The Callis Family August 18, 2008 Dear friends. It is great to know you are praying. We just finished up a week with a volunteer team from Florida when we got into squatter towns that were extremely poor and full of violence (murder, etc.). The Lord protected us the whole time and we were able to minister to around 200 kids plus many mothers and bystanders. We go into these areas with confidence that the Lord wants us there and you are "holding the ropes". Here is a report from about 3 weeks ago: Sunday night the IWC'ers (International World Changers) usually sing, preach, give testimonies in the churches. At Eden BC a couple of girls played a keyboard and sang with much quality. Afterwards, one of the girls (I'll call her "H") gave her testimony. When she was about 3 years old her father was killed by a co-worker. Although "H" was raised in a Christian home, she revolted against God, questioning how He could have allowed such a thing to happen in her life. In time, she turned to the Lord and He saved her and changed her attitude. As I heard that, I remembered what had happened recently to one of the families at Eden. The father of a 3 year old girl had committed suicide. Her mother was now the church secretary. The three year old is named Vitoria. I asked "H" if she would like to meet someone and pray for her. I was thinking that Vitoria could possibly go through the same thing that "H" had gone through. So we searched for the mom who, in turn, got Vitoria in her arms. But Vitoria would not even look at "H", she just buried her face in her mom's shoulder. So "H" said, "That's OK. I'll be here during the week and we can make friends." So we went back into the church. A few minutes later we came out to leave and Vitoria ran up to "H" and wrapped her arms around "H"'s legs and gave a huge hug. "H" picked her up in her arms and received another huge hug around the neck. By then "H" was crying (a lot!), but she paused and prayed for Vitoria. We were all amazed, but our God is like that! Salvador is becoming more like Rio and São Paulo. On average 6 people are killed every day. Violence has increased 50% from last year. Still, we go into the favelas to build houses and do door to door witnessing. No one has touched us or threatened us yet. Last week there was violence all around us, but it did not touch us. The night before we went to the town square a young man was killed just a few yards from the area. Another man, the one many said was the most notorious murderer of the neighborhood, was killed close to the church we worked out of. The next day, as we were singing and witnessing, a shoot-out was happening on the back-side of the favela. We saw the police cruise by, but heard nothing. On Thursday we were back on the town square witnessing. That night 2 more were murdered. On Friday the teams descended into the favela taking clothes to the needy, praying and witnessing. No one harmed us. That night, six more people were killed in the favela... We wonder: how many of those that died heard our witness? This is the story I heard today. It comes from Neuza, one of the leaders at Eden BC. On Friday when the IWC'ers went down into the favela Neuza was concerned because of all the violence in that bairro. She saw that Fia, leader of one of the teams, was going into some really dangerous places and said something to her. (But Neuza was going into those places too!) Fia replied that the Americans were on fire and wanted to take the Gospel to all and that many were praying to become Christians. So Fia and Neuza continued the clothes distribution and witnessing house to house. In one place Brent, leader of one of the American teams, crossed a small stream to get to a shack where 4 guys were and lead one of the men to the Lord. Brent told Fia that they should really follow up on that guy because he had cried a lot as he accepted the Lord. Latter Fia and Neuza heard that he was one of the worst drug dealers in the area and had been making life difficult for some of the people. The next day he had gone to one of these people and with tears asked forgiveness for what he had done. That night he was killed by the "police". Neuza said today: "Don't stop what you are doing. The churches around here are not doing anything except when the Americans come. The murder rate is out of control in our area. Many are hungry. Only Jesus has the answer." In another neighborhood we built a house on the side of a steep hill. A foot trail was the only access. On the trail was the "office" of drug dealers. It was just an open area beside the trail. Our van driver walked the trail alone one day and the drug dealers stopped him at gun-point wanting to know if he was with the Americans or was a policeman. They asked him to pull his shirt up (to see if he had a gun). One of the guys had a machine gun at his side. They didn't bother the Americans and the folks from the church. We praise the Lord because He took us through it all. (And they didn't harm the van driver!) Danny