Breaking a cycle of violence

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, August 14th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: bringing the gospel to children in the slums of Brazil.

More than 60 percent of Brazilian children live in poverty. That’s 32 million boys and girls. Drug dealers often control the slums known in Brazil as “favelas” where many of the children live. Christian missionaries trying to help often find they have to navigate those complex, sometimes dangerous environments.

EICHER: How can missionaries break through and help the children? WORLD senior writer Emma Freire has the story.

AUDIO: [FELIPE ANNOUNCES SNACK TIME IN PORTUGUESE]

EMMA FREIRE: It's snack time in a southern Sao Paulo favela. A group of 25 children sit around plastic folding tables in a tiny shopfront. They've been there all afternoon and they're hungry.

MATIAS: Senhor meu deus Muito obrigado por essa tarde muito legal (Lord God, thank you for this great afternoon.)

Felipe Matias leads them in prayer.

MATIAS: Em nome de Jesus Amen Amen! Amen Amen! Quem gosta de guaraná? (who likes guaraná)

KIDS: eu! (me)

The snack consists of cookies and Guarana, a popular soda in Brazil.

After snacks, it’s time to go home.

MATIAS: Ciao, ciao, gente (bye bye everyone)

The children chant a Brazilian rhyme as they walk.

AUDIO: [KIDS CHANTING]

Brazilian born Matias has been a missionary for 20 years. But he started this outreach, Ministerio Evangelico Lighthouse, about a year ago. It operates after-school programs that include singing, games, and Bible stories several times a week. He and his American wife, Laura, also teach some basic English. The children especially love that.

LAURA: There’s not anything very systematic. But just teaching them English here and there. They like to show that they can remember certain things. God is so good. And then we apply that in other ways like: the soccer team is so good. Corinthians is so good. Sao Paulo is so bad. Things like that. That’s very big here in Brazil, the different soccer teams in the city.

When he first became a missionary, Matias thought he would work somewhere other than Brazil. But then he saw the pressing needs of favela children in his homeland.

MATIAS: And those kids are not very cute. They're not very nice, you know. They can be quite rough, you know. So quite rejected by outsiders. And so I thought, yeah, I think I want to work with these kids. They seem to need the gospel. They need Christ.

Favelas are usually controlled by drug dealers who act like an alternative form of government with their own code of laws. Stealing within the favela is a capital offense.

MATIAS: So several times we have kids that were sentenced to death, and they ran to us and we rushed them out of the favelas. And because they rushed to us first, the drug dealers: okay, you know, like, they're with you. We're not gonna do nothing, as long as you move them out of the favela, and they never come back.

Matias has never had any trouble with the drug dealers himself.

MATIAS: They know that we are against what they're doing. But yet they send their brothers, their sisters, their nephews, to come and participate in our programs.

But he’s still cautious. After the program for the children wraps up, we walk together along a nearby street.

AUDIO: [INTRODUCTION TO BOY]

He asked a teenage boy he knows to walk with us—and help us blend in—as we pass a group of drug dealers.

MATIAS: I called the boy just in case. They were like right there. A big group of drug dealers right there. So I’m like, Ok, walk with me dude. Usually that’s a safer call.

Many of the boys he works with are at risk of becoming drug dealers themselves.

MATIAS: Usually they come from this family. The mother has five, four kids. They all live in the same little room. And most of the kids come from different fathers, so they don't have this father figure in their lives. So the boys are looking for that.

All the boys dream of becoming professional soccer players. But when that doesn’t work out, they see drug dealing as a way of earning money.

MATIAS: Many of the boys, they end up going towards the life of drug dealing very early ages. Some kids started to work, doing small jobs for them when they are eight or nine, and then later they develop to do more real work for the drug dealing cartel gangs.

The girls follow a different path. They often give birth to their first child early - sometimes as young as 13. And the cycle starts all over again.

The children in the favela have significant practical needs and Matias works hard to help. But spiritual needs come first.

MATIAS: My first priority is to preach the gospel. I've seen a lot of people do that. They want to do social work first and maybe preach the gospel later. If, you know, there's even a place for that, you know. And to me, I enjoy missions, to preach the gospel, to preach Christ and Him crucified and that’s a priority for me. And everything else comes under that.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Emma Freire in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

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