My name is israel. I
am Brazilian and I’ve been helping CMU since 2010. The first time I heard about
the mission trips I did not quite understand how it would work. I mean you do not see people spending their free time in drought areas helping the poor
communities all the time. I thought they would just come around and take some
pictures playing around.
It surprised me when I
realized that they really lay the bricks and do all the hard work. I was 18 by
the time and when I got back to my classes and my normal routine my friends
asked me what I had been doing all this time away from the classes and at that
very moment I could enjoy the feeling of being useful and used by God. This is
my fifth trip and it feels like my first cause it all happens so fast. We
always have something to share and learn.
Every trip has a different
rhythm, a different taste, I could even say a different touch because after
some time my volunteer friends are all gone and I have to go back to my city,
but the trip is still happening ,you know. The message still goes on and on and
I feel relly proud of me for being somehow part of it and for sharing something
with the power to change so many lives. Brazil is a beautiful and rich country
I don’t even need to leave my country to have this perception, but there are
still so many godless people.
Working for CMU made me see
my state with other eyes and it all gave me different perceptions, some things
that I just could not see before because they are part of our culture so it would
never sound weird to me. I started to notice how catholic people are in the
countryside. I mean, of course I knew that we got it all from Portugal, but I
could not see how deep it was in our culture. For example, every small town in
the countryside has a huge catholic church and the kids usually hang around
with their bikes and soccer balls in front of the church in the square having
some ice cream or some snacks. When something really bad happen we say “ave
maria” that would mean holy mary. I started
to see this things happening around me in our last trip to Canindé – it’s a
city where people go to see a huge saint
statue – as we were evangelizing a man came to us and told us that they already
had a church, a catholic one and we couldn’t just arrive now and just tell him
that he had been going to the wrong church because it is part of the city. The
thing is 85 % of our people is catholic and that’s why CMU work has been so
precious to us. It help us to reach every place where God’s words need to be
shared.
This trip has been great.
Everybody in the small town is really friendly and they do have a catholic
church and some nuns working in the community I was glad I saw and assembly of
God church right in front of the catholic church, but I’ve been told that the
Assembly church is no longer working. Considering this fact you can tell how
important this new church will be in this community and I feel grateful for
having the opportuinity of being part of this.
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