Picking Up the Pieces of a Broken Family
Luis and Manuela lost their seven children one day in 1996 when Brazilian authorities suddenly arrived and took them all. End of family.
Apparently, the neighbors knew exactly when Luis got home at night by the sound of his kids running pell-mell through the neighborhood frantically seeking shelter. He was a violent ex-soldier now turned alcoholic who frequently brutalized his wife and children. Not knowing when he'd return, the boys took to sleeping in a gutted car in the woods. So the government took them all away.
Were the siblings now safe? Four of the boys were placed in holding cells along with juvenile prostitutes and street children - where began an education of a different sort. Worried for the boys, someone at the detention center called Aslan's Brazilian Beneficent Association (ABBA) in Sao Paulo, an organization offering shelter to children in crisis.
Enter ACTION missionaries Thomas and Susanna Smoak.
Because ABBA's official rescue house was closed at the time and since the boys were not street children, Thomas brought the four brothers (6, 7, 8, and 9 years old) straight to the transition home of ABBA's rehabilitation program. The frightened boys arrived during a staff prayer meeting.
All the workers were there, says Thomas, and we were able to circle around them and assure them that they were going to be loved and well treated. The staff at the Casa Ebenezer have an induction ritual for new arrivals.
We pray for each one, explains Thomas, sort of binding the spiritual strongholds over their lives, then we anoint each one with oil. We dedicate this part of their lives to the Lord's working. The four boys, however, struggled through change.
The first weeks were a real battle, says Thomas, explaining the trauma of their arrival. They were just animals, completely inarticulate. They cowered in fear under the slightest correction, especially the youngest, Marcos.
Marcos was lying under the bed, back in a corner in the fetal position screaming, squealing like a cornered pig. He would say something about his mother, but we couldn't understand what he was saying.
Eight months later, however, God was healing. The boys began showing unique skills and personalities. The oldest was the slowest to open up, says Thomas, but he is talking about his feelings and expressing anger in a positive way. Anger? Cause for picking up the pieces. We've been visiting their Mom and Dad, Luis and Manuela, every two weeks, notes Thomas.
Family Discipleship
Locating and visiting the parents of the children in the Ebenezer House is standard practice and provides a unique opportunity for the team.
We earn the right to get into the home because we have their children, explains Thomas. You can't just walk into a favela [slum area] and knock on a door and say, `Let me tell you about Jesus.' People are suspicious and closed, he says, and it's dangerous. But the doors open when the children lead workers to their homes. So what we're trying to do is family discipleship.
Thus on a Thursday before Easter, Thomas and a companion entered the dwelling of Luis and Manuela. Both parents were home and their conversation turned to Easter, the sacrifice of God's Son and His power to save.
They were open and receptive, recalls Thomas, but it's hard to know if they are giving you an impression so that you'll be pleased and bring their children back or if they are really convicted by the Lord and wanting to change their lives. Only God knows.
Is there anything holding you back from receiving the Lord? asked Thomas.
No, we want to receive the Lord, they said. So they did. In a one-room shack among the ranks of poverty, the four joined hands around a plank table with a stalk of bananas hanging down and prayed to the Son of Man to break the seal of death on the tomb of their empty home.
Suddenly, the drum of rain muffled their prayers. A hole in the roof gushed water down the stalk of bananas, over the table and onto the floor at their feet. I had this feeling that the Lord was blessing that home, says Thomas, He was making His abundance fall over this couple and their house.
Nuts and Bolts of Outreach
The above story models the Smoaks' ministry among children in crisis in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The process of outreach happens in five fairly predictable steps. First, they meet children on the street, says Thomas, then (2) they invite the kids to a camp for street children. The ones who desire change are taken to the first of three homes, the Rescue House (3). As these children recover, they are taken to the transition home (4), the Casa Ebenezer, for schooling and preparation to re-enter society. The children stay in the transition home for as long as they need to. Eventually, the ones who aren't adopted or returned to their families are taken to the substitution home (5), the Chacara Esperanza located outside the city, where these youth grow into responsible adults and begin lives of their own.
A dozen staff run the three homes that together house up to 30 children. The ministry depends on the help of several short-term missionaries each year. Funding comes from several local churches, Action International Ministries and the Swiss Missionary Fellowship - the mission that sent one of the founders of ABBA, ACTION missionaries John and Yvonne Macy.
Divine Sign Language
Ministry for the Smoaks has always been a process of discovering what God is doing and joining Him there. That outlook formed an ambush of sorts when the Smoaks looked into ministry possibilities at ABBA back in 1996, whereupon the board asked Thomas to be their next director.
I certainly didn't feel like I was capable of being a director, he says, but the Lord worked out the details and we knew that He was doing it.
During that first year, they saw God raise $80,000 to purchase a Rescue House, then bring in skilled help to renovate the building. The Smoaks now wait and pray for the ones whom God will choose to staff this first-stage ministry center for street children.
The idea is to have a Mom and a Dad who care about each child, says Thomas. So if we can somehow make that happen - adoption or foster care or discipling a whole family - that's really what we want.
The Light at the end...
The Smoaks refer to an ideal story, one that illustrates their desire to join in God's activity, especially through ministry to hurting families.
Two boys, Adonis and Adonai, have now returned home after two years in the care of ABBA. Their story? The parents were busted for trafficking drugs and sent to prison. The children turned to relatives, then the streets. The boys landed at the Casa Ebenezer.
First the mother trusted Christ through a local prison ministry. She was released after 18 months and began witnessing to her jailed husband. He trusted Christ, was released and together they found a local church to attend. For Christmas that year, they got their boys back.
She took all her old drug-dealing buddies to the church where she has given her testimony, says Thomas. The Lord did it. He said `This family I want, right here.' And He sent someone to jail to evangelize her, and He sent her to evangelize him, and the church got the boys to us, and we played our little part. But we didn't do it, it was the Lord wanting that family and claiming that family.
by Jon Detweiler