfectly formed even down to the tiny fingernails I see our God the creator. I cannot possibly believe that evolution could ever have formed life like this, so complicated yet so well designed. There are far too many things that could have gone wrong along the way of all of those millions of years (as they say), which would have ended life.
WOW, isn't God amazing? Gideon is also totally blown away but her beauty and her tininess.

This Saturday we had a party to celebrate 18 years of the lighthouse community center. It was also an opportunity to get to know the new students on the "foundations in community development" course. To do something a little unusual we all had to dress "brega"/ ridiculous.

These are other photos which the fashion police would happy to get hold of, plus some ridiculous dancing.

Here are some pictures of the burnt house and of the single mum whose house it is (these were taken 1 day later, after it had been cleaned out):


The picture below is of the actual entrance to her house.....the door was completely burnt as well as the roof. The ladder up the the door remained intact though.

Do you sometimes find the contrasts in this world hard to get your head around? Many times I (Beckie) see it here. Yesterday, Dave and Maarten were painting the new sports cupboard, it was built with donations from a Dutch guy, who really wanted to facilitate the work we do, particularly with sports. What was so surreal was that this cupboard was slightly larger and much nicer than the house of the lady in the previous post (house burnt down). It's hard to see these 2 worlds right next to each other. Don't get me wrong, I am thankful for the many blessings we have. I am also very aware that this world isn't fair, what is my responsibility in this?

I don´t know about you, but sometimes when I (Dave) think about moments in my life certain images come to mind. Yesterday, I saw something which I think I will always remember. Maarten, a Dutch volunteer and I visited someone who we normally spend some time with and while we were there we were told about a house which was burnt down so we decided to go and see if we could help in some way. What we saw was a house (more like a room than a house) with no roof and a thick layer of burnt stuff on the floor, including a melted fridge and some fragments of burnt cloths. In the house was a lady who was searching through the items looking for anything which was salvageable with tears in her eyes.....it was as if she was looking for hope. For me, this was a really striking image.....seeing this lady who was poor anyway but had lost EVERYTHING in the fire and all she had left was the clothes on her body. No-one was hurt in the fire. Another part of the image was the onlookers. They did just that - looked. We were able to pray with her and are now in the process of getting some building materials to her so her house can be rebuilt.

FLOORBALL......

After the last post, when I briefly mentioned "floorball", I now realise that I need to explain a bit more. It is a type of hockey, played on a smooth court, with a lightweight ball. I think it´s a bit like uni-hockey (maybe even the same thing with a different name, but actually I don´t know).
We have been having a great time learning control skills, passing skills and shooting skills. The techniques have been practised with our staff team and with all of the various groups that come here. We even learnt about how we can use elements from the game to give a bible study.
Today, we finished our 4 days with a competition, a Brazilian team (which Gideon joined), a Dutch team (which Josiah joined) and the Swiss team (the pros). It was a friendly game, they teased us somewhat.....but of course, they won!

Quite a bit of time has passed, and we have had 2 different teams visiting us. One was a team of 50 (they were housed locally, but ate here) from São Paulo. They came to do an evangelism event in the slum, using hip hop, dance, DJ´s, graffiti and other cool unusual ways to attract attention.
The second team are only 5 people from Switzerland, who have come with a passion for floorball. Teaching us how to teach it and teaching it to the kids. It´s great having different people and exciting things happening, but always requires some extra work and organising. It has made me think about the work that we need to do to prepare for the 2 teams coming from UK in the summer.

We have been getting to know the new children in our group. One little boy, Leo* has refused to swim for the last 6 weeks. He has run away from us, forgotten his clothes, put on his swimming clothes and refused to enter the pool area. He has just been really scared of the water and worried the swimming teacher would throw him in. We have been trying to gain his trust.
On Monday he told me he was once thrown in a lake and nearly drowned, which made sense. We managed to persuade him to bring his clothes and just sit at the edge of the pool with his feet in the water for the next swimming lesson. This he did, and also decided to get in. When he decided to put his face in, I was amazed and thrilled to see the look of triumph on his face when he stood up.
Funnily, later on in the day he sneaked back into Luzeiro, I found him at the park. As he ran away (because he knew he shouldn´t be here) he shouted "I want to go swimming".
I am so happy that he was able to overcome this so quickly, we thought it might take the whole year to get him into the pool.

We have recently heard that a local boy that many of us have worked with had a nasty accident. He was trying to catch a free ride, holding onto the back of a bus when he fell off and smashed up his head. He is currently in intensive care, showing some signs of improvement, but still in a coma. This boy is one of the first that I got to know here, I really love him, even though he gives a lot of work and is somewhat unruly. We have been praying for him and several have been to visit.
One thing his mother has been pressured to do is get 16 people to give blood to replace the stocks that he used. So, several of the team went to give blood yesterday. I was quite surprised to discover that English people (or anyone who lived in the UK before 1996) are not allowed to give blood in Brazil because of the risk of CJD (mad cow disease). I was quite disappointed to be unable to donate.
Please pray with us that he will make a full recovery.

Just a couple of quick blog updates...

Firstly, the guy we took to the hospital (see blog post November 19, 2009) about the foot that was run over by a car is fine and doing well. His foot has completely recovered. He still lives mainly on the streets in the favela and still collects rubbish to scrape some money together to buy alcohol.

Secondly, the guy we took to the rehab place has left it and has returned to the community where our cook saw him still sniffing thinners. (see post March 5, 2010) I´m sure we will see him again at some point. What has come of this is that there are now a few people who have approached us for help to come off drugs and alcohol so it could be that we will be making more trips to the rehab farm over the next few weeks. Watch this space.

Mothers Day in Brazil
(It´s actually quite nice because we can celebrate the English date and the Brazilian date)
We went to our favourite place for breakfast, a nice café and bookshop with a buffet breakfast that lasts from 9am until 2pm.


Whilst we were having our delicious breakfast, it began to rain, and then it really poured (Brazilian style). We started the drive home and the rain kept getting heavier. Gideon and I were a little nervous about how difficult it is to see, and the road became a river. However, Dave loved driving the little VW Beetle up and down the river. When I got out of the car I stepped in a puddle (it was inevitable, as the ground was one BIG puddle) that came halfway up my calf.

Yesterday, we went to our local nature park, to show to 3 Dutch volunteers. It is quite a walk, we all ended up exhausted, but we also had the opportunity to see some awesome creatures. God really is incredibly creative.The monkeys were very hard to photograph, they move SO fast.

We were also unable to photograph the "golden orb" spider, so we found a photo on the internet. This spider is incredibly beautiful, and weaves a shimmering golden web.

The other beetle like creatures, I have no idea what they are (?!?),maybe someone who reads this knows.Dave and Gideon also liked the tightrope walking ants.