It´s been a year and a half since we started the construction of a staff house in the backyard of community center Casa Semear. Quite a big challenge, because at the same time we´re also busy (´till today) renovating the community center itself and doing a full daily program for the kids and teenagers we work with! Lots of work and a bit of a mess every now and then!
Two years ago ABBA was able to buy the community center (before that time, Robert and Silvana, leaders of the project, used to work in a little, rented space from a local church, with 30 kids on 16 m2!). It´s a big house with three floors, a garage and quite a big piece of backyard. But it needed a lot of work before it could serve well as a community center, so they started renovating the house right away. Thanks to the support of many different people, from different countries, the money started to arrive and we were able to renovate the house little by little. The big room for group meetings, the arts & crafts room, the library and study room are already done. Now we just need to finish the play room for little ones and the teenage lounge space and then the community center will be ready!
Soon plans were made for the construction of a staff house in the backyard of the community center, a big challenge! This house is meant as a home for long term missionaries that work and live inside the project and it will also serve as a temporary home for short term volunteers, which we receive regularly. It´s really nice to see this staff house being built little by little, to see how God provides exactly in everything that we need! Just a few weeks ago we received a phone call from someone of our church who wanted to donate a lot of good furniture to our staff house! Great! We hadn´t even started yet to think about how to decorate the inside part of the house, and God already surprised us with this huge blessing!
A few weeks ago we managed, with help from some volunteers, to put the second roof on the house! This was done in Brazilian manner…. Just one professional construction worker and the rest of the guys just followed his instructions. No machines, everything depends on human strength and hand work! Everybody helped to make the cement, which was poured into little buckets, these buckets were taken to the second floor by an improvised pulley, and then finally two strong men were on top of the newly made roof to pour the cement on it. I got really scared just to look at the improvised ladder that they themselves made to be able to get on top of the roof on the second floor… Just the fact that no one got hurt during this whole enterprise was a true miracle ;0)
Right now the rough structure of the house is done. Now we need to plaster, paint and finish all the details of the house. We hope that we´ll be able to finish and decorate it ´till the end of this year, so that the whole structure of the community center will be ready and we´ll be able to just focus on the work and program with the kids and teenagers; so that we will be able to expand and develop the project more.
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| Second roof ready! |
We´re impressed by Gods care and provision, especially when it comes to these material things which normally don´t get priority in the work we do, but still are important to be able to run a good, organized project. We´re very thankful for everything God has given us as a team, for the people and churches He moved to support the project and we pray that He will use it all for His honor and glory. That community center Casa Semear might be a place where many children and teenagers will get to know God as their Savior, Lord and Father. A place where God can work and bring transformation into the lives of these children and teenagers that grow up in such difficult, broken circumstances.
Two years ago ABBA was able to buy the community center (before that time, Robert and Silvana, leaders of the project, used to work in a little, rented space from a local church, with 30 kids on 16 m2!). It´s a big house with three floors, a garage and quite a big piece of backyard. But it needed a lot of work before it could serve well as a community center, so they started renovating the house right away. Thanks to the support of many different people, from different countries, the money started to arrive and we were able to renovate the house little by little. The big room for group meetings, the arts & crafts room, the library and study room are already done. Now we just need to finish the play room for little ones and the teenage lounge space and then the community center will be ready! 
