Mission to Brazil: Street Mission Two: Valadares

I wrote this on my return to the south central region of Brazil after a month touring the Amazon and costal states of the North. I was in unfamiliar surroundings as instead of going back to Sao Paulo l stayed for most of my remaining time in Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro is an internationally recognizable city, just think of the welcoming Jesus on the overlooking mountain and most people say, “Oh Rio”. It is an expansive city that is known for beaches and Carnival, but like any city there is more than just tourism and festivals. I stayed in the Barrio (neighborhood/city) of Campo Grande with the Brothers for about 3 weeks late March and April.

I experienced the first street mission in Rio on March 26 and the weather was comfortable after a short evening rain. It is fall here in the southern hemisphere, but fall here in Rio is not like a brisk late October day in Missouri, it’s in the seventies at night and often likes to rain. I am relatively far from the beach and can only see the hills and mountain surrounding Campo Grande or in English “Big Field”. The mountains and the rain remind me of my first street mission in Governador Valadares in the state of Minas Gerias just north of Sao Paulo. The rain was steady and cool that September night, but that experience set a tone that has carried me through my mission as if to keep me open to the blessings of little things.

Street Mission 2013 Governador Valadares Brazil

The brother’s house is empty of brothers except for Ronalte, the Formando, and Paulo, a fifty year old son just off the street, because of regularly scheduled “mission week” in which the religious visit other cities requesting their help. I joined in on the first three days of the outbound mission and returned by train to Valadares and tonight will ride along on the street mission. The lack of religious has no effect on workings of this Wednesday night event due to the well-tuned Legos (Lay Associates) and friends of the community.

Henrique and his girlfriend stand in the kitchen as I come down the stairs from the third floor. “Hello, Henrique.”

“Hello my friend.” He speaks in English and reaches his hand out and we half embrace. He speaks English as a number of the young adults do. His girlfriend does not, but smiles and gives me a hug.

“Boa Noite, Sh-anwm,” she pronounces my name a couple more times in different ways and trails off.

Henrique is around six foot tall, very lighted skinned with dark almost curry hair that is perpetually messy. He is the son of Viviane and Mario and his sister is Mariane who is in the Order in the process of becoming a Religious Sister. When Henque speaks it is in a laughing tone with a laid back lilt, and he pronounces English almost perfectly.

“Are you ready to go?” he smiles with a nod waiting as if I might say no.

“Great. Boa Noite Ronalte!”

“Boa Noite,” Says Ronalte. I see his soapy hand wave out of the kitchen and then hear the pluck of a big cooking pot in the sink.

We walk into the dinning rom to stairs that lead down to the street. “Tchau Paulo,” I pause and smile. Paulo waves me off dismissively and puffs his cheeks to make a balloon deflating sound. He opens his mouth in a self-satisfying smile to reveal his few reminding teeth. “Good night to you too,” I say, and watch the silver haired man shuffle to his viewing point over the street. The street light silhouettes his buzzed hair, weak jaw, and whiskers, if not for the raspberries and cheek popping he would be about as silent as the man in the moon, with is the though I hold for a moment.

We walk out the gate and Paulo sends us a final Blurrrrp sound from above, but I look up and he is innocently stoic in the moon light.

***

The sisters’ house is white with two stories and a very imposing gate capped with protective electrical wire. It is a feature on most of the houses in the neighborhood and I would bet it is not on, but I’m not the one curious enough to test it. Two female Formadas open the steel door and we all walk to the back of the house. The chapel building is a converted two car garage, and upstairs is an open air covered roof that serves as the storage area and alternate kitchen for the missions. I walk up the stairs and see they are almost done packing three plastic tubs with individual wrapped Brazilian Hot Dogs. The Brazilian Hot Dogs are called Cachorro Quente, they are made with chopped hot dogs in a tomato sauce on a standard hot dog bun and topped with crushed potato chips. Normally the street mission serves bread and vegetable beef soup, but with most of the sisters and brothers out of town, tonight is different. There is another mission on Wednesday mornings where the religious go to the commercial produce market and ask for donations, much of the produce for the soup comes from that earlier activity.

