It has been incredible to see the transformation of Cajueiro Claro, a rural town (with about 30 families) a couple miles off the
main road, Cajueiro Claro had no community cohesion or even a school: now the church is the center, a safe area everyone knows they are welcome at.
Ten years
ago, an exhausted ministry gave their building and land to World Renewal,
hoping that maybe they could reach this hard, closed community for Christ. A
pastor worked for a couple of years, coming in weekends to minister, but still,
not much progress was made. In 2010, Pastor Flavio began walking 30 minutes
each way every day to come in and minister to the children—winning the hearts
of the community. Through Living Stones, a church began.
Around 30 children are ministered to almost every day, as
Pastor Flavio and his wife Mercia (due in January with their first daughter),
live in one of the Sunday school classrooms of the church. Over 15 of the older
children have given their lives to Jesus, many of whom are now running the
worship and mime team for the church! Over ten women have given their lives to
Jesus, through the women’s ministry, and we are praying for the men to come and
join what God is doing.
The party, with the help of Shelbyville Community Church and Bibles from Molly's Pennies from Bibles program, had over 30 children and lots of laughter. We began by walking through the community, praying and bringing kids with us.
We then played in the sand, "Pin the house on the rock" game, blew bubbles and got to know the kids (special thanks to Craig Olson for all of the amazing photographs).
At the beginning of our story time, the kids had practiced and had a special presentation for us.
We had a great time of singing and telling the parable of the wise and foolish man, and then Pastor Flavio called up the children, one by one, to read and receive their Action Bible (in Portuguese).
After a bit, there were still quite a lot of Bibles to give out, and no more children were coming up. Flavio asked incredulously, "No one else knows how to read?" (There were still plenty of more children--even older children) "Well, we will be working on teaching you. And once you do learn to read, the Bibles are here, waiting for you."
