Brazil - Summer 2004

Bex Horton and Gemma Donovan

It is hard to satisfactorily communicate the extent and depth of experiences that any period of time in another country incurs. Our ten week trip to Brazil this summer is no exception, but I will endeavour give you an idea of what we did and more importantly, what we learnt as a result.

July to August

There are about 160 youngsters at Betel, over half of whom are teenagers. They come from families which have disintegrated as a result of poverty or they have run away following abuse and neglect. Some have been abandoned by parents or been in trouble with the law. The majority carry the physical and psychological scars from the ill treatment of the adult world.

Our team got involved with an array of different activities including…

A practical project, helping with the renovating and redecorating of one of the family units in which the children live.

Organising creative, sporting and fun activities. These were done with groups of children, teenagers and occasionally everyone! Some examples…the Olympics, water fights, wide games, dance workshops, creative workshops, trips out.

Each team member took special responsibility for groups of children by being allocated to one of the family units in order to engage with the children on a deeper level.

Contributing to Sunday worship in very weird and wonderful ways!

A Bit of a Rest

The team left Gemma and myself in Rio de Janeiro and the next six weeks of our journey across Brazil began. Our first stop was a five day break in a place called Paraty, an amazingly beautiful place! It was a very restful time and we successfully managed to make a laughing stock of ourselves by being Paraty’s resident ‘gringas’(foreigners)! It is hard to blend in when you are both redheads and keep tripping up on the cobbled streets.

Belo Horizonte (meaning 'Beautiful Horizon')

After a long and somewhat troubled bus journey, we arrived in Belo Horizonte, a city of great charisma. We spent two weeks here getting to know the Happy Child Mission; a project set up to help street kids by a British woman and her Brazilian husband. Her story was outlined in the book ‘Street Kids of Brazil’ and had inspired both Gemma and myself to visit in order to better understand Brazil’s crisis with street children.

The Happy Child Mission has seven houses and the one that seemed to have the most impact on us was the Daycare centre. Here we found kids who had recently been intercepted and were obviously raw from the streets. You could see it in their behaviour and the way they interacted with you that these were streetwise adults embodied by children. It was chilling to see how they could alternate between these two identities with so much ease.

These kids are allowed to stay for three months in order to gain better health, nutrition and to start an education. They are then given the choice to stay or go back to the streets. Many chose the streets because of the familiarity, it is often more scary for them to stay and put in the hard graft of rehabilitation. The ‘stay put’ choice takes them to one of the six other houses including a farm for boys (especially those who have various addictions), a girls’ house (mainly for girls who have been sexually abused) and four other mixed houses. We visited all of these places and got involved in any way we could.

We also met a retired missionary couple and spent time with them visiting the project that they had set up and talking to them about the problems that exist in Brazil in relation to young people. They were a real inspiration and it was very sobering to hear of the work that they had both sewn in and the faith we which they had stood for so many years.

The Last Two Weeks

Whilst being at Betel Children’s Home, Gemma and I had decided that it would be beneficial to return there without the context of a team in order to explore the cultural reality of a place that seems to change so much when the English are present. We went back for two weeks to teach English in the on-site school and to serve the kids in any way we could. This experience blew away a lot of our expectations and taught as a lot about ourselves and the issues of culture.

Lasting Impressions from Brazil!

After being back in the UK for about a month now it is easier to understand a bit more of why we went to Brazil and what we learnt from the experiences. Emotions have settled and the shock of our own culture has subsided.

In relation to the projects that we encountered, one major factor became prominent to us. When children enter these projects for the streets there has to be an element of institutionalisation. The kids who have known no rules and the protection that moral laws provide, need to understand how to live life with principles. However, what we perceived was that the ‘guidelines’ set out by some of the projects evoked legalism. Any faith that the children embraced was built on religion and not on grace. This was evidenced by the way that the young people behaved when they had reached an age (17-19 years) where they returned to society. They often returned to the streets, to drugs, crime and prostitution. They effectively rebel against the religiosity that they have had to live with for so many years and they don’t know how to cope without it. Suddenly life is up to them and it is overwhelming.

Our increasing understanding of this was often overwhelming and sometimes felt like a ‘no win’ situation. How do you condition kids to live a better life and instil Godly values in them, but, at the same time invite them to experience God as a freedom giver? Too often the projects can only offer limited and basic care, they can only spread themselves thinly to engage the growing number of street children. These kids need to experience their worth as individuals and understand their value as children of God. However, contact time with individuals is always stretched and there are so many psychological layers to the individual child due to what they have endured in their short lives. Trying to figure out the solution in our heads became frustratingly pointless and we found that holding onto our God in faith was the only way to fight the temptation to despair at the consuming problem.

Personally, I think that Gemma and I learnt a lot about ourselves during our extended time at Betel working in the school. When an English team is at this place, the atmosphere is great. The kids are excited and animated. Mealtimes are celebratory. The English are entertainment for a month.

When we returned we faced the reality that this place was different when the English were not there. The atmosphere changed to one of an underlying sadness and hopelessness. The kids were fascinated with how much we had in England to the point it became uncomfortable to talk to them sometimes. Their perceptions of who we are and what we do were insultingly skewed and it was such hard work to try and create the understanding that we were there to serve them and not to be treated any differently to them. We wanted to be equals but it was something they couldn’t fully grasp.

This was tough and heart-breaking at time. Being misunderstood can be a very lonely feeling. We had to make the choices to buckle down, get on with it and risk being misunderstood. Humbling but necessary. And I think this is what we had to learn. Often we go to different cultures with high hopes of making a big difference and impact. That is not to say that we don’t, but often I am convinced that our journey to other places are to bridge the gaps of cultural perception and ‘show’ reconciliation to people who have ideas of western culture have been misshapen but sometimes are disturbingly accurate. Until we understand that we are there to serve and be misunderstood in the process, but still be willing to get on and serve in the face of this adversity, we will not gracefully sew unity and reconciliation. And we need this foundation to be laid before we can be effective in making disciples.

Why Go?

And why do we have to go? I think because we have the opportunity to go! Our British passport is such a blessing and too much taken for granted sometimes. We have the unique freedom to roam the world and this blessing needs to be taken advantage of whether that is in the long term or short term. I guess we don’t need to be wait to be called, we already have the privilege written in our nationality.

So I guess I would encourage anyone thinking of going abroad to just do it and see how God changes your perspective of your life and the lives around you. We need to understand other cultures in order to understand our God that little bit more. And to understand we have to go, serve and integrate ourselves into the lives of others. These experiences are never disappointing!

Posted by: Louise Lloyd-Jarvis on Wednesday Nov 10th, 2004

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