Well finally I found some time to write a bit. I'm already 20 days in Rio de Janeiro and I had the chance to experience and learn a lot so far.
I arrived on January 4th in Rio. A volunteer worker of Movida (partner mission of the Swiss Alliance Missions) picked me up and took me to stay at her place until the CIMA (youth missions conference) started. In this 3 days prior to the CIMA I had the chance to help her with the last preparations for the CIMA. What I didn't know at that time was that this volunteer and friend of mine lives in one of the many slums of Brazil. Now to be fair there are different levels of slums. You have the less organized once, which are those that we hear and see in the news and there are the more organized slums. So I was staying in one of the more organized slums.
On January 7th we were ready to take all the material to the location where the conference would be held. Now on the same day I was also picking up a group of Bible School Students from CLBI (Canada) at the airport. So I stayed in Rio to welcome the students where on the other hand my friend which I was staying with left with the truck to Teresopolis (location of the CIMA conference). After the truck was ready to leave I returned to my friends house to pick up my stuff and head over to the airport. On the way to the house though I walked by a young man that was standing at the side of the road with a machine gun around his shoulder and a radio in his pocket. At least after I walked by this young man I realized that I was in middle of Rio in a slum.
After I picked up the team from Canada we took the bus to head out to Teresopolis. And on January 9th with about 250 youth from almost 10 different countries the conference started. The conference was great and all the conversations and encounters with other youth and speakers was of great blessing. My main duty during the conference was to translate the speakers into English and to translate the Canadian team into Portuguese. With the help of todays technology (translation equipment) it was really easy and handy to translate all the speakers. Even though I had some people thinking that I was going crazy because I was talking into a "turned off" mic and wanting me to be quiet everything went well and the people that needed translation had a good experience as well.
This are more or less the information’s about CIMA, the rest of CIMA went well and as already mentioned it was a blessed time of worship and hearing God's message.
After CIMA was done the practical part started. I'm still translating for the Canadian team. We are now stationed at a missions house of a Megachurch of Rio. This ministry works with kids and youth of the lower society of Rio. We had the opportunity to start right of by helping at a Bible Camp for those kids. We were asked to lead Devos and to plan the afternoon activities. This time at Camp was great and also of great blessings for both sides. The way we were a blessing here we also experienced how the Brazilians bless us and everyday I have humble myself and see how open they are. It breaks my heart to see how little they have and how much they give us.
Starting January 25th we will be located at a new place. Where this place is and what we will be doing I don't know yet, but as soon as I know I'll update you. As soon as I'm back in Switzerland I will upload pictures that I took and let you know. If you want to see some instant pictures that I talk with my phone, then check out my Instagram account.
Thank you so much for your support through prayer (new prayer request are posted under "Support")
