A Day in the City of God

The City of God is a large, infamous favela (slum) in Brazil. As part of the training for our new missionaries, we break them up into small groups and spend a day in various favelas around the city. I was in the group that visited the City of God.

It was an experience that drew out a range of emotions. Our guide used to be a weapons dealer in the City of God, but became a Christian several years ago and had his life transformed. He is a successful account manager for a large firm – but he still spends much of his free time in the City of God, ministering to people, praying with people, and working to improve the situation there.

We walked past the tiny shacks – many no bigger than a college dorm room, built out of various scraps of wood and cardboard, with an asbestos slab laid across for a roof. Drainage water ran down the middle of the dirt path. As we walked, people saw our guide and came asking for prayer. When a woman came to me, I asked how I could pray with her. She said she has AIDS. I and others prayed with her, then encouraged her to seek help from people in the church who could walk alongside her.

We had many other precious and heart-wrenching times of prayer with people. Shawn prayed with a woman who had lost a child at 10 months old. Her 2-year old boy has stomach cancer and leprosy. She said she had been beaten a couple days ago because other moms didn’t want her boy playing with theirs. She said she was ready to take her and her son’s lives.

I could go on – it was one thing to pray with people, but the emotions were so mixed since I knew that in 2 hours we’d be back at our training camp and in 2 weeks we’d be back in Georgia. It was a powerful reminder that real transformation takes place when someone is willing to stay and be a part of people’s lives for the long haul. Drive-by missions feels great and I believe our prayers made a difference, but lasting, full transformation requires so much more. I got just a taste of the burden Christ must have felt when he looked at Jerusalem and spoke of the harvest being plentiful, but the workers few. I pray that He will call many people to the harvest in general, and that He will call some to the City of God – that it can be transformed and live up to its name.