TeamDuggan

 
This month has been one that has stretched my faith and fortitude in unimaginable ways.
Being willing to go wherever God intends has been ingrained in my heart ever since an unforgettable morning on Front Campus, Wheaton College in 1982. There are times when my North American background and psyche becomes overwhelmed with suffering, poverty, cultural difference, and screams, “Why me?” But I would like to challenge us all to step past our comfort zone and do something outrageous–for your neighbor, for a stranger, for one another, and for God. Those small steps could lead to something life-changing, mind-boggling, and always better than we could imagine.

Pray for us (Brian, Anna and I) as we head to Haiti next. Me? In Haiti? Yes, and I am smiling as I think how many steps outside my comfort zone this life has taken me…and the many unique ways God has enlarged my vision. Start small….just one step!

One common theme that seems to cross cultures is gathering around food. No matter where I travel, eating with someone is one of the key ways of entering their world and sharing something that has a lot of meaning for them. In Brazil, that is no hardship! If you love meat, you’d love Brazilian food. There’s nothing like a Brazilian BBQ to fill you up but keep you wishing for more. Here one of our E-Free pastors opened his home to host us to one of his famous pecanhya feasts. Sausage, steak, chicken, grilled pineapple and grilled bannana just kept coming. What a treat!

Sent by his family from northern Brazil down to Rio in order to go to high school, D. (far right) left home as a young teen and ended up in a Rio favela where he learned about the seamier side of life. Changed by the Gospel, he still lives in a tiny one room apartment in the favela but goes out at night and finds a homeless person to bring to his place and show Christ’s love. As you can see, these guys are not only surviving in the favela, they are thriving and winning in their favorite sport….Futbol! I was just reading in John 3 today: “God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”
These guys are brilliant lights in the darkness of a hope-lost favela.

This scene struck me as very funny when we were pulling in for gas at a station in Rio de Janeiro. Next to a natural gas pump was a rack full of fire extinguishers. Didn’t exactly give me a lot of confidence in the safety of the filling station!

S. is a changed woman, not through a self-help program, an intervention by friends and family, or through a recovery center. S. is changed because of Jesus’ love demonstrated by redeemed but faithful sinners like you and me. At twelve she was raped by her mother’s significant other. Her mother then threw her out on the streets where she survived by rumaging for food in the trash. A lady befriended her and took her to her own favela where a dozen men raped her. She returned to her favela, presented herself to the drug lord and asked to be taught to kill. After training she went back to kill the men who raped her and thus began a life as a hit-woman for the drug traffickers. Her story continues with horrendous events that led her to drug dependence, murder, prostitution, neglecting her resulting children and worse. How could anyone with that history be changed? There aren’t enough twelve-step programs in the world that could address even a fraction of her pain. Yet God didn’t abandon her and he put her in the path of a church family in Caju that led her to Christ and helped her return to a productive life. Today S. is not only living in a small apartment on her own, she lives and works in the same favela that nearly destroyed her. And she is taking the message of true healing to as many people as she can.
But in real life, there really never is a “happily ever after”. S. needs your prayer. And the ministry of missions needs your support. Are you willing to be a conduit for transformed lives? You don’t have to be a theologian, a pastor or have a fancy degree. Remember that most of Jesus’ disciples were hardly what one would call educated or professional. We have three clear ways to respond:
Pray – place a comment here to be added to our prayer letter
Give – help support missions in Latin America
Go – place a comment here to begin a dialogue about how God could use you in missions.