I help carry the tubs and installed jugs filled with tea to the four or five cars in front on the house. Everyone prays for the success of the mission in the front courtyard and it begins to drizzle. Three groups will be going out, one on foot, and two in cars going to different sides of the cities down town. We pile into a Henrique’s car and shut the doors with five people in a compact Fiat, but for Brazil that is spacious. Viviane is in the lead car ahead of us, she is a Super Lego in the order. I make up that term but it is true. She has a daughter in the order, her son is a Lego, she is involved daily with many of the various events, missions, and plains; all this while running a hotel.

It is a heavy rain now and the car is steamy beyond the capacity of the air conditioning. We drive to a commercial section of town that is shut down for the night. Under the overhangs are a few sons and daughters up against the building fronts just out of the heavy spray of the rain on the sidewalks. We run out of the cars to a cluster of tents under the large corner awning. The smell of marihuana is thick and the tents sort of smolder.

“Oi, Oi!” We speak into the tents.

Clap, clap! Clap, Clap! Viviane claps in front of the tent. I smile at the ingenuity of solution, because knocking on a tent never has much of an effect - sound logic.

“We have food and drink for you if you would like?” She speaks around the shelters like a den mother.

I hear the zippers race and the first flap opens, a dark skinned shirtless man in his forties with spots of gray in this hair pokes his head out. His eyes are tired and red from a combination of smoke and lack of good sleep. “Eu quero,(I want)” he is hungry and comes out of this tent and stands with us. As our group speaks to him the others stir slower and come out of both his tent and the ones beside it. It is a large group and they eat and talk while the rain pounds the street. I watch closely without much understanding of the conversation, but I hear a request for prayer and we circle about the ring of tents. I hold the hand of the man who first got out of the tent. His hand is ruff and not quite cold I can feel under the calluses the veins are still trying to warm his skin; a hand worn from manual work that pays little and ages the body quickly. The prayer ends and he presses hard against my hand as if to punctuate the Amen. I turn to wish him a good night, and he blesses me in a raspy voice.

We drive on as the water in the street is already to the level of the sidewalks, because of the over filled gutters from the previous days rain. We turn on a street that pointing down a gradual hill. Sitting against the building is a man holding his knees in a seated fetal position. The rain is so steady it’s eating away at the dryness around him and soon will overtake the ground below him. We stop and get out, and he shuffles to greet us. Some in our two car load group embrace him and he smiles as I shake his hand. His hand is so cold, which is strange to me that with the temperature in the sixty that a body could feel like winter’s cold.

“Boa Noite!” I say.

He grins and turns to all the people talking with him. I catch words that suggest they are talking about me.

One of girls in the ground says to me, “His name is Gia.”

“Oi, Gia.” I see he has two hot dogs and a plastic cup of tea. His knees wobble and we help him to the ground. Someone has grabbed a piece of dry card board from the car, and set it under him. The food is warm, but as he eats his body begins to shake and his bare arms are clammy in the early stages of what could be hypothermia. The alcohol or drugs can no longer trick his body that he is warm, the shivers are like waves and he needs warmth.

In the rumble of the crowd I call out if anyone has clothes in the car. Tonight we don’t, most nights we would, but not tonight. From somewhere a brown button down shirt is draped over him. He is still cold, so Henrique holds his food, while our group mother Viviane and I put the shirt on him and button it up. I sit flat, wrap my right arm around him, and rub his arm with my left hand. The group of young adults and teens never stops talking to him and he is smiling at them.

Someone says,”Gia speaks English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.”

Gia looks at me and says in English, “My name is Gia.” He laughs and the group laughs with him. “I can sing too.”

“Sing Gia!” Shouts the group.

He looks at me again and starts. “We are the world. We are the children. We are the one who can make a better day so let start living.”

His body is warmer now and I feel the iciness leaving his hands.

“Sing Sean! Cantor, Cantor, Sing!” (You need to be ready to sing at any time in Brazil, that should be on the Government website.)

I feel my own goose bumps now as I give it a good Stevie Wonder try, “We are the world, yes we are the children, ohh -let’s make a better day – yahaaa - let’s start living-ing.”

In Brazil “We are the World” still plays often on the radio and in the streets. The teens know the song too and we sang it until Gia was thoroughly warm. In the shinning September mist and lamp lights of Downtown Valadares I knew I would never forget Gia and his welcome to Brazil.