"We are not in Texas anymore!", I recalled one of our team members
remarking as our mission team sat in a church in the heart of Rio de
Janiero, Brazil trying to make sense of the crazy events of the past
three days. We were getting some counsel from two different Brazilian
pastors concerning two hair-raising experiences since we had arrived in
Rio four days earlier. The first occurred following a Sunday night
worship service in the small Juaniza favela (Brazilian slum).
We
had divided our mission team into two groups for worship at two
different churches. The larger group went with pastor Daniel Camaforte
to his church in the favela. We were doing most of our work with his
church. I kept a smaller group with me as I was preaching in the church
which was our lodging for the week, located closer to the downtown
area.
The team at Pastor Daniel's church had a great worship
service and were fellowshipping with the members of the church outside
in the courtyard beside the main road of the favela when the Rio police
drove into the favela. All of a sudden, shots began to ring out coming
from the drug gang in the favela directed at the police. The church
members were suddenly in the crossfire of a shootout between police and
the drug gang.
Pastor Daniel quickly and calmly urged
everyone back into the church. He directed all of our team into a back
room to avoid being hit by stray bullets and waited for the shooting to
die down. During a lull he tried to get our team to leave but the
shooting started once again, and so the team returned to the
room. Finally the shooting stopped and Pastor Daniel got our team back
on the bus and walked down a couple of blocks beside the bus to the exit
of the favela to make sure we were safe.
You can imagine how
disturbed and worked up everyone was when they returned to the church
where we were staying. Two of the young ladies explained that they had
just returned from the small store a couple of blocks from the church
before the shooting occurred. If the police had come in a minute or too
sooner, they would have been right in the middle of the shootout.
Needless
to say, our team spent a restless night but got back to work the next
day doing some construction on the church in the favela and ministering
to children.
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| Grace Point mission team to Rio |
We made it
back to the bus where we met the rest of the team. There I found out
what had happened. Those that were in the magazine stand said a young
Brazilian man was in the stand with them. He pulled out a gun and shot
the manager in the chest and took off running. They didn't know exactly
why he had shot the manager, perhaps he had been caught stealing
something. But you can imagine how distraught they were. One of the
ladies on the team who was in the magazine stand just wanted to go
home. She had been involved in two shootings within days of the mission
trip.
We had planned to go to
another favela to do a sports camp with kids that afternoon. But the
shootings had unnerved the team to the extent I thought it best to take
the afternoon off and allow the team to process what had happened and
pray. I asked both the pastors, the pastor of the church in which we
were staying and Pastor Daniel from the favela to talk to the team to
help us understand what had happened. It was interesting the different
perspectives from the pastors. The pastor of the church where we were
staying, which was in an upper income area of Rio, was very surprised at
what had happened. He said he had lived in Rio a long time and never
had witnessed anything like this. Pastor Daniel, on the other hand,
said it occurred all the time in the favela and it was something that
those who lived in the favela dealt with on a regular basis. He assured
us that God was in control but that we should realize that we were in a
dangerous place.
We prayed a long time and then talked about
how none of us had been injured, that God had protected us. We prayed
for the man that had been shot and later heard that he was in critical
but stable condition. We prayed for the people in the favela, for
Daniel's church members who lived in the danger zone. We prayed that
our mission would not be deterred, that fear would not cause us to
divert what we were called to do in Rio.
That night our plan
was to go to the Favela in which we were to work in that afternoon,
where I was to preach. I told the team that I was going to go and
anyone that wanted could go with me but if there were any that felt
uncomfortable, they could stay behind. Everyone would understand. All
but a couple of the team went with me. We had a tremendous service
where I challenged the men to step out and lead their families and the
church. Afterward the pastor of the church took us to a house which had
an open porch that overlooked the city of Rio. A lot of the favelas as
this one are built on the side of the mountain. The view was
unbelievable. The pastor introduced us to a man who had once been a
drug lord and sold drugs from this very spot. The former drug dealer
explained that had given his life to Jesus Christ and walked away from
his old lifestyle and now led a Bible study on this porch where he once
sold drugs.
The pastor then asked me, "Pastor John, would you
like to meet the Drug Lord of this favela?" The question caught me
somewhat by surprise. My wife, Barbara was with me and I glanced over
at her to get an idea of what she thought about this. I could tell she
was very concerned but she gave the approval, saying "I understand, it
is up to."
I looked over the team and asked Nick, one of our
young guys if he wanted to go. He agreed and we took off along with the
pastor, our Brazilian guide,Cesar and a female translator. There are
no roads in the favela, just a small path up through the
neighborhood. It was dark and very creepy, the only light coming from
inside the houses. We would stop from time to time to visit with the
neighbors as we made our way up the mountain.
After some
time we stopped to talk to some men that were sitting on a porch
alongside the pathway. They were dressed in army camouflage, three on
the porch with several others hanging out behind them. I leaned over
and asked our translator if this was the man. She said yes, he is the
Drug Lord. I still remember his name, Carlos Gabriella, and he was much
younger than I anticipated, in his mid twenties.
I was
introduced to him and I began to tell him about our interesting
adventures with bullets and shootings. As I told about the shooting of
the magazine stand manager, he looked very agitated and indicated he
would like to find the man who did the shooting and deliver the
punishment. I was to learn that the drug gangs acted as the police of
most of the favelas. They keep order and control over their
neighborhoods.
I remember talking to him about King David of
the Bible and how David was a leader but was not a perfect man. In
spite of his sin and shortcomings as King, the bible said he was a man
after God's own heart. I told him that I realized he was the leader of
this favela and I urged him to be a leader like David. I encouraged him
to be a man after God's own heart, that God would forgive him of his
sins if he just asked. I asked if I could pray for him and he said
yes. I put my hand on his shoulder and prayed for him. I was told he
had just become a new father and so I prayed for his new baby boy. A
funny thing was that the translator told me that Carlos' baby was a
girl, not a boy, but she had translated girl for me! Whew. Thanks for
catching my mistake!
As I think back, this was an incredible
opportunity to speak not only to Carlos but to all those who were around
listening in. This would have been lost if we had decided not to go
back into the favela because of the shooting. And the shootings
actually gave me a story to sort of break the ice with the Drug Lord.
I
recalled the words I spoke in a sermon recently which so applied to
this mission. "God has prepared you for something great and He wants to
be your guide. And If you are not pursuing a dangerous quest with your
life, well, then you don’t need a guide. If you’ve settle in your mind
to live as though this is a fairly neutral world and you are simply
trying to live your life as best you can, then you can probably get by
with the Christianity of tips and techniques. But if you intend to live
in the Story that God is telling, and if you want the life he offers,
then you are going to need more than a handful of principles. You are
going to need a guide. There are too many twists and turns in the road
ahead, too many ambushes waiting only God knows where, there is just too
much at stake for the enemy. 'Narrow is the way', said Jesus. How shall
we be sure to find it? We need God intimately, and we need him
desperately." We certainly needed to to rely upon Him totally this week
in Rio!
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