God’s Love Lavished on the City of God

Today we had the opportunity to minister to about 30 children in the City of God favela as well as going through the neighborhood and meeting people. Pastor Dirceu operates a mission house/soup kitchen there and daily serves meals to the families in the favela. We used this building to host an outreach meeting for the children. Before the meeting, we walked around the favela and invited kids to come. We had two opportunities to pray for families and share with them the love of God.

At the outreach, we worshipped with the kids, both in English and in Portuguese. We repeated our new “Prodigal Son” drama, which transitioned into a time where each of the team shared what was on God’s heart for the kids. After prayer we spent about an hour playing and loving on the kids. When asked how it was to play with the kids, Tom said, “I’ve never experienced such a combination of tremendous energy and profound need. When I saw the bright faces of these special children, and knew the kind of life they are forced to live, my heart was expanded way beyond its limits!”

Back in Heliopolis, the team spent the rest of the evening preparing for the next day’s outreach and practicing a dance for Saturday’s celebration event.