The wooden benches are in rows and the little kids pile in to listen to another gospel message. Some of the older girls come in and sit on the benches, leaning back against the cement wall of the Galpão. Curious faces peek in to see what’s going on. Soon there’s a group of about forty kids and a few adults ready to listen. They sing songs from the booklets that Mark and Lori put together. They pick some of their favorites, “Foi Assim,” and “Jesus é Meu Amado,” songs that speak of the Savior who loves them and died for them.
Mark prays and Lori translates. She introduces her brother, Paul, as he steps up to speak to the kids.
“I have a great secret,” he says smiling. He leans in toward the front rows. “Can I share it with you? Can you keep a secret?”
Gabriella, a nine-year-old girl with full cheeks and warm brown eyes nods her head in response. She wants to know the secret. A few kids volunteer to go up to the front as Paul and Lori whisper the secret in their ears.
“Does everyone want to know my secret?” Paul asks. “Jesus loves me!” He reads Galatians 2:20. There’s a group of young boys sitting on one of Mark’s worktables in the back. They’re poking each other and laughing, but Paul keeps speaking. A dog wanders in, there’s music from the bar blasting next door, and there are people milling in and out of the door to the Galpão. But in the back row, there are middle-aged women listening. The little kids sitting on the wooden benches are listening, facing the front, waiting to hear why this verse matters.
“So many times people tell us that they love us,” Paul says, crossing his arms tight across his chest. “Sometimes they say that they will love us forever. But … they leave us heartbroken.”
Joab and Niete have their fingers curled around the edge of the bench. They’re both watching Paul. A little boy in front of them is playing with the edge of his shorts. Lori is translating while Paul continues.
“I look into the faces of young boys and girls and they want more than anything to know that someone loves me. What a disappointment when there is no one to love me.”
He doesn’t stop there. The little faces are still waiting to hear the truth of the verse. They want to know what fills that emptiness when everyone else leaves. When everyone else disappoints.
“That’s why it’s so wonderful tonight, my secret,” he says. “Because the very Son of God, Jesus, says He loves me. Not to love me and to leave me. Not to say He loves me only to hurt me. But when Jesus says He loves me, He will never leave me.”
When the lesson is done, the little girls sing the songs they’ve learned, standing up in front of the group to do the hand motions along with them. Then they clamor for juice and crackers before heading out the door.
Mark and Lori present a lesson every Sunday night around 7:30 in the Galpão. Younger kids make up a large percentage of the audience, and so the presentation has become much like a Sunday school lesson. This past Sunday night, Mark spoke about the serpent lifted up. He made a snake out of rope and wrapped it around PVC piping. Stephanie and I went around with another rope snake to “bite” the kids, squirting ketchup on their arms as blood, wrapping the “wounds” with old rags.
“Just look and live!” he told them, and Stephanie wiped the “blood” from their arms as they looked toward the snake on the pole.
Despite the distractions, the kids who decide they don’t want to sit through the message in its entirety, and the dogs that meander in and out, the gospel is preached faithfully every Sunday night in Aningas. During the week Mark and Lori can help in practical ways; Mark working with his guys, Lori making house visits, or preparing the recent Christmas feast. But come Sunday night, it’s always the clear gospel. Whatever else these men and women and children may need, they need Christ. Pray that as these messages continue, the interest they show will prove life changing in their acceptance of the Lord Jesus as Savior.
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