Is it still Thanksgiving if no one else knows it is? Thanksgiving o jeito brasileiro (Thanksgiving Brasilian Style)

I woke up early Thanksgiving morning not to the smell of turkey and gravy, but to the 6:15 ringing of my alarm clock. I brushed my teeth, threw some water on my face and made my way downstairs. We had our usual coffee/hot chocolate and bread for breakfast, shared our prayer requests and prayed together as usual. Then I did my laundry and made my way to the center of the city to have lunch at a friend’s house. I sat around a big table with about 10 people and we ate the usual rice and beans with some chicken and broccoli. The house is a big one that was donated to a ministry called Toque that works with prostitutes, transvestites, street kids, homeless people and drug addicts. As we sat down to eat I casually mentioned to my American friend who was with me that this wasn’t the typical Thanksgiving dinner, but that it was good none the less and we were thankful for friends and food. We explained to them the holiday and the importance of it in the US and then talked about things we were thankful for. Then they showed me pictures of a party they had thrown for the transvestites they work with and talked about the pain and sadness of so many of them and the rare smiles on their faces to know someone cares enough about them to throw them a party. As we watch the pictures and then the video of them singing worship songs I am struck by the wonder of the kingdom of heaven, how God could love people that are so unlovable like ourselves. I then come to know that one of the guys sitting on the coach next to me who was also a lunch guest is a former transvestite who is temporarily staying at the house while he is trying to find work and figure his life out.
We then head out to the streets, we walk all around the city and I am amazed at how many of the people that live on the streets the ministry workers know. It seems every street kid, homeless guy and drug addict knows them and they call each other by name. It strikes me that every one of them has a name and a story and how easy it is to walk past and entirely ignore them, treat them almost as subhuman. We then go to this plaza where we usually find the street kids and after talking to some of the older ones head off in search of the young ones. After walking around the city for about a half an hour to several different spots, stopping along the way to talk to various people, we decide that the kids won’t be found today and head off to another ministry/church in the center to pick up their medical kit and head to cracklandia. I had heard stories about this place, but none of them prepared me for what I saw. One moment we were in a seemingly nice part of town and the next moment it seemed another planet. It seemed like something out of a movie, a city that has suffered a nuclear attack, or a zombie infested neighborhood, I just couldn’t wrap my head around the reality of the situation. There were probably about a 100 people in a big herd together, most everyone smoking a cigarette or with a crack pipe. Most people looked zombified, clearly under the influence of crack. Kids as young as 7 or 8 smoking crack and a pregnant lady with a shirt that no longer fit her, lipstick smudged across her face, a short skirt, her belly exposed protruding from her clothing that no longer fit her, a crack pipe in hand mumbling something to herself.
The scene was almost too much for me, I didn’t know what to do or how to react. I couldn’t believe that I was still on the same planet, much less the same city. It seems like a place I might expect to find in Africa or some other place that suffers from much more extreme poverty and hardship. Hundreds of people living on the streets, just huddling around hoping to get one of the many rocks of cocaine that are being sold all over the place and living from one high to the next. People stand in one place in a huddle, some buying crack, some smoking it, others puffing on a cigarette and then some policemen on horseback who until then had just been observing the people chase the people off of one stoop and unto the next one or across the street. Then a store owner comes with a stick and threatens to hit someone yelling at them to get away from his store, a scene I have seen hundreds of times, but always with dogs and not human beings. As the crowd settles in front of an abandoned building I notice a pvc pipe running across the front of the building with little holes in the pipe and wonder what that could possibly be for, but I quickly realize as water begins to fall from it that it is a device designed to keep people away. Water begins to fall on the crowd who slowly react and move to the next spot. So it seems is their life, get up, buy crack, get chased by the police, move, smoke crack, get chased by a storeowner, buy some more crack, get chased by the police again, smoke some more crack, have water thrown on them, move to the next corner, buy yet more crack, smoke one last rock and then go to sleep.
Walking through the streets people recognize and say hi to the heavily tattooed, big Brasilian guy who would at first glance be more likely in a motorcycle gang or a tattoo artist than a missionary. He begins to talk to people and ask if anyone has any medical needs, we clean various wounds and bandage them up, one lady shows us where she was stabbed with a knife and we do our best to clean and bandage the wound, but encourage her to go to the hospital. Then some guy comes up and asks the guy with me to remove his stitches, which he proceeds to do. As the people are being treated a relationship is being built. Over time they talk of Jesus and of another way, of rehabilitation and how they don’t need crack to be happy. The people are encouraged to go to the casa amarelo (the yellow house) to get a hot meal, a shower a bit of time off the street. There they can find rehabilitation if they want it and find people who love God and who love them. As we are about to leave b/c we are running low on medical supplies I hear someone speaking in English with a South African accent, a friendly looking guy introduces himself to me as Warren. He tells me that it’s a good thing I’m doing, an experience that I need to have in life, one that will make me grow and then says that he too is a son of God, that he is a brother, and a missionary too. He says that we are missionaries on the outside coming in to help, but that he’s on the inside, that his thing is crack, that his new experience is crack. He says it so matter-of-factly as if he were saying that he liked football or something, he then briefly says that he was a business man in São Paulo, that his family in South Africa is rich and that a business transaction here went wrong and he lost his life savings (by his description of something getting confiscated at the airport, I’m guessing it was something illegal). After losing his life savings he said he went to the streets with $3,000, found crack and has been an addict every since.
As I return to my community house I am struck by how my definition and perspective of the world continues to be transformed, how my definitions of poverty and needs continue changing. As I become more like a regular community member here I begin to get used to favela life, I am no longer too surprised by anything here and although there is definitely poverty, most everyone has their basic needs met and has a little extra money for a few other things. After witnessing this new place I realize that the people in my neighborhood aren’t so bad off after all. My world continues to change and be shaken. I still don’t feel like I know my place in the world; I know that there is so much brokenness and injustice, but also that there is a God who cares, who suffers as he sees what we do to ourselves and to each other. I realize the pain of God’s omniscience and omnipresence as he has to see every sin, every evil thing that is done, every child kidnapped into a militia and forced to kill, every woman raped, every baby left alone on the street to die, every business man obsessed with money and greed exploiting his workers, every desperate drug addict doing anything to find his next high, he sees this terrible broken unjust world and must feel so much pain and sadness. The fact that he knowing all this would still send his own son to pay for all these sins and to one day bring us back to himself is just humbling.
To finish my Thanksgiving I return to my house as game night is just starting, about 10 adolescents are playing ping pong, jenga or uno and greet me on my entrance. I play with them for an hour or so and then leave for my weekly Thursday night soccer game from 10:30-midnight. Returning home I am tired from a long, but good day, it certainly wasn’t thanksgiving US style with a big turkey, lots of food , family and football, but it was a good day. I realize how much I have to be thankful for, I realize how great our God is, how deep his love for us must be and I am thankful for the opportunities I have to learn to love like he does, to learn to hate injustice like he does and to be a repairer of the breech and a restorer of streets to live in. (Isaiah 58)