New Destiny Blog

(3rd Feb 2010)

As soon as we arrived the car was surrounded.  The children came running and we were hugged so much that it was a while before we realized that it was time we got ourselves inside the narrow lanes of the Sao Bernardo favela in Belo Horizonte.  All the time being accompanied by the kids and guided by Debora, coordinator of Project Mana, we went to meet some of the mothers, brothers, sisters and friends of some of the children who came to ND in December.  According to Debora, the impact that the visit to the farm had on these children’s lives was so great that it was imperative that we visited them in their homes.  And it was unforgettable!

The sweat poured down us as the burning hot sun took the temperature to more than 35°.  Inside the houses the smell of soap seasoned the suffocating atmosphere caused by the low corrugated iron roofs, which make the heat even more unbearable.  However, the reception we received from these people captivated all of us and despite the extreme poverty that shocked our eyes, there was always a generous offer of cold water.  It reminded me of the time I found myself crying before god nearly 8 years ago as I looked at my boots encrusted with mud after some visits that Morven and I made in the homes of some families living in misery that a Project where Morven worked as a missionary were trying to help.  I really changed that night.  Today, February 2010, I changed again when I saw those children who seem to have no reason to smile or be happy.

Tiny little damp houses full of holes, in front of a polluted stream which is used as a swimming pool by the children when it overflows in the rainy season, labyrinths of streets that hide the evil lure of drug trafficking and an atmosphere of oppressive violence that you can almost touch it with your hands.

But those children were smiling with us!  It was as if they were transported to a fantasy world completely opposite to that reality.  They only had eyes for the dream that they had tasted a long way from there.  I don’t know why but the following thought came into my mind right there and then in the middle of the favela: if only those who support the work here at ND financially had the opportunity to witness this … they would surely kneel down and thank God for the privilege of participating in this great work.  Their offerings are reaching beyond the work at ND and passing through the very doors of these little shacks we call houses.

Experiences like this help us to understand better why some of the children cry when they leave the farm. Here they find references, principles, different values …  they don’t just have a fun time, it’s about the living God leaving a forever mark on their lives.

There in the favela we actually felt like we were the ones being visited, by Jesus himself, because in a place like that, our lives change with every step we take.

Camps

coming down from the zip wire!

It has been a busy few months here at ND with nine camps and one prayer weekend (‘24/7’ for those who are familiar with it) in the last three months.  We already have 24 camps confirmed for 2010 which is really exciting – several of these groups are from social Projects in the city who have never brought young people to the Centre before.  It is great when children come for the first time, but in a way it is even more exciting when they come back again because it gives us a chance to water seeds that have been planted, in other words gives more continuation to the work.

Rafting activity

one of ND's famous birthday parties

Several of these groups came from Centro Alvorada which is a fantastic project in Belo Horizonte who run a crèche, a community centre for children between the ages of 7 to 15, a temporary shelter for children at risk and a youth programme which helps teenagers to get more training in order to find jobs when they leave school.  The community centre alone attends around 150 children a day, of which around 120 have been to camp at ND aready.  The rest are coming in 2010.

Visit to Centro Alvorada

Some of our team went to visit the Centre last week in order to strengthen our links with them and learn more about what they do.  It was shocking to hear some of the stories that Lucio (the director) told us.  Nearly all the children have absent fathers due to them being in prison, or having abandoned the family or perhaps they don’t even know who their fathers are.  Many of them are drug traffickers.  We also heard many stories of mothers being beaten up or abused by their husbands and having to take protection orders out against them.  We had the privilege of meeting some of the mums as we walked around the Project.

Lucio with family members who attend Centro Alvorada

One of the mums we met has six children and her husband is in prison, she hopes for a very long time.   He abused her and the children for many years.  One of her sons is deaf and another daughter refuses to speak, the doctors say it is due to emotional trauma. Lucio said that when they first visited her she and her six children were living in one small room of someone’s house in the favela.  Her children will be coming to ND next year.

