DAY TWO: SAO PAULO!

Our third day in Brazil brought us to two different favela's within the city of Sao Paulo. Pete and Jodi's mission group here holds classes for the little children every week at these two particular ones and now it was our turn to host the class! We prepared a great puppet show that had all the little kids sitting on the very edge of their seats and the fun craft of decorating and personalizing visors. It was great to be sitting in the back row with children piled up on our laps, watching as they giggled and screamed with excitement about the stories they were being read from the Bible.
Just walking into the favela's was a heart changing experience...these people lived amongst such destruction and in so much suffering, it was hard not to show our reaction in our faces and expressions. Seeing the dilapidated homes built of scraps of cardboard and metal or broken wooden planks. There were pipes which carried water and sewage running open along the ground, many of them cracked and leaking...
The passageways between homes were no more than a foot and a half wide at times.
But the children were happy and overjoyed to see us come! They were eager to tell us their stories and ask us all about where we were from and if we knew this or that.
I realized one very important thing from visiting the favela's that day...it was so easy for us to see the vastness of the problems and suffering and to convince ourselves of the fact that what we were doing only made a pin prick of an impact in the entire situation..but this is wrong. One of the many things that God calls himself is our refuge. He calls us to him for the renewal of our souls, our joy, our spirits, and the repairing of our brokenness...this is the purpose we serve here in Brazil.
One of the men that volunteers at the mission said it perfectly,"physical problems can be repaired with the passing of time, but the replenishing of the soul and heart lasts longer."