Dearest Friends,
URGENT NEED!!!
Imagine a little 9 or 10 year old girl in Rio selling herself on the street. The price is 50 cents or simply something to eat. By the time these little girls are 13, they are mothers. Some have parents whose extreme poverty and lack of faith motivates them to ask there little daughters to do this. Many are street children and are just doing the best they can, trying to survive another miserable day. Many foreign visitors come to Rio just to take advantage of these children.
Imagine having grown up in a Christian orphanage in Rio and celebrating your 13th birthday. On that day or within the year, you will be told that you must leave the orphanage. The government of Brazil has decided that 13 or 14 is old enough for a child to survive on their own. Of course this is not true, but it is what happens to orphans across Rio both in Christian and other kinds of orphanages. Christians take many of these children into their homes, but the director of an orphanage admitted that many go to the streets. Most will die by 17 0r 18. It is a hard, short life.
We have an opportunity to touch the lives of these children. Our plan is to partner with a conservative Presbyterian Seminary, where Baptist, Presbyterians, and many other evangelicals study. This school is full of Brazillian men who are willing to go into the worst places and share hope with the children. We must train and equip them.
More as they go they will see the problems clearly and hopefully can involve their churches. If you do not see a problem, you will not seek to solve it. We hope that these men´s involvement with the children though ministry will birth new ministries aimed at helping these little ones have hope!
Also, as these men work in difficult places, they will learn to look for these same hard places across Brazil. They will seek out these places and their people will grow from learning to serve in the dark areas. Many churches will potentially be more effective for the kingdom because they have this opportunity for training.
We need a church to adopt this project in their budget for spring of 2007. The $5,500 we are asking for will cover the place travel of Sam Shaw (Assistant Director of The Agape Puppets) and myself to Rio. More, it will enable us to place over $2,500 of puppet equipment and story telling supplies in thier hands.
It will cover the cost of bringing Faby and Gerson, our Brazillian Directors to Rio. They will bring with them two more puppeteers and another translator, Silvana. Also, we will use part of the money to buy the training supplies that we will need to teach the seminary students and cover our food costs.
What is our plan? We want to spend a week training and equiping Seminary students in Rio. We want to do many evangelistic outreaches with them so that they can learn how to best share Jesus with the children. We want to touch the lives of these little ones that are not seen or loved. This week we will share with thousand of children and more will continue to hear when we go home.
Will some church please adopt this project as a mission outreach for 2007.
Please pray as we only have two remaining days of ministry and we want to love many children in His name!
In Jesus,
Linda for
Sam
Lisa
Hadia
Gerson
Faby