As we walked around Centro Alvorada the children and teenagers came running out of their classrooms to greet us, jumping up and down with excitement.  They showered us with thank you pictures and cards and the staff gave us a big banner with photos of our team and the children, thanking us for ND.  Lucio said that they come back different from the camps more motivated and those with behaviour problems come back calmer and easier to work with.  It was so encouraging for us to hear!  He said that they talk about ND every day and are already making craft products to sell so they can rent a bus next year to come back again. 

In order to receive all the Centro Alvorada kids between the ages of 7 and 18 at ND we would need to run 16 camps for them.  And this is just one Project – there are thousands of others doing similar work in Belo.  The need is great!

The goal – camps every week

At present we are able to run two camps a month but we are getting closer to being able to run one a week. 

Q – In order to reach this goal what do we need?

A – Two teams of six staff and enough monthly sponsors to cover the expenses.

Our first team is complete hence the reason that we currently run two camps a month.  We still need five more staff members to complete the second team although there are at least another two strong possibilties in the pipeline.  Apart from the staff we would need about £1000 more a month to cover the extra food, maintenance and staff expenses.

If you would like to be a monthly sponsor and help us to reach that goal, please email us (see contact us page).

Staff news update

Jeff in London

Jeff just back from three and a half months in the UK.  He was based in The Ark, Dover which is a church that have a great vision for helping the local community.  He had a very beneficial and exciting time there.  We are glad to have him back!

the team (without Jeff)

Renan doing a course this week – learning how to make things from the fibres of a banana …  sounds funny but apparently it is amazing how many uses a banana skin has!  He hopes to run future workshops for the children who come to ND.  We look forward to his feedback next week.

Romeu’s birthday yesterday (not allowed to say his age!)

Michele (Romeu’s wife) is pregnant again. Great news!

Fund-raising in Brazil

I (Morven) was invited to speak at a charity dinner dance in Belo a few weeks ago and they raised R$5000 (about £1500) in one evening! I have been asked to go back next year again as it is an annual event.  The organizers of the dinner were a couple called Antonio and Rose Castro de Gomes who we bought the farm from in 2004.  They run a well known business in Belo Horizonte so have a lot of contacts who came to the event.  We were so pleased that they chose ND as one of their charities.

Getting to know the families

You may remember from the last newsletter that there are a couple of favelas just a few km from the farm.  We have already run camps for groups of children from there and have been planning to visit some of the families for a long time, with a view to running more activities and camps for their children in the future.  We have now started the visits.  Last week, Renan, Romeu and I walked around Padre Eustaquio, the nearest slum to the farm. with Gilmar (see most recent newsletter).  We popped into several houses to meet mums, dads and stepdads in some cases.  I invited them to come out to the farm for a day next year to see where their children go to camp and to do some of the activities themselves!  Those who didn’t respond with obvious enthusiasm, were trying to hide smiles – the kind that keep popping up even when you try to keep them down! The main problems there are alcohol and drug abuse and the consequences that go along with these addictions, such as broken familes, crime, lack of education etc. 

Gilmar

Igor

Another visit was to Igor’s house. He is 15 and has been to ND a couple of times.  We decided to visit him on a couple of occasions recently because we heard he was going through a difficult time.  It turns out that his brother (18) was violently beaten by the police and then arrested in front of him in their home.  His father abandoned the family when Igor was very young, and consequently his mum is very angry and depressed.  Igor is such a great kid though and we really want to encourage him.  He is kind and a bit of a gently giant.  We want to encourage him to take the opportunities to continue to choose a different path for his life.  He is at school (which is not normal for someone in his situation) and he attends several after school clubs. 

