Increased openness in the closed places.

It is so amazing to see how the boys in our discipleship groups in the youth prisons are opening up and asking questions. These are boys who have gone through life surviving by staying tough, boys who don’t believe in showing insecurity. Seeing them changing is amazing, and it is only because of the power of God touching their hearts. Praise God for the breakthroughs we are seeing!!

We have seen a good team of different people come together to minister in the youth prisons, and we are seeing even the most closed prison now approaching us and asking us to come in and work with their boys. When this happens we have even more freedom to come in and preach the Truth, the truth that sets free!

Telma, one of the staff of YWAM Fortaleza is involved in the prison work, and here she shares a bit of how she experiences it:

“…this Thursday was my second time going to the youth prisons. To see those boys locked up like animals broke my heart, because I knew that God did not created them to be in that place. He created them to live in freedom, free from the cells and also free from sin. We do our work in a room that is locked with security guards in case they try to escape. When they are thirsty they need to ask for water, and receive a big bottle of it. They have to drink directly from the bottle because they don’t receive cups. And when they drink, they drink as if it was the last water they had. This made me so sad to see. Maybe you wonder what the problem with drinking water this way is. My point is that so often we don’t value what God has given us, and we don’t give water and bread to those who hunger and thirst for God. Seeing that scene reminded me of how much we as Christians have to give people, and how often we keep it to ourselves, and how our lives are far from simple. I think we need to go back to simplicity.”

At the moment we are looking to using some material in our discipleship groups from the Saddleback church, which goes through eight steps in growth and healing in Christ. Please pray that we as a team can get a good grasp of that material and all be on the same page as we go in to share and teach the boys.

Pray for John as he coordinates the prison work and seeks to draw all those involved together to be unified!

Pray for us to stay humble and dependant on God as we go in, and that we will always seek to know His heart and His plans for every single opportunity we have.