North East Trip January 2009

Wow. I don’t even know where to start. The last month has been so full of so much!!! I left January 5th with 40 other exchange students from all over the world to travel by buss up the beautiful north east coast of Brasil. It was amazing. I could write a book telling about all the places we went to, all the things we did and all the places we saw. But I don’t want to bore you with lots of random details.

We started our trip with a 8 hour bus ride to Rio de Janeiro. Our time there consisted of visiting “O Cristo Redentor”, the statue of Crist over looking the city; “Pão de Açúcar”, a mountain that looks like a loaf of bread; “Praia Copacabana”, the most famous beach in Rio; and more. Rio is a very beautiful city geographically but it is also full of slums and poverty. We took a tour through a Favela (slum) called the Rocinha. It is the largest Favela in Brasil. It contains over 150,000 people. A couple days later we watched a movie showing the drug violence in the Favelas in Rio de Janeiro. It is really scary and sad at the same time. As we entered the Rocinha we had to open our windows of the tour bus. Later I found out that we did that people the drug traffickers are looking at every person, every car that enters to Favela. To enter with shut windows can be very dangerous. The drug traffickers have to make sure you aren’t the police entering. Yes, there is police in the Favelas, but they do nothing. There are many different levels of police in Brasil. This kind has the lowest salary from the government so they make deals with the drug dealers not do anything to them if the traffickers will pay the police. Its really a sad and corrupt place. This tour and movie that we watched really made an impression on many people. Its hard to see the how hard, violent, and dangerous the reality of so many people in Brasil is.

After Rio we cruised our way up the coast visiting some of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen in my life! We went to one beach the I especially loved. It was located close to a city called Itacaré. Our hotel was outside the city and situated literally on the beach. There were a couple small houses next to us and that was it. The beach was almost empty, with flat glistening sands, and clean water. At night time the water reseeded a good 50 feet. The moon shimmered on the glass like sand and softly rolling waves. A cool wind skidded over the water and swept through the palm trees. It was the most beautiful beach I have ever seen or experienced. We would stay out on the beach until 1 or 2 am. Most of the students would all hang out together playing truth or dare or something like that. I liked to just go off on my own walk down the beach and use that time to pray or sing. It was a great time just to spend with God. It had been really hard during the trip to get some good time with God. This was actually one of the hardest parts of the trip for me. At times I felt very alone, very secluded. I had no Christian fellowship, I was surrounded by tons of worldliness all the time. I felt very alone and very pulled down many times. On top of that I barely had any time to spend in the Word or to journal. It was an exhausting time. But those couple nights on that beach really was a blessing. I could walk and talk out loud to God. I used to do that back home when I sat in the hot tub but here in Brasil, I barely have the opportunity to do that. I love talking to God out loud, like He was a person walking on the beach next to me. I poured out my struggles, my hurts, my weaknesses, my gratefulness, my awe. It was an amazing time.

As time went on, I started to feel a little less and less secluded. There was always a point of loneliness I felt because of the spiritual barrier, but I started to become better friends with lots of the girls there and even had a great conversation about Jesus with one girl who believes a lot of the same things that I believe. We became really close over the this trip and I am so excited to be able to hang out with her more and have more conversations with her!

Well when we arrived in Recife, I had the opportunity to visit a little girl named Jenyffer Vitoria. She is 6 years old and lives in a Favela in Recife. She is my compassion sponsor child. I have sponsored her since this last summer and was so excited when I heard our trip was passing through the city that she lives in! It was a very short visit, but an amazing one too. Around 7 pm 3 people from the Compassion Project picked me and Tiago (one of the group leaders) up to go to meet Vitoria at her house. In the car they showed me pictures of the project and told me all about it. It is based in a Baptist church where they help out over 270 children. Three times a week these children meet at the church to play games, learn how to read, get Biblical training, participate in theater and music, receive two full meals, and so much more! It really is an amazing project. I arrived at Vitoria’s house and her whole family was there. Her house was for sure small, but it wasn’t as bad as many of the other people who live in that community. Vitoria has asthma so she was coughing a lot and not feeling that great, but she was so sweet! She was very shy and nervous I could tell. I only got to stay for about 45 minutes but those short minutes that a world of difference. It was so amazing. She is so real to me now. Vitoria used to be a picture on a piece of paper. But now she is a little girl, someone who I actually know and who is so precious and who is gaining so much through this amazing organization Compassion. It even made a huge impact in Tiago, he was very impressed with the whole thing.

All in all, it was an amazing trip. Yes, there were some hard lonely times, but I came out of it with some great friends. I’ve been learning, through my time in Brasil and especially this trip, that Christianity isn’t as black and white as it seams. Being in situations like this has forced me to consider and ask question about what I really believe. When I was surrounded by Christians all the time the answers seamed obvious. But through this experience, I have been brought back to basic questions of the faith. I have to know what I believe and why I believe it. I have been growing a lot, but also coming out of it with more and more questions. Yes there are some black and white parts to Christianity, but it certainly isn’t all that way. Christianity is hard when put into practice in the real world. I will continue to do my best to search the scriptures for answers and seek counsel from trustworthy people, but I also will rest in the fact that I am human and will never understand everything. It’s a good thing He is God and not me…

Please continue to pray for strength and wisdom and that I would grow deeper and deeper in love with God as these last 4 months go by. Yes I have been here for 6 months already! I cannot believe it…I think I will be here for about 4 more. I would also appreciate prayer as I am entering University Monday the 9th. I have no idea what to expect yet, I will find out classes and everything on Thursday. Thanks for your prayers and please leave a comment,

:-)

-Hope