Rachel's Report

Rachel, who visited us recently from the U.K.

I think one of the most profound experiences I had when learning what life’s like for someone out here was whilst helping carry out research in the new district with the youth of the church. It was here I was really able to get an insight, first hand of what life is like for many in Maues. I was particularly moved and struck by one man in particular. His name was Philipi and he welcomed us into his yard, pulling up a bench for us to sit with him. Next to him lay his sick wife in a hammock, unable to get up and walk but for whom the doctors had no answers. Intermittently, he would stretch his arm so as to comfort her with a gentle swing. He spoke of his life, that eight people lived in his house (by comparison to many I spoke with – that was quite a low figure) unable to find work, that he moved here in search of education for his children, that his neighbourhood was full of violence, drugs, and how he’s done what he can to teach his children a good way to live. Then the final blow came when he described how he watched his own son murdered in front of his house and the police do nothing. I was horrified.

But it was at this point that I began to get excited.  I don’t mean that in an awful way and so as one to disregard this poor man’s tragedy, but I began to get excited about the fact that God WILL be glorified in all this. Philipi has been disappointed by many people, by false promises made my different political parties, disappointed by the police who don’t seem to intervene on behalf of the weak, doctors who seem to have no cures.  But I began to realise that the raising of the new school/ community centre that God’s put on the heart of Marty is a promise to these people that WILL be fulfilled. And in that, it can only speak hope, and of a God who will not forsake you. This man still seemed to find it hard to believe that the school was going to materialise, even as we showed him the pictures of its foundations. But I’m excited for him and that in the not too distant future his life and that of his family WILL be transformed by the expression of God’s love – shown through Marty and the church who seem to be tirelessly doing all they can to advance the Kingdom of God, reaching the poor and defending the weak.

Philipi and his wife!