Right up to today …

Well, hope you have enjoyed the latest update.  More kids arriving at the farm for the weekend later tonight (Friday 4th).  We have an exciting weekend planned for them including a party we were donated from a company that run childrens parties!  Will let you know how it went next week.  Byeeee …

Raising awareness

Meeting with the New Destiny UK Trust

We are very grateful for the work of the New Destiny UK Trust which was set up in 2006 to coordinate fund-raising efforts and financial contributions for ND from within the UK. The trust enables us to be accountable with our finances as well as providing us with advice and good counsel and getting the work better known in the UK. The chairman of the Trust is Lorimer Gray who is the executive director of The Abernethy Trust. He is also the international director of CCI (Christian Camping International). Moira Gray (married to Lorimer) is not a board member but is our UK Rep and does a fantastic job of increasing our support base, communicating with our contacts and dealing with donations and monthly sponsorship.

It was a blessing to be able to be at the most recent meeting of the board on 9th July at the Abernethy Trust’s Nethy Bridge Outdoor Centre.

We are back in Brazil now and it is good to be home but we will be forever thankful for this very special trip that came just at the right time for our family! Thanks to all of you who gave us personal donations during our time in the UK helping me and the kids to have such a special holiday.

Just said goodbye to Claire May who left us today after six months of volunteering at the Centre. Her time here has been a huge blessing to me especially as Claire´s main role was helping me with my three littlest ones, Angus (nearly 4), Arran (2) and Iona (nearly 3 months). I am missing her already!
I was going to update the blog with a couple of recent stories but noticed that Claire had already written about them in her newsletter to family and friends so have asked her permission to copy and paste in what she wrote. Thanks Claire.

´This past weekend we had a group of deaf children from a slum in Belo, and although the whole weekend was like one I’ve never experienced before, it was a moment on Sunday that got to me the most. We had a guy visit us for the day (Wade Jagmin) who is originally from the US but out in Brazil doing mission work. He gave his testimony to the children and I will share the moment with you:

At the age of 8 years old, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor the size of an orange. When operating they had to cut a nerve to be able to get it out. This nerve was attached to his facial muscles, so although he is now 30, the side effects are visible, and he is unable to smile. Now this is where the moment came – I am sitting in a room full of deaf under-privileged children, listening to the testimony of someone who has survived a brain tumor! He’s telling us that God is love, and God never changes therefore God’s love never changes, and that God loves him now just as He did before his tumor, before he looked different to other people. God loves him as much as He loves the deaf children and as much as He loves me. Me who complains that my hair is not looking great, that I could loose a few inches around the waist, that I need new clothes, more money, a holiday. It makes you appreciate being loved by God with an unconditional love.

We just had had a few weeks of near 40° heat, the pressure finally had to give, and around midnight a couple of Fridays ago, the storm hit! We have had storms here, even one that felt like 3 colliding above our farm, but this one topped them all. The force of the wind made it feel like our entire wooden house was going to slide down the hill. I got up to find everyone else up too, and together we moved items away from the walls which were pouring water through gaps in the wooden panels. When the storm started to calm down we noticed a red glow in the distance and prayed that it wasn’t a house on fire. It too died down, but in the morning we discovered it had been one of the lights on the driveway up to the farm – the electric cables had been broken by 3 large trees which had been uprooted in the storm and fallen across the driveway. Morven had had to evacuate in the night with her 3 younger ones and sleep in the house next door as most of the rooms in her house were filling with water.
As day broke and before the group of children arrived, everyone got to work mopping up water and sawing and lifting trees out of the way. Then later that evening another storm hit – not as bad as the night before, but this time taking our electricity out! In the dark of the evening one of their leaders brought out his guitar and by candle light all these gorgeous little children, some as young as 5, sang their hearts out to Jesus. I felt so privileged to be there … to witness such beauty … A normal Saturday night in London could involve a dinner out somewhere with friends, but here I was sitting by candle light, on the other side of the world, watching kids who have “nothing” and smiling through teary eyes knowing they have more hope and faith than a lot of people.´

I (Morven) gave birth to my beautiful Iona Liel on 8th January hence the lack of blogs. However I am now back at the office weekday afternoons and so let the blogging begin again!

