Our daughter in Memphis sent a text message Monday night. What a surprise. “I just received a Facebook message from Mateus. Yes, that Mateus, ‘Chuta’ Mateus.” “Sou Mateus.” “I am Mateus,” he wrote. He wondered if we remember him.

Of course, we remember Mateus (pictured above on the left), and I have been messaging with him all week. In July, 2002, Mateus was one of the favela kids, hundreds of them, who streamed down the hill to Vacation Bible School at Igreja Presbiteriana where we were part of a mission team doing our best to help our Brazilian partners. But Mateus was not just one of the hundreds. He was one of those nine-year olds whose smile and mischievousness melts your heart and tries your patience. You meet them in North American Sunday School classes, North Philadelphia schools, Guatemalan villages, and, like Mateus, at the VBS of Igreja Presbiteriana no Jardim America, where every July hundreds of kids come down from Favela da Ventosa for a week of joy and love and hearing the stories of Jesus. Continue reading →