We carry 'HOPE'

A life to be rescued

I was asked to take a few photos for the blog site on the Rescue Project. I have to say I have no fear of going in and taking photos but I find it a little awkward taking photos where there is so much need and heartache, it is like an invasion of privacy. But to try and capture the reality I will endeavour to take more photos at specific times.

The only time I had available was just after 13.00 hours, generally a time when everybody has had their lunch and will take a nap. The photo here, is of a young lad, at first off you think he has maybe hurt his hand but then watching him for a few seconds you realise he is sniffing. 

It is either thinners (white spirits) or glue for shoes. I decided to approach him and ask if he minded if I take a photo, ‘sure why not’. He looked at me and it was obvious that he was well high, eyes glazed over, head lost in the effects and the warm feeling had brought a smile to his face.

I took the photo chatted a little and as we took off on the motorbike a young man approached surround by a few of his ‘side-kicks’. The guy had or was involved in some of the local gangs, sporting a stump where his hand used to be and a few tattoos for good measure. He throw a bag of marijuana at us, it was a gesture of defiance which I refused to ingratiate with a photo.....sorry....

It is hard not to get emotionally involved, Rebeca my wife always wants to adopt about half the kids at the Living Word School. As I drove away I felt so sad and frustrated, life isn’t meant to be like this!

We will, we are making a difference!

Oh, I could crush a grape!

Progress report! It is amazing how things are going in the New District. The foundations have been laid, and the structure is beginning to take shape.

I have to say I get really excited and nervous at the same time, this is a stupendously massive undertaking the Amazon is one of the most expensive places per meter squared for construction. Why? I hear you ask, everything has to be imported, brought up river. At the moment we are in the rainy season and the area where we are working in the New District is very close to a river, which has caused the road in to become water logged, this has hampered a little the access to the site but not the progress.
We hope to have the Living Word School in the New District open by the end of February 2013. This would be a miraculous feat and we ask that you would partner with us in prayer so that this dream could come to place. I am often surprised at how God raises people up to support the work here in Maues.  One faithful supporter comes from Texas in the USA. I have never preached or had the opportunity to tell of what God is doing in Maues in the States but God put it on a man’s heart to sow back into Brazil. In the morning he was asking God for an opportunity and by the afternoon we had met at the departure lounge of Manaus’s Eduardo Gomes International Airport. How incredible is that! Please pray for the work here in Maues but please also expect and be on the lookout for those doors to be opened and presented to you too. I can’t be everywhere all at once.......I’ve stopped trying too! But we together can get the news out there and be the links that bring it all together.
 

Brick work up to 1.70m

Outlines and trespassing

Foundations and infill......8X57meters

The foundations are already laid and the outline of the school is already beginning to take shape....in my head anyway. It has been tough work and all credit to Gordo and his team as they have worked around the clock (when it isn’t raining). The entrance to the site is over some soft ground which has increased the workload substantially. It means that all the sand has had to be wheel barrowed closer to where the foundations are before the cement is mixed. The bricks had to be left off 100m from where they are going to be used. It is going to be a real lugging match; when it rains, the wheel barrow will be useless and it will be six bricks at a time. I’ve been here before, it is a lot of effort everyday and being on site everyday you can’t see the progress you’ve made. God bless and keep them. We are at the height of the rainy season, the word on the street is that it is going to be worse than 2009. The ‘road’ into the site is nearly impassable; I’m getting passed on my motorbike with a few slips and slides with muddy boots to show! The lorry is only making it in with 2m² of sand and has had to be pulled out several times but we have found a back way into the site which could be the solution.....there might be a question of trespassing....hmmm

Gordo's team

............an idea

THE 'road' IN

Some prices

Bricks              1000 bricks      R$650.00

Cement            42kg bag          R$ 28.00

Iron Rods        12m length        R$ 24.00

Sand                1m²                  R$ 60.00

Gravel             1m²                   R$120.00

Labour             Gordo+team    R$6,000.00

1^st phase Construction up to the ceiling level R$30,000

GORDO!

