These past two weeks of outreach have been life changing and I've been putting off blogging due to my lack of ability to put these past two weeks into words. Where to start? What to write about? I think I'll do multiple blogs in attempt to update you on everything. On my experiences, on my heart, on these beautiful people located in Vieira Rio De Janeiro, on everything the Lord did in our short time in Rio and on the injustice these people are facing.
We left late Wednesday evening Feb 16th after a prayer time over this outreach. We lugged ourselves and bags through the cool night rain to the bus stop..then to the metro..then to a 6 hour overnight bus towards Rio De Janeiro. We arrived Thursday around 7 am very sleep deprived as you can see in the photo ;) We then met with two Rio YWAMers and they drove us 3 hours outside the city to a small farming community of Vieira. Vieira is located geographically between Terasopolis and Nova Friburgo the two areas hit hardest by the recent Brazilian floods. We weren't sure what to expect and we were all prepared to do manual labor such as gutting out houses, and doing similar relief work. We were housed at a church for the two weeks, sleeping on floors and church pews. We soon realized this church was a central hub for relief efforts and they had LOTS of donations to distribute including many clothes which they kept in a GIANT pile in the back of the church. They also were receiving many food donations here and one of the nights at 11pm we got to help unload an 11 ton truck of donated food from Joice Myer. It turned out to be a really fun night :) with lots of "assembly" lines going on to help the process go faster :)
On day two of arriving they took us up to see where the floods had started and to view the destruction. We walked over piles and piles of boulders that had crashed down from the mountain side. We saw houses completely leveled with nothing but the cement foundations left. We saw where cars had been thrown into houses. We saw huge cement bridges that had been moved miles down river. We stood on a foundation where a family of 6 used to live but were killed in the tragedy. I viewed this all but it still didn't really hit me. I hadn't seen what the area had looked like before so for all I knew, it always looked like this. The Pastor who was guiding us around began to tell us how it all happened. How the flood came at 2 am and only lasted 20 minutes but rushed with such force (110km/hr) through this little town that it destroyed everything in its path. The landslides and rock slides caused the majority of the damage as well. The first two days were pretty heavy, just taking it all in. Sam, a friend on my team who is Brazilian and speaks the language could understand all the conversations around us. He said everywhere you went people were talking about death, talking about how "the water" took it. He overheard one lady talking about how her baby was buried against her will, and others talking about 16 dead bodies that were found. Those of us who couldn't understand the language felt at a loss for the first two days, we could tell so much pain and grief and disaster was happening around us. How could WE help. What could WE do for these people. The floods happened a month ago but the effects of it still remained. The people of this community were so beautiful. Those who worked at the church were such servants to us always making meals and cleaning. They all had such wonderful hearts and you could tell they all had such stories to be told as well. It was amazing to be part of such a tight knit community. A community that has pulled together to help each other out because it's all they have left.
Sunday we were to sing some worship songs for the church. Sam, our worship leader really had it on his heart to sing How He Loves (by john mark mcmillan). He felt as though it was something the church needed to hear. The church that morning was held outside next to the giant clothes pile. We got up in front and began to sing open the eyes of my heart in both English and Portuguese. Then we sang How He Loves. As we were singing I looked out at the faces of these dear people. These people who we barely knew, but people who wore the pain and grief on their faces. my heart broke. As we were singing I began to cry praying to God to comfort these people, to show them his LOVE. To show them that he is still here with them, they are NOT alone, they have not been forgotten. They are so special to him!
My heart was crying out, I could see the pain of the gravity of what they had been through. We sang the chorus of the song in Portuguese.. nos ama..como nos ama.. he loves.. oh how he loves.. the spirit was so thick in that place that morning.. we sang the song over and over. Tears began to stream down their faces as well. It was the first time I really felt what God heart was for these people.. how he is grieving along with them in their loss. After the song we walked around to the front of the church and I realized I wasn't the only one on my team crying, others had been touched as well. Our heart continues to break as well decided to have prayer over these people while the service continued on. We went into the empty church and began weeping, sobbing, letting the extremity of what was going on around us to really sink in. We spent the time as a team crying and praying for these people.
I felt like all they had seen was a flood of destruction and it was time for a NEW flood for a flood of Gods LOVE to rush over this town. We had heard from the pastor earlier that many people, including the church leaders, believed that the flood was punishment from God. That they had all done something wrong. That the only reason their newborn babies, children, friend would be killed was if they had done something wrong in the eyes of the Lord. Their view of his love was SO skewed. We just prayed that they would know that although God may have allowed a flood to happen, its not his heart to destroy and punish. He allowed it but he was there with them the whole time, he grieves with them, he feels their pain. And he will comfort and love and provide in this time of devastation and aftermath.
As the days continued, we continued to speak a message of love to these people. We listened to their stories and took the time to get to know them. We built relationships. We shared testimonies and spoke in church various time about God's love and about his heart for them. We sang songs of love. We also helped manually with gutting houses, putting together relief kits one day, and helping to dig dirt to lay a house foundation. We as a team were blown away by the grace and outpouring of the Lord on our team. The way he used us on our lack of preparation or skill, the way he spoke through us to bring hope to this town. The last day we were there we hiked up to where the floods started and had morning worship and intercession on the rocks by the river. We felt it was important to bless the land with good things.. with life. It was such a special time to end our experience here. To be able to pray once more over all that had taken place (photo below). While there Lucas, one of our Rio translators, told us how we had impacted this community. It was so humbling to hear how we were used by God. He explained how messed up their view of God's love is and how since the first day we arrived we were speaking a new message of love, how we met these people in their grief and drew close to them on a relationship level. He too thought that we would just come and do manual labor because we couldn't speak the language, But God had a different plan. Brazil is a relational culture and we made the most influence by doing just that. To see grown adults, young children and whole congregations weeping and hugging us begging us to not go touched my heart and humbled me. God you are incredible! You bring us to this small town in the middle of huge cities in the middle of massive countries and you use us. You fulfill your plan for us during our time there. I'm so thankful to be a servant. a messenger, a lover of Jesus. A lover of a King who has the bigger picture in his mind.
A Jesus who is FAITHFUL. A King who brings justice to people who feel they have been forgotten. This town of Vieira will always have a treasured place in our hearts and someday, Lord willing, I'd love to go back.. see this beautiful mountain community on it's feet once again. And to see the fresh Love of God flowing throughout it..
About a week ago a few of us went along to help volunteer for the day with an organization call Restoration Ministries. This place is awesome and they do a lot of amazing work in the slums (favelas). During the week they switch between doing house visits one day to a block party for the kids another day. During the house to house time they will pray for people and invite the kids to come to a week camp they run or invite them to the block parties. And then the block party days they sing and play games and hand out prizes to the kids. The craziest thing is this ministry is run by a handful of staff and they're weeks are so busy. The day I helped out was a block party day. The kids were so precious and we played jump-rope and sang silly songs with them. Its really cool to see the way this ministry has had an impact in the slums and to see the kids singing bible songs and really intently listening. 
During a little bible story puppet skit they put on, I was watching one little boy and his eyes were fixed on them the entire time. He was paying such close attention and soaking in everything. They then said a prayer and I watched him slowly open his palms to the Lord. It was the sweetest thing to see and I found out later his name was Eric. I could tell the Lord touched his heart that day, as young as he was, and I'm going to continue to pray for that sweet little boy :) Below are some pictures from that day.
(jamming out with our new friends)
