Support Letter

Dear friends and family,
I want to start by thanking you all for your incredible support over the past few years as I learn to love God, love people and serve them both in Latin America. My journey in Latin America began innocently enough with two months in Mexico City with the Spearhead program that lead to 3 more summers, then a year in Puebla, México teaching English and working with college student ministry. I was continuously challenged by my own cultural shortcomings and limitations and as I continued to stretch further out of my comfort zone forced to place more and more trust in God and less in myself. With the skills and experience I learned in my times in Mexico and a heart for loving marginalized people wherever they might be I set foot on a plane 7 months ago for Brasil. I was filled with anxiety as I knew no one there, wasn’t confident in my Portuguese and was unsure of how I would survive the 6 month journey. I knew that God had looked over me when I went to Mexico City for the first time, then again when I branched out to another Mexican city, but nonetheless butterflies filled my stomach as our pilot announced the plane was landing in Brasil. I sat there on the runway wishing that we still had some more time in the air, feeling that I was not prepared for what was ahead of me. I quickly found myself loving Brasil, São Paulo and the people that surrounded me in my ministry. I lived in a community house/church (Casa Esperança, the house of hope) in a favela (squatter community) called Buraco Quente (more or less translates to hell hole). I lived and ministered with a girl from Switzerland and four Brasilian young people.
My neighborhood is infamous for drug trafficking and being a difficult place for ministry or a church. I entered for the first time with fear and trepidation, but quickly found myself at home there as I walked through the maze of walkways to enter or exit the favela. I so cherish my time there in the favela. Things were not always as I wanted them to be and the idealism and romanticism quickly wore off for the reality of day to day life. Some days I came home feeling confident in my Portuguese and Brasilian cultural ability and that I was truly making a difference and other days frustrated with life and ministry and sure that God couldn’t possibly have called me to this life. I still as I look back on all my experiences am filled with doubt as to my future in missions, but I am certain that God has brought me to all the places he has taken me for a reason and that in each place I have left a changed person and hopefully having planted seeds of God’s love there as well.
My first day in the favela I walked out of the entrance where the drug dealers are with a bit of fear that someone would try to talk to me. Just when I thought I had successfully escaped without having to talk to someone I hear a voice that I realize is directed towards me. “Hey, you, are you a gringo? Are you a missionary?” My first thought is to pretend I didn’t hear or understand him, I assume he wants to give me a hard time. I do my best to ignore, but he repeats the questions. I finally turn and say in my best Portuguese that I am both of those things and I prepare myself for his reaction. He makes a fist in his right hand raises it in the air towards me and hits his chest, “you have a good heart, I want a heart like you” he says in his deep raspy voice. I was caught quite off guard and wasn’t sure how to react. This conversation was the first of many, often with the same theme, sometimes he was drunk sometimes sober, but always working the drug trafficking. His name is Claudio; I discover that he spent most of his life in an infamous Brasilian prison (Carandiro, there is a movie made about it) for killing a police officer at a young age. I spent my six months talking with him and sharing with him that there is another way and that another life is possible. On one of my last days there he asked me for a pair of shorts and I gave them to him and saw that he was wearing my way to big shorts and bragging to all the other drug dealers about his North American shorts. I keep him in my prayers still.
I spent most of my time in Brasil working with kids and young people from my neighborhood, teaching at a futsal school (sort of indoor soccer), tutoring kids and mainly just being an older brother. I leave so many little brothers in my neighborhood. I love each and every one of them like a brother. They along with Claudio and so many other people I have met over the last two years have left indelible marks on my heart. While in Brasil I also had the chance to make a dream trip through Brasil, Argentina and Uruguay with my college roommate, managing to cover many thousands of miles and about 100 hours in buses visiting Rio de Janeiro, Iguaçu waterfalls, Buenos Aires and Montevideo. It was a trip we dreamed about in college and was awesome to see happen. I also spent two weeks in Bahia (northern Brasil) taking part in a missions trip with my Brasilian missions agency and serving to my surprise as an effective translator for a group of students from a US seminary. On that trip I also met a beautiful girl from São Paulo named Rubia who is now my girlfriend. Unbelievably in six months I managed to leave Brasil speaking better Portuguese than Spanish and feeling very attached to my neighborhood and the country.
Currently I am living in Sincelejo, Colombia. It is a small town about 40 minutes from the Atlantic coast of Colombia that was severely effect by the Colombia guerilla forces. It is a part of the country that was forgotten in development and is full of refugees from other parts of Colombia. Just a few years ago it would not have been possible for me to be here and even today it is not recommended by the US embassy (sure they wouldn’t like Brasilian favelas either) to be here (I make the 3rd foreigner here, David and Connie Befus, whom I’m working with are LAM missionaries here). I work with a microfinancing organization that works among the poor and displaced people to help create jobs through small loans and business training. I arrived at an opportune time as one of their two full time workers just stepped down and so I stepped into his place while they search for a new employee. I have enjoyed giving business training classes, showing how God created work and that it is a good thing and seeing people’s faces light up when we tell them that their microbusiness could one day be a source of jobs in the community and freed from loan sharks how they can advance forward in their businesses.
I will be here in Colombia until May 11 when I travel to Mexico City to be a leader for the Spearhead summer program. I will serve as a guide, mentor and cultural go between for a team of North American young people who will be serving God in Mexico City this summer for two months. I will also be looking to have surgery on my herniated disc at some point after my arrival there. For those who don’t know I began to suffer with back pains in late January that progressively worsened even with doctor’s visits, rest and medicine. I finally got an MRI which revealed a several herniated disc in my back that requires surgery. As I am without health insurance or the money to have the surgery done in the US I am hoping to be able to have surgery in Mexico. I have been in pretty severe pain for the last few months that is only bearable with pain medication. God has spoken to me a lot in my pain and I have learned and matured much in my faith, but definitely have moments where I shout to God ¡Ya basta! (enough already) I’ve learned the lesson take away my pain. All this to say that I appreciate all your prayers and support; I know that if nothing else in the last two years God has changed my heart and my life. I am both anxious and excited to see where he takes me in the next few years. In México for the summer I will once again be working officially with the Latin American Mission. I will need to raise about $2,000 for the summer program. Donations can be made to the LAM with the attached paper, at this moment donations can’t be made online, but that could be a possibility (email me if you want to do that). For those not concerned with tax deduction you can mail a check made out to me to my parents’ house 4210 Home Dale Rd. Sykesville, MD 21784. As always I keep my blog at www.radicalordinario.blogspot.com and love to hear from you all. Much love and God bless.
Um abraço,
Andrew