GORDO

I have known Gordo for nine years. He is a builder here in Maues and is very fast and efficient at building walls, houses.......you name it! Gordo has been contracted to do the first stage of the school’s construction, leaving the shell of the school erected at ceiling height ready to receive the roofing.

Gordo marked out the site and on the Sunday a team of men from the church dug 60X60X60cm foundation holes for the base supports. It was heavy and hot work as it has been raining all week but the comradery and the sense of fun has made the hand blistering work pass quicker than otherwise.

blisteringly good fun

diesel power

It is incredible to stand here in the heat with the sweat running down my back and smell the diesel fumes as this mechanical beast makes short work of the top soil and overgrowth. In such a short space of time half the land, it is a massive area but it is only half of the land has been cleared.

First things first

The church leaders met together on the Sunday morning before myself and Tinho headed to Manaus on route to the U.K. to walk over the land which has been purchased, to pray, to praise, to prophecy and to thank God.

Someone asked me, what about money to build?

My reply was quite straight forward; you don’t need money to start. It doesn’t cost you money to clear the overgrowth, to mark the boundaries or to even start to dig the founds......just man power and muscle, which, Praise God, we have a church of young vibrant men and woman who have earned an experience within the last year in construction and community work-force.

Already the Bank of Brazil which is in reform has paid men to but their rubble on a truck and send it to our land....... God is great!

Pastor Tinho and myself do not receive a wage from the Living Word Church. All the tithes and offerings from the church go to support the upkeep of the church, towards the Living Word School and an honorary wage to Pastora Gloria who came to the Amazon over 40 years ago and with her husband Luiz started the work which later became the Living Word Church. Because of the growth of the church and new increased support coming in from the U.K. there was just under £10,000 in the church funds.

With these funds the start of the construction phase was able to get underway, sand, cement, bricks, timber and gravel purchased.

But the reality is we are going to need plenty of money not just to build the school but also to equip it and maintain it.

We know that when God builds the house the labours don’t labour in vain. We are rest assured that somehow God is going to miraculously do the impossible once again.

No Ishmael's please

Not this land!

As the end of 2011 approached myself and Tinho had a trip planned to the U.K. in November. Tinho had started praying into the New District as early as 2009 and even though land seemed to escape us, we had plenty to be getting on with in the church, the school, and now even more excitingly for me, outreach to the riverbank people. Yet we felt once again impressed that we would be going to the U.K. having bought ‘the land’.  We even got to the stage of considering buying land 10X20m just to start, knowing that we had to start at some stage.

Then one night the week before we left for the U.K. Tinho woke up early in the night with a burden to pray for ‘the land’. God spoke to him clearly and told him he was praying for the wrong land and he was to pray for the land he had first liked when he had entered the New District. Tinho decided to pray, the lady who owned the land said she wasn’t selling and she also didn’t live in Maues anymore. In the morning Tinho sent someone to inquire of the lady…lo and behold, wasn’t she in Maues and said she was willing to sell the land for R$8,000, Tinho said he would give her seven. I had gotten a phone call in the morning telling me to pray and then a phone call saying that yes the lady was willing to sell the land but Tinho had offered her seven. I couldn’t believe it, I remember telling him that God had been so good and the price was so good how could he even imagine not to accept and barter! He smiled and said it was his business nature coming out! By the end of the day the lady accepted R$7,000.00 (approx £2,400.00). Her son who was looking after the deal, said he would measure the land which they thought was about 40X60m we were ecstatic with delight. When her son came back after measuring the land he said that the measurement was wrong, that the land was actually about 100mX80m. We were completely blown away. This was a massive piece of land, at a just price for the area but WOW, what was God up to, this was enormous. We knew God had a plan, we felt we were being big in our vision but after the closure we realized that His plans are even greater than ours and that quite possible we had only been given a glimpse……the whole picture would have been too scary!

A journey through waiting

2010 soon ended and as we entered 2011 we appeared to be no further along. I had put pencil to paper with various sketches on possible designs. We felt that we were to first build a school, having  years of experience under our belts and use this as a launch pad into the community with further phases to reach the youth and also the adults.