We had two volunteers with us from Barcaple Outdoor Centre in Scotland the first couple of weeks in December – Dave Wands and Alison Steel. They helped us to finish the adventure playground – finally!!!

It has been so exciting to see children actually playing on it since then.

We also have a couple of swings up now which were donated by the local council. Dave and Alison raised the money to do the work and also brought extra cash to help the Centre in general. Thanks guys.

Claire managed to renew her visa at the end of December and so is staying until the end of March. Ted and Deirdire also had to renew their visas in January which they managed successfully. They are going back to the UK for about three months with me and my five chldren on 22nd April.

We are excited to be receiving a paying group for five days over Carnaval next week. Our desire is to receive more and more paying groups in order to help us to raise more money and awareness for ND. This time it is a church from Belo Horizonte who are bringing about 45 people. We only have room for 18 in the main house, so the rest will be camping in tents.

Last weekend we received children from a community project in an infamous Belo slum called ´the Pedreira´. We still desperately need more monthly sponsors. If you can´t support us in this way, please encourage someone else to think about it. Thanks so much!

Claire arrived as a volunteer on 7th October and is hoping to stay for 6 months in total. She has been an absolute Godsend and we don´t know what we will do when she leaves, especially me as she is such a great help with my little boys Angus and Arran. She is doing a number of other things too such as trying to help me access trust funds that could help us financially with the building project that the architect is currently working on. She also helps with all the camps, throwing herself into the activities despite the language barrier.
Everyone on the team loves her and she has been building great friendships with all the Brazilian staff (ie most of the team) who are teaching her Portuguese. On Thursday afternoons she gives an English lesson to some of our staff which apart from being useful is proving to be the cause of great hilarity too!
We are all praying that she might feel called here in the future more long-term!!! (hint hint Claire) but are just grateful to have her for this period of time at least.

We are very excited about the recent visit from Bob Watts and his partner Jeannette. Bob has his own architects firm in Leven, Fife.

He came out to draw up plans for the renovation of our big empty barn and our house which provides accommodation for the children. Our plan is to renovate the house we already have so that it can sleep about 40 children instead of the present 18, and to turn our empty barn into a refectory, kitchen and big hall.

We are very moved by the way Bob has thrown himself into this project and by how quickly he has caught our vision for the work here. Not only that but he is doing it all out of the goodness of his heart and at no financial gain for himself. His experience of thirty years in architecture is invaluable to us. I think it is the first time though that he has drawn up designs for a project that has no money yet to do the work – we are just trusting that the money will come in once we have professional plans that we can send to possible sponsors. PLEASE LET US KNOW IF YOU HAVE ANY CONTACTS WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN HELPING FUND THIS PROJECT. It is going to make a huge difference to our work with the children.

Bob and Jeannette spent just over a week with us and now Bob is working on his plans back in Scotland. It was great getting to know them and welcoming them into our big ND family, which just keeps growing!

We will keep you posted with any new developments.

This weekend we received two families who a Project called ´Criança Feliz´(The Happy Child Project) have been working with. All the children have been in and out of childrens homes, and ´Happy Child´ have been helping the parents to receive the children back in their homes again, which has obviously involved much counseling and psychological support. One of the girls was sexually abused by someone outside the family, one of the boys in particular has suffered a lot of emotional and physical abuse, but they have all suffered the consequences of unstable and violent home situations, not to mention the heart wrench of having been split up and put in different childrens homes.

