Mission to Brazil: Governador Valdares First Day

I am in Paraguay now and this is where I will be until December 17. For the last two months I have compiled many stories of my time in Governador Valadares. It is in the state north of Sao Paulo called Minis Geris. A country side filled with rolling mountainous landscapes of brown hills and wide winding rivers. The city of Governador Valadares was my extended home and even in Paraguay I miss many things about that Brazilian town, which you may never have seen on a map.

I am weaving a narrative as I go, but I have decided to jump to some of my experiences in a random order. Some things are chewing on my mind and are impatient. So, I may be on a beach, in the mountains, or a cramped city, but I will give you fair warning.

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You learn a lot about someone on a 14 hour bus trip. Br. Gabriel and I talked in between trying to sleep on the rocking bus taking us into the mountains. We had an impromptu transfer in the wealthy city of Belo Horizonte; at midnight we sprinted to buy tickets and caught the bus across the terminal.

It could only a blessed force that helped Br. Gabriel and I talk so well on the trip. We covered so many topics over the roads and on other trips the train tracks. In many ways our conversations got harder to understand as the moving cars and busses stopped; sometime reduced to nodding.

Brother had been a law student before his conversion to the path of Christ, and his discernment and then progression into religious life. A great portion of his schooling was complete yet he was uneasy to continue on that path. He lived in the coastal city of Sao Luis in the northern part of Brazil, with many friends and a worldly future in front of him. A talented actor and singer his favorite role that he played was Scare in the Lion King.

His eyes twinkled and he laughed at my expressions as I tried to use pantomime to fill in for the words I didn’t know. He said, “You would be a good actor, you are like Jim Carry.” I don’t like Jim Carry all that much but I could see the complement was genuine. Many things were shared in our light conversation.

Brother, who is in his late twenties now, has a calming older sibling quality and a performers thinking process. We understood each other as we both spent much time reflecting and in our own ways to the contemplation God.

The restroom door on the nearly empty bus was broken and would click open and slam back and forth. The automatic light in the toilet would illuminate most of darkness as it clicked, slammed, and swung its way down the mountain roads. I was the only one awake for the ride and would be flipped into the window and then to aisle at every sharp change of direction.

At 4:14 am we arrived in Governador Valdares and began the walk to the house through the city’s business and governmental district. In a concrete park and grandstand space Br. pointed out ten or so homeless sons sleeping in the near daylight of the flood lamps. It seemed like a silent protest on the other side of the street from the city and federal government building. We walked for a mile or so to a red fat bricked road which took us down a hill. I heard the comforting sound of natural rushing water as we walk towards the void of black beyond the amber lights. The rumbled of bass gained volume as Br. stopped and pointed into the blackness. “Do you see that?”

I blinked, “See what, there is nothing there.”

He shot me a look of disbelief, “The lady, the mountain. It is right there.”

The emptiness dissipated into a lightless blue of sky and the black sternness of the mountain. The mountain slowly revealed itself as an illusion in front of me.

“Wow!”

Brother smiled and pushed me to the left down the sharping turned road that runs parallel with the river. The quick hill slid into the basin of the road and on into a party still going ahead of us. The women we approached stood or leaned about the car blocking the middle of the street. The heavy smell of marijuana and beer was present in air, but I couldn’t see anyone drinking or anything but cigarettes. The street was narrower than up top, and a bar with a steel overhang was the center of the dwindling party. Brother stopped a couple step beyond the party, “we are here.”

“Here?”

“Up here.” We walked up the three steps to a gate and brother started to unlock it.

I looked at our next door neighbor with one decaying card table, a wooden cable spool loaded with spent beer bottles, and the slow smoking remain of a fire that the dogs rolled in to keep warm.

“Ok, this has potential.”

The music could now be described at a club mix with samples of US artists from the last 15 years. The songs were all distorted and almost unintelligible due to the volume. We walked up the stairs and into a large open air room with many plants. Brother showed me to my room off the kitchen and set me up for the night. I said goodnight and looked at my watch, it was 5:15 am. My pillow vibrated against the wall shared with the neighbor and DJ. I moved it to the opposite side of the wall and lay down with my pray blanket. It was given to me by some of the ladies from Good Shepard Catholic Church, in Kansas. It was familiar and in this foreign place it was warming against the cold and comforting as I doubted my own reason for this trip. Really I resolved to thank the creator for leading me and crashed into a dead sleep.