Back in the frozen tundra

Our outreach team to Brazil

I realize I haven't blogged in over a month, and I apologize. I didn't bring my computer with me on outreach to Brasil so it was a little difficult for me to blog. Hopefully I'll be able to cover all the important points of outreach though!

So the adventure has drawn to a close, I've officially graduated from DTS in San Jose, Costa Rica. Crazy to think that five months went by so fast, I never thought I would say that! I flew back into Toronto to see my brother on the 25th, and now I'm in Calgary visiting my sister for one week before I head back to cold land of Winnipeg. I had some crazy adventures on outreach in Brasil and even though some of it was hard, the amazing moments totally over shadow the not-so-great ones.

Basically our outreach was divided into five weeks of different ministry in Brasil. We were supposed to stay the whole time on the YWAM base in Rio, but that changed once we got there.
Our first week was spent at a church in a town about 20 minutes away called Xarem where there was serious flooding. We ended up doing kid's camps there, church services, and hanging out with youth. We were supposed to help with clean up of the flooding but they said what they needed most was financial aid. Luckily we were able to bless them that way and they could continue with rescue efforts. The hospitality of the church was incredible, I've never experienced anything like it! We wanted to be there to bless and serve them, instead they wanted it to be the other way around! It was amazing.

Our team with church youth in Xarem

Paloma, one of the youth from the church

Second week was spent in a totally different environment. We ended going into one of the most dangerous favelas (slums) in Rio called, Parada de Lucas. This is a community that is still run by drug lords, so there are men standing around on corners in bullet proof vests with automatic rifles...they're not the police. We were warned we "might" see guns, so I took that as probably not...definitely not the case! It took a little while to get used to the shots that were fired off in the middle of the night but eventually we calmed down. In the community there's a YWAM "safe house", so that's where we stayed for the week. While there we did a lot of testimony sharing, worship, kids camps, and dramas. One of the last nights we did a prayer walk around the favela with the pastor and we prayed for many of the drug lords. God really broke my heart that night because I realized if I cared so much for these people, how much does He care for them and want the best for them? That's definitely a huge aspect of God that I came to learn about on outreach.

A view from the roof of our safe house

The third week we moved to another favela, but this one was pacified. Since both the World Cup and Olympics are coming to Brasil, they're trying to clean up the city and make it more secure for everyone.  So there were no drug lords standing around with guns, only the police hanging out making sure everything was going smoothly. It was neat to compare the two communities and we had two totally different experiences. We ended up doing a lot of painting, some worship, and praying for people in the community.


Fourth week of outreach we went to another church in a different part of Rio. The first night that we arrived in Rio we did a service at this church and after that they asked if we could come back for a few days. Again, the hospitality of the church was incredible and no matter how much we tried to help with food prep, or cleaning dishes, they insisted on doing it! Again, we did quite a few church services (testimonies, worship, and sermons). We also got to do house visitations for church members, so we got to talk and pray for them. We also did a lot of painting, cleaning and organizing for the pastors at the church which was really cool for us. Even with the language barrier we were still able to communicate and have a really amazing time there with them.

Our final week of ministry was spent in the heart of Rio during Carnaval! Our DTS team took part in a four day "camp" (ministry) called "Impacto Carnaval" with 300 hundred other youth from other parts of Brasil (and one other YWAM team from Holland!). In the morning to mid-afternoon we slept, had free time, devotions, and training and then around 8-11 pm we gathered together to do worship, testimonies, a message (etc). After that, we went to the streets! From 11 pm until 5 am we talked with people who were out at Carnaval, we got to pray for them and just hang out. It was an incredible experience! For me, since I'm a North American, I'm used to people being so closed off and not wanting to talk or hear abut God at all. Latino culture is so different! Even if they don't share your point of view, they still love to talk with you and share what they think. Latino culture is all about relationships and quality time, which is different than North American culture. It was encouraging because street evangelism is something I find challenging, I'm not somebody usually comfortable going up to strangers. Carnaval ministry was incredible but really, really tiring at the same time. The last night our whole team prayed for strength and refreshment and God totally delivered! It was so cool to see everybody on our team talking with people, sharing and nobody was tired until we took the metro back to where we were staying. All in all, Carnaval ministry was one of the toughest ministries we did, spiritually and physically, but I would do it again in a heart beat.

Part of our team at the metro, heading to Carnaval



The last three days before we flew back to Costa Rica were spent in debrief. We got to hang out, relax, and talk about what God showed and taught us all over outreach. It was awesome to have that time to spend time altogether without being busy planning ministry (etc.). We got to enjoy each other for the last time before we all went our separate ways.


What I just wrote about is literally a fraction of what we did and what went on. It's hard for me to only share the big points, but that's what DTS is about I suppose. You learn and grow so much internally and there's so much that goes on under the surface that only God knows about. It was my personal journey and I don't regret one second of it. Every situation I went through caused me to grow, every person that God put in my life had an impact on me. I went on this journey with twenty one other people and I love each one them. So it's the end of that adventure and the start of a new one for me! I'm back home for a few weeks and then I get to head back to Costa Rica for a secondary school...School of Worship! Worship is something that is so important to me and God really revealed to me that it's one of the ways I best connect with Him. I'm excited to go back to San Jose for another three months and really dig deeper into His word and grow more. Although it won't be the same adventure, I'm looking forward to this new one.

Thank you for your support the past five months, for your prayers, and for reading this. I feel blessed to have gotten to go on this journey and who knows...maybe it will inspire somebody else to do a DTS.

Our DTS graduation night

Blessings...

Nicole


-Ecclesiastes 3