One of the greatest privileges in my career is to meet, encourage, and partner with people who are doing the unimaginable in the most difficult locations. Caju is a large favela (think economically, socially, and spiritually destitute) area in Rio de Janeiro. Every year 6,000 people are murdered in the 800 favelas in Rio, a rate that eclypses many war zones around the world. Each favela is run by drug chiefs who openly manage not only the drug trade but also the very lives of all who live there. These are not places where those who can afford to do otherwise ever venture. Avoided by all but the most desperate, these favelas are not abandoned by God. He calls people to step into the chaos and bring light to the incredible darkness. Fabio and Leah grew up in middle-class backgrounds, yet knew they were being called to bring the transformational power of the Gospel into Caju. Starting with just a few people five years ago, their church now has over two hundred people whose lives have been retrieved from hopelessness and early death. There is no other explanation for how these two have been able to reach into one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the Western hemisphere and find favor in the eyes of those who kill without remorse.
What an amazing sight to be present as heavily armed men allowed us to enter their territory and engage with them and the people they rule through terror. It may be a place angels fear to tread, but not for those who know that God has called them to bring a power greater than the AK-47s and Uzis that are regularly used against police, enemy gangs and their own residents. Pray for Fabio and Leah as they faithfully obey the call to bring the transformational message of the Gospel to a desperate and hopeless people.

I recently returned from a two-week trip to Brazil with a team from Carver Bible College in Atlanta Georgia. The purpose of the trip was to engage our traditionally caucasian EFCA movement in becoming more diverse in our representation…maybe even reflect the diversity of the big “C” Church. We chose Brazil since it is much more diverse than many Latin America countries and racial diversity is not an issue. We also prayed for God to move on the hearts of the team members to consider missions, and He answered that prayer along the way. We spent time with the desperate and the comfortable, those who reach out to the hopeless and those who reach the middle class. We saw and experienced new things in each location and saw God’s grace in so many Brazilians who sacrifice a life of seeking material success (Brazil is the fourth fastest growing world economy) in order to see God’s kingdom built.

Our team was quite diverse as well. It included a Guatamalan, Jamaican, Philipina, British, Korena American, caucasians and African Americans. We had some great discussions on the nature of the church, ethnic differences, historical roles and new opportunities for reconciliation. Personally I learned so much from my brothers and sisters in Christ and was challenged to consider perspectives I had never heard.

Along the way we prayed together, slept in comfortable and not so comfortable conditions, rode many hours in tight (by our standards) vehicles, and developed a fun comraderie. This next week I’ll be posting blog entries about our days together and share photos of some of the highlights. Thanks for following along!

By the way, although this is offset by a week or two, I do keep up to date info posted through Twitter. Follow me at BDugganRN on Twitter and I’ll return the favor.

Or, in the words of Michael W. Smith, ” And friends are friends forever, if the Lord’s the Lord of them.” Those of you who follow my blog and Facebook sentiments should understand that whenever life gets busy, overwhelming, needs processing or the dear hubby is traveling more, that you should pray harder, and that God is working in my life and that of our family.

This last month was filled with conflicting emotions as our family said goodbye to several folks whose lives had intersected ours and while examining my emotions, I realized it is truly better to have loved and lost temporarily,(as these folks will sit on my front porch in Heaven) than to not have loved at all.

Friendships take hard work. In Brownie scouts at the ripe age of 7, I learned the song, “make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold.” This song has played and replayed in my head over the last weeks as new friends and old friends came and went.

As a missionary, the hardest thing for me has been the cultivation of friendship, only to have the friends move a continent away. Or to see my children finally find a true friend only to see him/her move a year or two later…or to leave my adult children in the U.S., or to watch our eldest son graduate and gather for photos in front of the same sign Brian and I stood in front of more than 25 years ago on graduation weekend, knowing that the large group of friends smiling back at us were experiencing emotions similar to the emotions I write about here.

Friendships forged during those intense college years or in foreign cultures are similar. They are pure gold, and stand firm over time.

College is a time for intense study and building strong relationships. Matthew was very fortunate to have a group of friends from the start that stayed together all four years. Two of their Spring Breaks were spent in Costa Rica and the other two were spent together as well. These relationships will stand for a long time even though they each will go separate ways. We thank God for providing this for our son and for all the Wheaties that were part of it.