In anticipation of our trip to Brazil, Becky and I recently (re)watched “The Mission,” one of our favorite movies and filmed where we will be for the first half of our journey.  We are staying at Iguaçu Falls as depicted in the movie poster and will travel into Argentina to visit the ruins of one of the Jesuit missions that are important in the story “The Mission” tells.

In the film Robert De Niro plays Rodrigo Mendoza, a slave trader and murderer whose penance for one of his many crimes is to join Brother Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) in the work of the mission being built in the jungle above the falls.  While not a “Christian” movie, the story told is the story of Mendoza’s slow conversion to Christian faith. Mendoza studies Scripture – we hear him citing 1 Corinthians 13 on more than one occasion. The former slave trader comes to understand the power of faith, hope, and love through the community at the mission – the Jesuits and, especially, the Guarani people who have found shelter and meaning at the mission.

If you have never seen “The Mission,” I encourage you to do so. Just one spoiler alert: stories of faith, hope, and love do not always have happy endings.

I have said more than once, and maybe too many times, that this trip will be the first of our many trips to Brazil that is not a mission trip. As we visit in Belo Horizonte the second half of the journey, we will visit as friends. No projects. Okay, one sermon, but just with friends we have known and loved for 25 years.

As I have thought about the second half of our trip, though, I realize that it is a mission. We are being sent to this place and to these people who have meant so much to us, whose community and love have filled our lives so richly. We don’t know; maybe we are going to say goodbye. This might be our last trip to Brazil. We don’t know. But, for sure, we are going to say “we love you” and to thank our friends for all the ways they have allowed God to use them in our lives.

There are many stories we could tell of faith, hope, and love as we have experienced them in Jardim América and Favela da Ventosa. Undoubtedly, we will have stories to tell when we return home. I don’t know if we will tell them or not. They are sacred, deep. They cannot be told or perhaps should not be told in a blog post.

We’re traveling to Brazil. The first week as tourists, but the second week on a mission trip, we’re being sent to say “we love you.”