Guns, Drug Traffickers, and Ping Pong

You know those days when you wake up and think… was that a gunshot or a firecracker?  No?  Yeah, me neither - except for this last week when we were staying in a Brazilian Favela (slum community).  There are over 1000 Favelas in the whole of Rio de Janeiro, and we had the amazing opportunity of staying for a week in one of them.  Have you seen the movie City of God?  I have, and so I was a little apprehensive about going into a place like this… but we knew God had asked us to go.  We prayed a lot, took deep breaths, and in we went.

YWAM has had a ministry house in the center of one of these slums for the last 10 years or so.  About 5 years ago they had to shut the house down, as the person leading the ministry needed to leave.  The ministry has started up again with new leadership and our DTS outreach team was the first team to be in the community since the house re-opened a few months ago.  It seriously reminded me of a movie set in some respects… had a very surreal feel to it.

We met a guy the first day who had a crazy story of drugs, near death experiences from being involved in the trafficking aspect of things, and was miraculously spared from a lifetime in prison for being caught with 30 kilos of cocaine!  He had a scar on his hand… and we heard the story of how he was working with another guy and a drug trafficker found out his phone had been stolen.  He approached these two guys and confronted them about stealing the phone.  *Stealing is NOT allowed in the Favela, and people have literally lost their hands for stealing.  Both guys said they didn't take the phone, so the trafficker grabbed a random guy off the street, put him in the middle of the street, put a tire around him, poured gasoline on him and threw in a lit match.  The guy burned to death in the middle of the street in front of everyone.  And he was an innocent bi-stander!  The drug lord went back to these two guys and asked again if they had taken the phone.  Both men were adamantly saying they didn't know what happened to the phone, when the trafficker grabbed the man we met, threatening to kill him.  He was pleading for his life, and then the trafficker said, "Okay.  I won't kill you.  Let me see your hand…" He took the man's hand and shot it - hence the scar - as a lesson to not mess with him.  CRAZY. (*This guy as since then become a Christian and loves Jesus now!  He works very closely with the YWAM team at the house.)

Our role in this community for the week was to play with the kids who would come to the house in the afternoons… kids ranging in ages from 6 or 7 to late teens, early 20's.  We put up a broken down ping pong table out in the middle of the street (basically only wide enough to drive one car through at a time) and the kids flocked to it!  I'm pretty sure I haven't played that much ping pong since I played with my Aunt Helen back in Junior High!  It was so much fun though - and they were GOOD!!  I'm now committed to getting a ping pong table for our training center in NZ!!  We did other things as well with the kids, other games, coloring, putting puzzles together, things you just do as normal kids.  And for a few hours in the afternoons… these children who are surrounded by violence, guns, drugs, and abuse can relax and have some fun.  I loved it!!  I couldn't speak the language, but discovered once again that love is universal… and so is ping pong!  :)

We had a couple of opportunities to do dramas, worship and testimonies in two of the churches within the Favela, as well as doing programs in a local school, and playing soccer with the kids.  What I loved about this part of our outreach was that we were coming along-side the YWAM ministry and opened doors for future teams to come. The leader kept telling us that it didn't even matter if we ever opened our mouths… our presence in the community was making a huge difference.  I liked that.

Mid-week we were asked to come and do something at a creche at the YWAM house.  The children couldn't come in the morning because there was an incident and the level of danger was up in the community to the point where all the schools were shut and the children sent home.  But things lightened up in the afternoon, so here they came… walking down the street single-file with their teacher at the front of the line guiding them to the door.  They were only probably 3-5 years old, and the cutest things you have ever seen!  We found out later that these were the kids of the drug traffickers!  Seriously?!!  I thought that was the greatest thing ever!!  Two of the fathers came and picked up their kids at one point, and the whole thing just made me smile!  The opportunities in having influence in the lives of these precious little ones was so great!!  God is amazing!!!  At first the kids were so quiet and looked so sad… but as we sang songs and started to play with them, they began to smile and laugh a little… and life came back into their eyes.  I couldn't help but think what they must live through in their homes every day.

One of the ways the traffickers communicate with each other is through firecrackers.  For us, the problem was that they sounded a whole lot like gun shots and especially early on, it was very hard to distinguish between the two.  Many went off in the middle of the night, waking us out of a sound sleep.   We had no idea what was going on outside… but as the week progressed, so did the tension.

It was not uncommon to see men walking around with hand guns, M16 assault rifles, and machine guns.  I almost got used to it.  Almost.  :)  The night before we left the police shot and killed one of the main traffickers in the community, and we found out the next day a guy we had met on the street the day before had been beaten up and almost killed because he had decided he didn't want to be a part of all that.  He swears that because of being with our team that day, his life was saved.  Knowing what we know now, I'm sure the Lord not only saved his life, but ours as well.

I'm not gonna lie… I was glad that we were heading out that day.  With tensions growing, I was definitely ready to go.  We got back to the base we were staying at outside the city and the following day was Mother's Day.  We woke up once again to gun shots, explosions, firecrackers, and yelling.  I couldn't believe it!  This place is usually a sleepy little town… and it felt like we were in Bosnia!  What in the world?!  I wondered if this was how they celebrated their mothers here?!  Found out later… there was a soccer game on, and it's how the Brazilians role when it comes to soccer.  HA!  Good grief!!

I believe God used our team that week in so many ways… ways we will probably never know about till Heaven.  I know we were a huge blessing and encouragement to the YWAM base there, and I believe we made some significant connections with people in the community.  I also believe that God used that place to speak to each of us on our team… and I can honestly say we came away from that place realizing how much we were changed by our experiences there.  I personally learned a lot, and thank God for such an amazing opportunity.