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Two summers ago I went on a missions trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for two weeks (July 1st to 14th) with Brio Magazine, one of Focus on the Familys teen magazines and Big World Ventures, a short-term missions trip planer, who puts the trip together. The trip began on July 1st with training in Miami. We broke up into 12 teams of about 45 people each. I was on team 11. Then we learnt a drama and had classes on foreign language phrases and cultural sensitivity. The first day in Miami I was very home sick and wanted to go home. But I knew that God wanted me to be on that trip so I stuck it out and was fine in a few days. After a few days of training we flew to Rio, Brazil on the 4th.

We stayed at a Brazilian sports-training, military navel base called CEFAN (I dont know what that stands for). CEFAN rents a few floors of their building to different groups to stay in while they are in the country. I think that part of the reason we stayed there was because at a navel base it was very safe. There was a guard at the gate to keep all people out who were not supposed to be there. It was quite a culture shock for me to be staying there. The rooms had 7 or 8 girls in them (3 bunk beds and cots.) It was dirty, one of the windows and the fan were broken. One of the girls who had been the year before said, Oh, Ive missed this place. Its like coming home. When we got to CEFAN. At the time I was thinking that she was crazy and needed to be taken to a doctor but now that Ive been back for two years Ive noticed that I miss CEFAN a lot myself! Id love to go back there. It was a really great place to stay.

Every day in Rio we would get up, put on our costumes, eat breakfast, have morning devotions with our team (We each got a devo. book that Brio put together just for the trip), put on our stage makeup while waiting for the bus, get on the bus, and go to our first drama site.

In Rio we presented the drama mostly in schools, but also in neighborhoods, on street corners and at the dump. The drama is a 20-minute adaptation of the gospel story told through an evangelistic mime presentation called "Spellbound: Toy Maker and Son" that is set to a Portuguese narration tape. After each presentation we had the opportunity to share our testimonies through volunteer interpreters from local churches. Then we had an altar call. After that we had time to talk to the nationals and individually ask people if they would like to have a personal relationship with Jesus. At that point a few more people usually wanted to make a spiritual commitment, so we would pray with them through the help of the interpreters. These local church interpreters also got each new believer's name and address for follow-up and discipleship. We would also have about an hour afterward to spend talking and giving away toys, and candy to the kids. At the schools we were also asked to sign autographs! The kids thought we were famous or something so we would sign our name but then put, Jesus te ama (Jesus loves you) or Juan 3:16 (John 3:16) next to it. After we were done we would eat our pre-packed lunch of peanut butter and jelly, then get on the bus and drive to a new site and start over again. We usually did the drama two to four times a day.

We also did work projects where needed to help out the community and demonstrate a servants heart. Usually that includes stuff like painting orphanages, cleaning missionarys homes, assisting in disaster relief projects and helping build churches.
My team spent a day moving bricks out of a church that was being built so that they would have room to continue.

After we did the drama I got to see many, many children and adults give their lives to Christ. I even got to pray with one girl as she asked Jesus to be the Lord of her life.

One of the coolest things about the trip was that I got to meet the little girl (Karine) that I sponsor through Compassion International who lives in Rio. Compassion is a Christian company in Colorado Springs, CO that runs a sponsorship program for very poor kids (ages 5 to 18) in various third world countries. The cost to sponsor a kid is $28.00 a month and it can change their life forever. At the compassion projects kids can go to school, church, have good Christian adult role models and learn about God. The people at Compassion also take the time to meet the parents of the sponsored kids. They also work with families to help teach them about good hygiene and nutrition. Lots of these children do not get enough food every day but a sponsored kid gets at least one good meal a day at the compassion project. I got to see the compassion site where Karine goes, give her a few toys that had I brought for her (I wanted to bring her more but was afraid that shed get robed if I gave her too much.), walk around the compassion site, meet her older sister, watch Karine play on the swing set, and eat lunch. I had brought some candy to give away to the kids there and when I brought it out the kids went crazy! They mobbed me! The teacher was panicking because she was afraid that I would get hurt. It was like the kids had never had candy before! (The sad thing is, they probably hadnt.) After that we went to walk through a few of the local houses around the Compassion site to get a feel of what the kids lived like. It was so sad! The people lived in falling apart houses with whole families crammed into one room. They had no windows, no doors, pretty much no nothing.

Every night after dinner we would have a church-like service called, "FUAGNEM" which stands for, "Fired up and going nuts every minute." Which would be held in the gym/basketball court at CEFAN. At FUAGNEM we would sing (I learnt LOTS of great songs!), pray, get prizes, go over eating schedules for the next day, and get a cool sermon by Susie Shellenberger or some other guest speakers that came with us. We also had three concerts, one in Miami by Jeni Varnadeau and one at CEFAN by LaRue and one at a restaurant at a mall in Rio by Out Of Eden.

On my first missions trip I learnt what it was like to be with out. I learnt to not take for granted things like hot water for showers, clean water for drinking, ice, AC, toilets that you can flush the toilet paper in, clean air, my house, my bedroom and my clothes. I got to see first hand what it is like to be very poor. I saw whole families that lived in one-room houses the size of my bedroom and people who had no home at all. The pollution was very bad in Rio. I coughed for about a month after coming home. I also had a lot of spiritual growth while I was there. While I was in Rio I was challenged to read my Bible every day. Yes, I read it before the trip, but not consistently, like I should. With Gods help I have kept that commitment and have only missed a few days of reading my Bible since Ive been back. Going to Brasil confirmed to me that even though it was not easy, I loved doing missions work and wanted to do it again. I loved Brasil and its people so much, Brasil is always on my mind and forever in my heart.