Santa Monica

-
Santa Monica is the Community we live in. It used to be a notorious Favela but now has settled down. I really believe that the base here has a lot to do with it. It has focused a lot on community development projects. Everything from women's conferences, to the 'Show de Bola' football club which encourages kids to stay in school, to working with the local clinic to provide healthcare information to the community. Several of our staff are involved in the local council trying to make Santa Monica a better place to live for everyone. We have mini supermarket, a football court, a sweet shop a bakery and veg shop and 3 Bars.And the YWAM base of course.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nutmeg and Orange infused Butter

-
Image
Monica isn’t going to know that it’s not nutmeg flavoured butter. I don’t want to be rude but she piles her plate high with everything all mixed in. Rice with gravy, turkey with beans.. Christmas dinner/ Brazilian barbecue carnage.  She has lived in a slum or on the street for most of her life so, understandably, food is more about quantity than quality. So when Tony rings me from the hospital at 11pm (another story) to ask if I would mind making the nutmeg and orange infused butter for the Hope House Christmas party tomorrow ( for which Monica would be in attendance) .. it wasn't just the nutmeg that I started to grind.  In my defense it had been a long day, Tess is ill, I'm a hormonal wreck with an earache and it’s so flippin hot. I’d spent my evening tidying up and trying to cram cupboards with mess to give myself a feeling of more tranquility and less clutter over the festive period. But in trying to cram everything in with tetris style agility I had lef...
Read more

home visit to Chris

-
Image
I have to admit that I was a little nervous last Monday afternoon. It was my first time in a Brazilian Favela. We were going to search for Chris, to see how he was getting on, if he had made it to school yet, and to let him know there are still people who care for him. When we first arrived I was a little surprised the area looked a lot like the one we live in here, called Santa Monica, which was one of the worst Favelas in Recife 10 years ago, but now is more of a "community". The area we arrived in was even more developed than our community, houses were painted and tiled, they had pavements and there was no litter on the floor. But we turned down a side road, parked  up and entered a maze of shanty houses that were little more than a metre apart. People sitting in their doorways watching us go past. It felt very claustrophobic. I felt like an intruder, so obviously not from this part of the country. People sit on their doorsteps doing things together, it feels like you a...
Read more

The New Arrival!

-
Image
We are happy to announce the arrival of Teresa Heather Lewry! Born on Wednesday 2nd April at 4.42am weighing 7lb2oz (3.3kg) and 48cm long.  Mum and Baby are well. The birth was a little complicated towards the end and Teresa needed to be incubated for a few hours to get over the shock!
Read more