Sadly, one of the dads who was supposed to be bringing his four children, didn´t turn up, and the set of parents who did turn up ended up coming alone with all the children. It was so sad. However we made sure it was a very special weekend for all, especially the children who came without either parent. The oldest boy of this family is called Rafael and we discovered that it was to be his birthday a few days later (yesterday actually) and that he had never in his life had a birthday cake, present or party of any kind! Can you believe it …….. and he is 15 years old. Desperately sad. So on the Sunday afternoon, we threw a surprise party for him with a huge cake with his name on it, a decorated table, coca-cola and a present. As he walked in the door, we all sang happy birthday over and over getting faster and faster (as goes tradition here). He was so stunned that he couldn´t even get any words out. We all hugged him and prayed God´s blessing over his life – I don´t think there was a dry eye in the place.
Renan stood behind him with his hands on his shoulders and gave a little speech about the way we were all so impressed by his care and love for his younger brothers and sisters and the way he is such a great example. Renan encouraged him to never give up even when times are hard and to trust in God to help him through, always reaching out for his full potential. It was very moving.

Working with the whole family goes one step beyond helping the child and we hope to do more and more of this kind of work in the future.

Last weekend (26th – 28th September) we ran a camp for more children from a local community centre attending some of the poorest and most under-privileged children in Itabirito. In the group were two sisters and a brother who were recently orphaned. One of the girls in particular spent most of the weekend in the kitchen wanting to help Luisa and Doraci, but really just desperate for love and attention.
Their dad died of a drug overdose and a couple of weeks later their mum committed suicide because she missed her husband so much, a desperate situation. They were living in a local childrens home but the past couple of weeks have moved in with their grandmother. She is an old lady now and not really able to look after them properly. It is not just these three either, they have another 6 brothers and sisters.

It was great to see them smiling and having fun, apart from giving them some attention and love that they were craving. It was also an opportunity to tell them about the Heavenly Father who will never leave them.


We go on praying that they will be adopted by good families who will love them and care for them. We know it would be a miracle but we know it is God´s desire to put the lonely in families as the Bible says.

On Sunday 21st September Fabio, Morven (me), Angus and Arran Santos, were on our way to give a presentation about ND at a conference in a church in Belo Horizonte, when we had a very bad accident in the jeep. It was raining and although we were not going very fast, we skidded and it would also appear that something snapped in the steering (a part that had rusted but which we only discovered about later.) The accident happened on a terrible bit of road that is renowned for fatal accidents. We literally careered round and round across three lanes on the highway and then the car turned over at least once but possibly twice – it was all a bit of a blur to be honest. When we finally came to a standstill the jeep was on its side on the earth banking. (Strangely enough the whole time it was happening, the song playing on the CD was ´No matter what happens I will trust in Your Word´.)

The first thing I saw when I turned round was that Angus and Arran were still in their baby seats with seatbelts firmly securing them ….. I don´t think I have ever felt so relieved in my life than when I heard them calling out to us, very shocked but okay. Fábio and I managed to get out of our seats and crawl back to them, releasing them and pulling them out. We were able to pass them out through a broken side window to bystanders who seemed to immediately gather at the side of the car. We couldn´t fit through the window, but Fabio managed to get the back door open and get the two of us out that way.

We have no doubt that God was in control and that we experienced a miracle. Those who witnessed the accident all said the same thing. None of us had any serious injuries, just a few bumps on the head, some small bruises and some stiffness and discomfort for the next couple of days. I went to my doctor to check out the baby in my tummy and heard her heart beating as strongly as ever – she was kicking me as usual just a short time after the accident which was a huge reassurance! We believe that God and His angels protected us from something much worse.

We also thank God for the fact that we were in a very strong vehicle – about ten men trying to roll it back over couldn´t manage it and it was only when the pick up truck finally got it on its feet that we realized how strong the framework is. If we had been in a van or a normal car it would probably have been crushed.

We don´t yet know how much it is going to cost to get the jeep fixed although it certainly won´t be cheap! The good news is that it is definitely repairable. We are going to try and fund-raise here to at least help towards the repairs.

Our friend Edilson has now lent us his car for a couple of weeks which is a huge blessing.

Anyway, just wanted to share about ´the miracle´ as we prefer to think of it and not simply ´the accident´ – all the glory goes to Him!