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.

When you walk with someone, how far do you walk? How much time, money etc do I invest into the life of someone else? I do not know. I think the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10v30-35 is challenging enough but in practice it is a bit more difficult.
There is a guy from this community who has been addicted to thinners for many years and he came to us for help. After a couple of weeks with him we managed to take him to a rehabilitation house (more like a farm, actually) 1 1/2 hours from Belo Horizonte. For this to happen, we had to invest a lot of time into his life, meet with his family, buy him medication, give him food, give him some things which we will never see again, be shouted at and verbally abused by him and then take him to this place. He was glad to get there but did not say thankyou. Also, he had been to 2 rehab places before and not succeeded in their programmes, only lasting a few days in these places. He is HIV+ and does not take his medication, homosexual, has lived in the streets, has been shot in the head, fallen twice into the main city drain which is about 10 meters deep (normally people die when they do this), has been burnt but got no sign on his skin of this and has also thrown a brick at a drug trafficker (they would normally kill you for this). Knowing this history and experiencing his nastier side, we still chose to help him because he is so loved by God. He is not a nice person but God´s love in us is bigger than that. It has to be. His rather colourful life story also gives me hope that he is well protected because he is still alive after all he has experienced.
In contrast to that, 2 days ago a lovely lady in this community fell down some steps and died, leaving 3 children. She got no second chance, or third, or fourth......just the one. Sometimes it does not seem fair but that is the reality and contrast of life here. There is a funeral for her in the basement of casa Luzeiro as I write this (someone has just come to our house to borrow a fan to keep the flies off the body).
I heard some teaching this week about Spiritual Warfare. It was very good. One of the things the preacher said was that God will put people in your path....one or 2 at a time, sometimes more....and they are the ones you are to love, take care of because he is entrusting them into your care. More than that we cannot do. Sometimes even that is difficult enough.

Just a quick promotion....Josiah has posted some new drawings on his blog. Go on, take a look HERE

I (Beckie) just wanted to post some of the things I was thinking about and challenged by, when our laptops were stolen.
At first, it was very weird to think that someone had entered our house during the night and I heard nothing (I am now glad that I heard nothing), in not very much time I didn´t worry about someone having been in the house as I realised that his sole intention was to grab something he could use to pay off a debt. It wasn´t to case up the house or to harm us in any way, purely a desperate act.
We also always have worship with the team on Friday mornings, it was great to readjust my focus back onto God and not to worry. However, some of the songs have so much more meaning during these times, e.g "Blessed be your name" (praising God in the good and bad) and "All that I have is yours".
There were a few times when I was quite annoyed by the inconvenience, and one of the things that really bothered me was that he had taken both of the laptops, including the broken one (which maybe we could have used for a few things in an emergency).
God really brought my attention to the verse that speaks about when someone wants to take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. Wow! Jesus says some hard stuff. It was hard enough to be gracious about the loss of one, let alone both. I am thankful to have them back, but I certainly want to learn a lesson about not valuing things too highly, and really taking seriously what Jesus says.