Update from Brazil

Many of you who have been friends of the Belo-Beaver partnership will recognize the names of Junio and Wellington, the sons of João and Silvia Bessa.  João is an elder at Igreja Presbiteriana.  He and Silvia moved to Favela da Ventosa not long after they left their home and family in the interior in search of the better life they have yet to find.  Junio is now 18, Wellington is 16 and their younger sister, Kelly, is 12.  The children know no other life than life in the favela. 

Several years ago, João and his friend Nilson opened a small cabinet shop just outside the favela.  The shop is called Armários Scott Bliss for the kindness of Park’s Scott Bliss who provided the seed money to open the business.  João makes enough as a craftsman to provide for the essentials for his family, but little more.  The Bessas cannot afford to leave their small house in the favela, maybe 400 square feet behind an iron gate off one of the narrow alleys of Ventosa.  

I have known João and his family for seven years and Becky and I count João and Silvia as particular friends.  They are among what those of the upper classes in Brazil call the simple people, and the worlds we live have little in common.  But we have shared their hospitality, especially Silvia’s best-in-all-Brazil pão do queijo, and their good fellowship.  We have laughed with them and we have cried with them. 

Kelly, the youngest, has always been a happy child, delighting in the company of her friends at the church and with a creative streak Becky likes to indulge with small craft projects whenever we visit.  

Wellington is the best known to Park people of the three Bessa kids.  He has an infectious smile and an impish personality.  For a couple of years he has played too close to the drug trafficking and violence that snares too many boys and young men in the favela.  But he also loves nothing more than making a kite out of a discarded shopping bag and flying it high above the favela in Ventosa’s namesake wind. 

Junio, the oldest, is quieter and more serious than his brother.  He escapes the dreariness of his life through books and his favorite is “Senor do Aneis,” The Lord of the Rings.  Junio, too, has, in the past, fallen into the traps set by the drug lords, but had escaped and was growing in his faith, knowing that he, like the heroes of Tolkien’s saga, was called to a battle against evil.    

Unfortunately, I received this note from our friend Emerson (Nilcéia’s husband) today: Não sei se alguém daqui já te falou, mas é necessário orar pelos filhos do João Bessa, Junio e Wellington, pois infelizmente eles se envolveram com o mundo das drogas e agora, somente pela graça de Deus para eles se libertarem dessa.  (I don’t know if anyone here has already told you, but we must pray for Junio and Wellington, João Bessa’s sons.  Sadly, they are involved in the drug world and now only by God’s grace towards them will they be delivered.) 

We should join Emerson and others in praying for Junio and Wellington – and João and Silvia.  Pray, too, for our mission team.  We will be in Belo Horizonte in a little over three weeks.  God has used Park people for his good purposes in Favela da Ventosa in the past, maybe again.