The Living Word Benefit Foundation was voted a Public Utility by the Borough Council and there was a hope that maybe land in the middle of the New District would be allocated to the Foundation to establish the Rescue Project. Plans were submitted for the 60X80m area but as time went by we continued to trust in God alone.

We need land which could facilitate the building of a school, play area and also with room for future development. As I drove about the New District my attention was drawn to a lovely piece of land which already had a wall around it, the land was about 30X40m and it seemed to be everything we were dreaming.

Yet the land was overpriced at a staggering R$30,000. We kept praying and looking…….other lands became available and slipped away as land prices began to sore throughout Maues. As God was answering prayers by sending in more professionals, a new hospital was built, meat prices and land prices began to go through the roof, even in the poorest areas, people were hoping to get rich fast!

NON-sense

I love to get things done, I love working and sweating away knowing that we’re accomplishing something. Basically I love results but I also like things in order, I don’t like too many loose ends or airy-fairyness.

We knew God had spoken and we knew that God brings things about, HE is amazing at bringing people, finance all the finer details together.

Some people think I am a risk taker, maybe I am, maybe I am not! personally I don’t think I am, I like to get confirmation before leaping....so maybe I am not a risk taker, just someone who has decided to try and trust God when He speaks, knowing that if I get it wrong God knows my heart and would rather we try than sit on the fence in fear or indifference.
For those of you who know me, you will know that my heart isn’t into building empires or buildings but the Kingdom of God. However I felt God really impressing on me that we will build in one of the poorest areas of Maues a school come resource centre which will be instrumental in bringing the Good News into this area.

But logically it didn’t make much sense, we had only just started receiving the monthly support need to see the Living Word School’s needs met. How could we even dare to dream let alone plan on building anything else when we were and still are so far removed from the reality of financial independence.

getting it a bit tight!

Deeper behind the curtain......

two school girls having fun....

Today I got a phone call from the Headmistress of the one of the State School, (they tend to ring me when they are desperate, and an unfortunate truth, but we are getting there). I met later on in the day with the Headmistress along with Rebeca, the headmistress wants us to do a talk or seminar for 300 students at once! An interactive in the morning and then repeat the same thing for another 300 students in the afternoon and return to coming in monthly if possible.

What prompted the phone call.........
A mum came into the school explaining a situation with her two daughters. The two daughters have fallen into bad company. The other night she awoke at 02.00 hours to find that her daughters weren’t in the house. When she looked outside she saw her son and enquired of him where his sisters where. He said that they had slipped out at 11pm saying that they would be back quickly but still hadn’t returned. The mum hoped on their motorbike and headed out to find her daughters. Her first stop was a local nightclub, but the girls weren’t there, however she was informed that they might be at a certain house. This house is used as a place for underage sex and drugs, it even has a system of surveillance with a red light flashing on when the ‘place’ is open. Arriving there the mother was told that no her daughters weren’t there either but was told to go to another similar set up.

On arrival at the next ‘house’ the mother was prevented from entering though was able to see mattress over the available floor space with many young girls, lying, semi naked, spaced out on drugs and being used for sex. She was told that her daughters had been there but had already left............

Maybe this sounds like something you would only see in films or on TV. But this is the frightening reality of the dark side of Maues. This is why your prayers and support are so needed..........

behind closed doors........

A glimpse into the New District

Youth doing outreach........

Last week, was our third week of the youth doing street outreach around different parts of Maues. This time we were in the ‘New District’ (Bairro Novo in Portuguese). This is where we want to buy land and build another school and get a foothold into this area.

Thursday night was a great night and really highlighted the need and dangers of this area. We set up a flood lamp on a street corner where a couple from the church live and have a ‘cell group’. The format was very simple, praise, worship a word of testimony, prayer and an appeal. Rebeca was uncertain as to what kind of church support we would get, as this district is one of the furthest from the church building and one if not the most dangerous. But we were pleasantly surprised when many people showed up to help and support.

