WARNING: I received this email (below) while I am here in the USA looking for more sponsors and partners. The content of this email was sent from one of our students in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. It’s raw, in real-time and filled with real pain and will be essentially unedited. Please focus and capture the conflict raging within Eli-Ruama’s heart as our team went out again to the streets of Brazil.
With her permission I am sharing this with you, hoping that it demonstrates why your prayers and financial support is so crucial to our work in Brazil. We are not taking lightly the training we are providing – the world can be a very nasty place… and that is exactly where God has chosen to establish Master's Commission Brasil.
Holding nothing back,
Pastor Richard
Hi PR (Pastor Richard),
Tonight we went out again to pick up trash...it was about 7 p.m. when we left. We wanted to see the nightlife and meanwhile do community service by picking up trash. After all that’s what Jesus called us to do. When we left I prayed this would symbolize a prophetic act. Not only clean the streets, but also clean the hearts of the people that we passed. To impact and change the history of this place; this city.
PR, I am so sad!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So we went out, as you know a beautiful team, with huge dreams and hopes of changing something in our lifetime. We began to pick up anything and everything we saw in front of us. Pastor Joshua planned out our route – what streets we were going to clean. There were a total of four people on my team and while were picking up trash a guy walked out of a bar and asked us why were we doing this. “I see that you are all young”, he said. He excused himself because of me and Adriana (we’re girls), and said, "I know I was drinking and sniffing in the bar, but I was a Christian once, and seeing you guys, so young, and you ladies made me remember how it used to be!” I asked if we could pray for him and he said yes, but he was a little embarrassed because he didn’t want anyone to know that we were praying for him. I asked Bruno to pray for him, and He did. It was awesome. And now he agreed for us to pick him up on Saturday and he will go with us to church. WOW!
We kept going and started cleaning in front of the prostitution houses.... LORD JESUS!!!!!!! OH GOD..., PR it broke my heart...I can't stop crying until now, and when I got home I went to pray and I cried to God about it, but it hurts me so much. As we passed the many prostitution houses, men were walking in and out like they were going into a grocery store. Not one or two, but like 10 and 20 men at a time. It was unbelievable how many men were going in. I am so sorry for being so descriptive right now, but I can imagine how many times those women, some even teenagers younger than me, every night are objects of sexual pleasure to those disgusting men. They weren't even ashamed to leave their wives and families at home to come hurt, abuse and scar those women. PR they walked out of those places smiling and laughing like they just left a soccer stadium and their team won the game. GOD PLEASE FORGIVE ME, because if I could, I would kill them all...I hate them PR....that’s all I could think of. My whole body began to shake, I was so angry.
I continued to pick up trash. I feel fortunate to have had wonderful guys from our team with me. In the terrible environment I felt protected. But sadly I could only imagine how many times those women and girls feel scared and unprotected. ...Oh GOD!!!! I was trying to fight back the tears. But my body couldn't handle seeing all that was happening... Funny because some of the people on the team said to me, "Don't cry now", or "I don't like to see you like this, cheer up".... PR tell me, HOW IN HEAVENS NAME CAN I WALK AROUND SMILING AFTER SEEING THINGS LIKE THAT HAPPENING AROUND ME? Are we supposed to accept this as normal? Please explain this to me!
When we returned to the house one of the staff came to talk with me and I burst into tears...I couldn't hold it anymore, and thankfully I knew he wasn't going to think that I was weird for crying. He asked me how it was on the streets but I couldn't say anything, I could only cry. He said, "It will be ok" and all I could say to him was, "NO IT’S NOT!!!!!" In my mind those women and girls were all still there. Those filthy men were still going in and out of what I hate to call the "sexual abuse house". After a while of mumbling through my tears he finally understood why I was crying and encouraged me by saying that God was breaking my heart by what breaks His. “This is only the beginning of knowing God’s heart.”, he said. After that I went out for a prayer walk and asked God to reveal His heart to me, because I desperately want to know his heart. I enjoyed my time with Abba (God) and He helped me work through my feelings. He’s good. And Now I feel like that song that Brook Fraser sings called Albertine where she sings, "Now that I have seen, I am responsible. Faith without deeds is dead"....
So that is my story for tonight...I am very happy to be able to share this experience with you. I feel like the Holy Spirit is doing His work in my life... and please don’t worry – I’m not going to go back and kill anybody, but I will definitely be praying very differently from now on.
Hurry Back to Brazil – Love you!!!!
Eli-Ruama
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