Where Jesus Is

It is shocking to arrive at the city square where we do “Street Church” and see the reality of the people there. Children sniff “shoe glue” to stay their hunger and people who once had a career roam around having lost everything due to drugs.

On one particular day, our team was walking around looking for people to love. That day, we had the opportunity to meet a 17-year-old girl who was also sniffing glue. We asked if we could pray for her, she declined. We stayed with her and we talked about love, taught her a few words in English…

And then, she shared about her background. She had lived in Spain with her mother but when her mother passed away when she was 4-years-old, child protective services brought her back to Brazil to live with her grandmother. Since her grandmother did not have resources to take care of her, she lives on the streets. In the end, she did ask us to pray for her family. As she opened her heart for prayer, a man approached her about purchasing her for sex. She refused and chose to stay with us.

After we prayed, she asked if she could play our guitar. We all entered into worship together as she sang, “Be Quiet My Soul”. We were astonished by how God worked that night and how we could see him at work in the girl right in front of our eyes. God opened her heart to receive the love that we could give, the love of God flowing through us and chose to remain in that love over going with that man. It was a moment that we recognized that it isn’t about the prosperous church but rather the church is about who we need to be, where: in the streets, where Jesus is, with the least of these.