You Make Beautiful Things

It’s been almost a week since we got back to Recife from Sertão. And wow, what a week this was! A week filled with meeting new people and having new experiences and beautiful encounters.

After the rest day, Monday, we started to clean the base for the special Wednesday evening. On Wednesday we had the Fathet’s Love Banquet here at the Shores of Grace base. Father’s Love Banquets are banquets where Shores of Grace invites prostitutes and transvestites for a dinner and shares with them about Father’s love for them and their value and identity honoring them as sons and daughters of God.

Boys busy cleaning the base.

The base is always beautiful but is was stunning on Wednesday evening. And is got even more stunning when all the beautiful ladies arrived! There were approximately 20 ladies and some of them brought also their children here. We had a delicious dinner and such a good time. We got to pray for them and to share to them words from the Father. Words, that are always so encouraging and so full of love and respect! We also got to give them flowers, gifts and cards we had made before. What a beautiful night with beautiful people!

Você é Linda - You are beautiful!

All ready for the guests to arrive.

The table with the presents.

I spent most of my evening with this beautiful lady.

I have also been getting familiar with the Bethany home and helping there. Bethany home is a home where ten girls rescued from prostitution, abusive situations and the streets live with their lovely house parents. I’m so honored to have this chance to get to know these ten beautiful, special girls! And they’re patiently teaching me more Portuguese. Huh, it’s a hard language! I’m going to Bethany home also today and I hope I still remember the words the girls taught me yesterday!

On Thursday afternoon couple of us went to clean Bethany home 2. It’s going to be a home for ladies who want to leave the streets. I was there cleaning the toilets listening this Gungor song where they sing:

                 ”You make beautiful things,

                   You make beautiful things out of dust

                   You make beautiful things,

                   You make beautiful things out of us”

And soon after that I killed the biggest cockroach I have ever killed bravely yelling and using my flip-flop! I was very proud indeed.

Cesar and Vick collecting the oven in Bethany home 2.

On Tuesday and Friday nights we went to the streets to meet the prostituted women and transvestites. Especially the encounters on Friday night were so beautiful and moving. It’s amazing to share often times just quite simple words about Father’s love and see the smiles breaking down and tears coming to eyes. There is just so deep hunger to hear about identity and value and what an honor it is to get to share the Father's love to these precious people.

An encounter that really touched my heart was with one transvestite. I told that he is so special person and the Father really has very special plans for his life. He looked me deep to my eyes and asked if I really believe that. I told that I surely do, because our Father is a loving Father. I also told that getting to tell this to him was such an honor to me. He was surprised and told me that in Brazil no-one respects him. I told that it really makes the Father sad and that it also makes me sad. We hugged and said goodbyes.

It can be just so simple sometimes.

Our Father is so creative and He has created each one of us so special using His amazing, spectacular creativeness giving us different kinds of gifts and dreams and making us look so much different, even with so different skin colors! And in the same time we all are so much the same everywhere in the world. He has set eternity in our hearts (Ecc. 3:11) and so we all have in our hearts the longing to know the one who created us. We all long to be accepted, loved and respected. We all long to live a beautiful life in Him, letting Him be our Father and to take care of us. We all long to know we are not here by accident but that there is a Creator who has a plan and dreams for our lives. And how amazing it is to find those dreams in your own life, know the Father yourself and then go and give everything the Father has poured to you the one in front of you. He surely makes beautiful things out of dust and beautiful things out of us.