I’m writing this blog post from Rio de Janeiro where I’m currently visiting Casa Cruzeiro, a discipleship house based in one of the favelas above the city. I’m here with Andrew Shore from the Commission church in Porto, Portugal who helpfully also speaks Portuguese and has been here several times before.
The team at Casa Cruzeiro is led by Luke Simone, who is part of the Welcome Church family, but has been living in this favela for the last 10 years founding and leading this ministry. Luke has built a great team here with a mix of local people, some of whom have come to faith through this ministry, and others who have felt called by God from other nations to live and serve here in various ways.
Life in a slum
There are many great churches in Brazil, including in Rio, but reaching into the favelas requires a completely different kind of approach. A ‘normal’ style of church ministry is simply not able to come here, and 99% of Brazilians would not want to come here either. These parts of the city are quite literally outside of the law. They are run by drug gangs who watch very closely who comes and goes, and will fiercely guard their territory. You can’t just come in here and start knocking on doors or giving out invitations to Alpha.
On my first day here three different members of the local drug gang, each of them armed, came to the door of the house to talk to Luke about various matters. It’s by the miraculous grace of God that Luke has been given a unique permission to carry out this ministry, by the drug gang who run the favela, and he could be told to leave at any time.
Of course, most of the people who live here are regular Brazilians trying to live as normal a life as possible, but forced to do it at a level that is sadly just one step removed from being homeless and living on the street. The houses in the favela are illegally built on land they do not own. Some are not much more than shacks, although others are better than that. Water and electricity are sourced by illegally connecting to the mains where you can. Rubbish is piled in a heap down the mountain side. The smells are certainly interesting!
This is a place where the police do not usually come, and crime here is not investigated or the law upheld. It’s certainly the first place I’ve been where you can see people who are not the police openly walking around with a machine gun strapped to their chest.
The mission of Casa Cruzeiro
At its most basic level, Casa Cruzeiro is a discipleship house where Luke and the team are trying to share the gospel and live out the life of Jesus – being a light in a dark place. Fundamentally, Luke is a missionary trying to share Jesus and make disciples in a place where planting what we might usually recognise as a church, is simply not realistic or even possible, but where the fundamentals of what the church should be are being lived out in a different way.
Luke says that what he is doing here is long term missionary work, working with ‘the least, the last and the lost’, with a goal to make disciples who will then go on to make disciples who will make disciples. It’s slow progress, worked out through incarnational living in a place where few dare to tread but where God has opened a door that everyone had said was impossible to open.
Working in partnership
Beyond our own connections, it’s great to see some partnerships with other agencies starting to form here too, not least with The Message Trust who are now starting a work here in Rio De Janeiro. It was a privilege to chat with Andy Hawthorne, who leads the Message Trust internationally, at one of the house lunches this week. He was out here launching their new work in this city. The Message Trust are the people behind the initiation of Community Groceries in the UK, so as a church we are already in regular conversation with them about our planned Community Grocery.
Another growing partnership is being formed with Christ Church, an HTB church based in the centre of Rio. A group couple from that church, with two young children, will soon be moving into the house to add their support and gifting into the mix. They will be the first family to live within Casa Cruzeiro.
Life transformed through Jesus
At Welcome Church, our vision is to see life transformed through Jesus. I’m very excited to see someone who is part of our church family bringing that vision into being in a place like this. I’ve heard some incredible stories here and met some amazing people, with transformed lives, who have encountered Jesus through this ministry and are now being discipled.
Many of the people they serve here day by day are children and young people. One key aspect of what they do is to create a ‘safe space’ away from the streets of the favela, and away from home situations that are often difficult or abusive.
Another part of what they do is giving the kind of care and advice that loving parents ought to be bringing, but is routinely absent. Building relationships of trust also enables faith based discipleship conversations to begin and for the gospel to be shared. Some of the young people have even gone from living in difficult situations in the favela, to living here in this house where disciples are being made.
The team have also now built a three story ‘school’ next door, with a classroom on each level. In this ‘school’ some local Brazilian teachers are employed to teach the children, in after school sessions, to fill in the gaps of what is often a missed or poor education. They are looking to instil hope, and a potential future beyond the slum, in young people who might otherwise grow up without it and live to repeat the cycle of the generation before.
Christian discipleship here is itself a very slow process with regular setbacks and challenges along the way. Despite this the work continues to go forward day by day, and some of the seed has been sown in very fruitful soil!
I look forward to talking about more of what I’ve seen when I get home. In the meantime, do pray for the safety and blessing of everyone here. Please pray for God‘s ongoing provision for this work too – provision of finance, of people, of Holy Spirit power, of protection and of God’s grace.
I’ll post a few photos at the end of this blog, though sadly they will not do justice to what’s going on here.
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