The area where we set up is the last street of that section of the neighbourhood and is a very ‘active area’ with young guys passing with ‘stones’ (crack wrapped in small bundles) in hand. People coming into the area to buy, many young girls coming and going.

Some of the guys who were setting up the flood lamp and some balloons were questioned as to who had given them permission to enter ‘their area’. Later on in the night a young man came up to me presenting himself as the ‘head’ of that section of the district. He was high on drugs and sniffing glue as he told me that he was armed (though this was apparent due to the pistol in his waist band). He also wanted money, though I refused him explaining why we had come and what we were about. Many of the neighbourhood came out to participate and listen and when asked if there were any who wanted prayer, many raised their hands. A lady committed her life to the Lord and was introduced to the couple who live in the area.

On the Saturday night at the ‘cell’ group six people came along to the ‘cell’ group as a direct result of the youth’s street outreach.

On Sunday we got a reminder again of the constant gang and tribal warfare that we often don’t see (because we are in bed!). The lorry picking up people to go to church stopped off in one district before going into the Barrio Novo, unfortunately it was stoned as the people crossed unwritten boundary lines from one district into another. This is a very simple reason to go into an area, because many of them can’t venture out without fear of reprisals, beatings or even being murdered.

'take land'

'get into the car'

At the start of 2010 I was really impacted by God when He told me we had to ‘take land’ in the New District of Maues. I remember saying to God, “God, we have taken the land, we have prayer walked, we have spoken your word over the land, and we have even done prophetic actions over the land”. I am a little slow sometimes but thankfully God kept on repeating the same thing ‘take land’, until the realization of what He was directing became clear. We were to actually ‘take land’; we were to buy land in the New District Area in Maues.
My dad always says ‘you are the sum total of your experiences’! and I was always taught to say, “I feel God is saying this…..” because at least you can be corrected, instead of  “God says…….” Speaking as if you are the ALMIGHTY himself! Yet I was so shocked and impacted by what I knew to be true, that I hopped on my motorbike and went to Tinho’s house.
Tinho, Tinho, we need to buy land in the New District. It felt like real cloak and dagger stuff as Tinho (a man of few words….unless he is behind the pulpit) said get into the car! As we drove out of his house, I was filled with excitement, where were we going; this was a real bizarre reaction from Tinho. Tinho drove into the New District area and began to point out land that was for sale, over the whole area. He explained that he too felt that we (and when I say we, I am talking about the church/living word foundation) were to buy land in the area and had been praying and research which land was available.
I have to say I was delighted at the confirmation and it is reassuring to know that God is one step ahead (or completely ahead!).

......a very good place to start

The Living Word Church in Maues, Amazonas, Brazil

I been asked lots of questions about the Rescue Project and I am sure will be asked many more! So I decided to tell the story from the start……
I have taken excerpts from prayer letters, e-letters and some emails to give you a surround sound experience!
At the start of 2010 I was praying and fasting, seeking God for His direction. I have a real heart to reach the people who live in the riverbank bank communities dotted in isolated areas around the Amazon, yet so far have had little contact and established very little relationships in this area.
My brother-in-law Gualter (Tinho), the Senior Pastor of the Living Word Church has a real vision to see those living in Maues come into a real and dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ as their Saviour.
Over the last 8 years we have been working side by side in Maues, seeing many souls being won for Christ. God has put on our hearts different strategies to win people for the Lord building relationships and producing disciples of Christ. We have seen the church grow from 20 members to 200 with a total of around 500+ involved in the cell groups over the last 6 years.
One of the strategies have been the Living Word School, which sees 100 children from the ages of 4-6years old taught how to read and write, taught the word of God every day and also receive His love manifested through the staff where the uniforms, materials, food, dental treatment and much more is all given freely. These 100 children are equated also to another 100 doors to knock, homes to visit, relationships established and opportunities for transformation POWER.
Another strategy are the cell groups where people are invited to homes throughout the city to talk, hear, Praise God in a friendly atmosphere, where ‘cell’ groups establish …….of love and care, winning hearts for Jesus.

a practical demonstration of God's love...

the Living Word School......