I was standing in a small bakery trying to figure out a handwritten menu in Portuguese. Easy peasy, right? Everyone know what “acetonas” are. Sounds like a paint chemical. I hope they don’t put that on pizza, but it wouldn’t really surprise me down here.

A man y at a nearby table a man calls me over and wants to say a few words in English. “The pizza is great! Today… two for one” He says through a mouth stuffed full of crust, some falling on the table. When I told him I had recently arrived in this city he said loudly through his broken English, “Well, my friend… Welcome to hell”. Cool, buddy. Thanks for that. He went on how “it’s so hot here it’s nearly unbearable and how he doesn’t think this place should have ever been inhabited”. But mostly he considers it ‘hell’ because the violence is out of control and no one can do a thing about it. Through the conversation, he kept asking “but why??” “Why would an American leave America and come to live here?”.

If I had a dime for every time someone said their dream was to go to America I’d be rich. Many are shocked and thrilled when we share a little deeper about how going to America will not change one thing in their inner state. The pain and grief of life will be the same, though different in some way. Many times it’s worse as someone achieves material wealth and loses a simple heart that was once content with lesser things.

I have seen how a man who once laughed as his children chase a chicken around a dirt shack in a poor country, now cries with a heavy heart as his kids grow up while he is away working for ‘better’ life in America.

A nicer house with a yard, a car to drive, or money to spend, will not take away the loneliness and hurt that everyone carries inside. Jesus says “what does it profit a man to gain the world, but lose his soul?”. He says “blessed are the poor” and man, have we sure seen this. The less you have, the more you have. An ounce of heart weighs more on the scale of reality than a ton of nice stuff you buy at the store.

Word spread here in this city as we were in the US and the directors of several large schools reached out to us. It is exciting to us when they ask specifically to bring our message of change and the Gospel to their students, not a just a ‘show’ of music and dance. Their gonna get it either way, lol, but it’s a blessing when that’s what they are asking for. Many have remarked how the boldness in which we stand for Jesus is something they have never seemed the likes of. Some of the things these people say in response to our ministry are remarkable. They show the unique workings of a mind that has not ‘been there done that’ as many in the States feel they have.

Driving into one school (as I mentioned before), a major shooting had shut down the area that day and it had to be rescheduled. A few days later we tried again. Driving into the area, the pavement suddenly stops. Tiny dirt roads wind back though endless shacks. Countless dogs run across the road as trash floats down the parallel viaduct. There is a distinct smell on the air; adventure. Hard to believe there is a school of nearly a thousand students down in here, but there is. We finally find it and arrive at the gate to a wear security guard standing at the gate.

“I can’t hold them back, if they wanna leave, they leave, if you guys are gonna do anything, do it quickly”. He says. Wow, what a leader I thought. A true beacon!

Often as we walk down the halls of these all cement schools, the classrooms are often in chaos, teachers barely hanging on or absent all together. So few people in this world who really care to make a difference for others.