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.