In Retrospect

Spend your life doing strange things with weird people.

I'm using this photo instead of the ones taken on my DTS outreach as I'm not sure where they've been stored

So 2019 has just ended and with it the 2010s. It leaves us walking into a new year and a new decade. So many changes have happened. Twelve months can change a person in so many ways, ten years change you beyond recognition. I know I could give you a run down of the last ten years but I doubt you'd find that very interesting. Instead I want to share a story that I'll never be able to forget.

São Paulo Slum

Back in December 2012, I traveled to São Paulo as part of a DTS* outreach team, from a YWAM base in the Netherlands. We spent three weeks in this beautiful and vibrant city. Whilst we were there we went down to this favela (Portuguese: 'slum') that had sprung up in this massive building. People were living in ramshackle wooden houses built in and around this building. In the midst of it was this little church ran by two women. The community were reluctant to have another YWAM** team come in as they'd had a bad experience previously, so when they heard we wanted to come they gave us a few conditions (one of which was no cameras). So we spent much of the three weeks we were there trying to win the people over and show them God's love.

There was one man, who I will never forget as long as I live, who's wife had been shot on Christmas Eve and killed in front of their home; I'm not sure why she was shot and we were never told who had done it. He was obviously traumatized by it, and what made it harder for him was that the social workers stepped in and fostered out three of his four children (all of whom were under ten). We wanted to help. So we went round with the ladies to see if we could help him clean up his little house. To begin with, he refused as he was afraid we'd steal from him. The ladies persuaded him that we wanted to help him and that we weren't going to steal anything. I remember clearly that this man was very drunk and laying on this mattress, with cockroaches and other insects crawling about. So we spent three days cleaning his little home from top to bottom. To begin with, he just watched us, and on the final day he joined us with cleaning and organizing. The social workers did come round to see him and discovered him cleaning his little home with us. This reflected well on him, in their eyes. One thing I'll never forget is hearing this scream, towards the end of the afternoon, and went to investigate, only to discover that this man had just discovered a cockroach. Even though this man had lost his wife and ended up turning his life around because we'd helped him. He went to rehab and he got his three younger children back. Just knowing that God had used us in this man's life, and the lives of his children, has impacted me so much. The community ended up deciding that we were much different from the previous team and allowed us to take photos on the last day. They also allowed other DTS teams to come in and work with them in the years after my DTS left.

*Discipleship Training School

**Youth With A Mission

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Post Script

I am planning to write a few other, more recent stories over the next few weeks and months as a reflection of what God has been and is doing in my life. Life is a journey and sometimes we don't always see what God is doing in the lives of the people we encounter and encourage. Though on occasion, we do. The story I shared here is one such story. Please take it as an encouragement.