For a few months now, we’ve been feeling that familiar nudge, that still small voice saying it was time to take steps forward, take things to a new level.  About a two months ago we started talking to the girls about doing a breakfast with them once a week, off the street, would they come?  They said they would.

So we started to pray, about what that would look like where we would do it.

As most of you well know we love to use Alpha, it’s a great tool that helps to level the playing field, strips away some of the things that can leave people feeling like God is distant and angry and gives an opportunity for people who have questions about God, faith and the meaning of life to really explore what they think of these things.  We know from personal experience that it can be the key that opens the door to peoples hearts, that’s how we ended up where we are today!

We started to look around for a place that was close enough but also not too costly.  We checked with several of the hotels along the beach but either they didn’t have a meeting room or they wanted too much money for the short time we would need it.

Then I remembered that the Anglican Church that is located on the same road had already offered up their space for us to use whenever we needed it.  I contacted them and they were delighted to help!

 

The space is perfect for our needs, open with an ocean view and a table for us to eat, as well as a small room that already has a TV where we can show the videos.

For weeks we talked to the girls about what we wanted to do, we have found that we often need to have a long lead up to do something so they start to get curious and excited and eventually start asking us about it ‘when does that thing start?’ 

Despite all that we had no idea how many, if any, girls would turn up.  At first there were none, and we thought maybe we would just be enjoying a lovely seaside breakfast with our team.  We decided to take a drive down the beach and four girls decided to take the leap and come with us.

They loved it.  Two days later when we were there praying, one of the girls who had come was there as I started to ask if the girls would like to come to the next one, they asked what it was.  As I started to explain, so did the girl who had participated so I closed my mouth and let her do the talking.

This week we had TEN girls!  There first question before coming was ‘will it take long?’ I told them an hour, and the decided to give it a go.

One of the most challenging things on Alpha can be getting people to talk, not so with this group, there was a very lively discussion after the video.  I said to them in the car on the way back that I understood it was taking some of their time, but they stopped me and said, ‘But it’s good! We need this, and we loved it!  We will be back next week!’

We feel privileged that they have trusted us enough to take part in something new, to allow us to begin with baby steps on what could be a turning point in their lives.

We continue to pray that their lives will be changed, that the seeds we are planting will blossom and that these women will know who they truly are, and the future they can have.

In the past year and a half since we started ministering to these women and men, there have been many who have come and gone.  Some we have seen again and we get to hear their story, ‘I’m working now, full time, God willing I will never come back to the streets!’ Or we hear through other girls when we ask that they have found work, or we have no idea what happened to them.  Each time we go we pray that God will speak the words they need to hear, that we can bring hope and light and love to them.  Often, we leave having no idea if our presence has had any affect, sometimes it can be really difficult to see these women week after week still there.  

As one of our colleagues who works in the same ministry at Shores of Grace in Recife said in their update this week, we have ‘to learn to rest in the unknown and to continually sow obediently, knowing there will be fruit and there will be victory, even if I never get to see or hear about it.’ (Robert and Ana Floyd)

We are sowing seeds in traveling fields, the lives of these women can be transient, but we need to keep in mind that the Kingdom of God and the way He sees the harvest is beyond our ability to understand, all we can do is obediently act on the things he calls us to do.

Xingu Mission C/O Jen and Phil Snell