We´ve been busy working at Casa Semear for over a month already now. When I say ´we´, I mean myself and the other team members (Robert, Silvana, Dora and social worker Eliane).
As some of you might have read in our last newsletters, Caio practically stopped working at ABBA and is now working almost full-time for a Christian publishing house in town. So the Casa Semear team is a bit smaller than last year and that means that we also had to lower the number of kids & teenagers that participate in the program. We´re working with a group of 80 kids this year, which still is quite a big group!
Just to explain Caio´s job a bit better: he´s working for Vida Nova, one of the biggest, Christian publishing houses here in Brazil, for six hours a day. At the moment he does a lot of correction work of books that have just been translated into Portuguese. In the future he would like to also work on the translation of books from English into Portuguese. He works in his own time, at home as a volunteer.
As many of you might know by now, Caio loves books and theology, so up ´till now he is really enjoying his new job. Besides the work for Vida Nova, he is still involved with ABBA too. He helps out at Casa Semear on Thursdays and every now and then he´s busy doing PR work, speaking in local churches on behalf of ABBA and developing new video material to promote ABBA.
We´re back with all the different activities at the community center and for me that means that I´m busy doing the SuperWoman program for the teen girls, giving English classes on Fridays and developing & teaching different, fun kinds of arts & crafts. Besides the animal key rings, which we´ve been producing at Casa Semear for a while already, we´re now also making beautiful, patchwork Christmas balls to hang in the Christmas tree. (One way for you to support project Casa Semear is by buying these handmade arts & crafts products. All resources will be used for the work with the kids).
Every week we try to come up with a new, fun way of doing arts & crafts for the youngest kids, so they can also spend some time being creative while they get the opportunity to learn new skills, like using a scissors, drawing, gluing, recognizing colors and shapes etc.
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| Making turtles! |
At the beginning of this year, I started the SuperWoman program with the teen girls looking back on 2011: What were good things that happened to you in 2011? The answers given by the girls surprised me and made me well aware of how important our role, the role of Casa Semear, is in their lives! 95% of all the answers had to do with activities of and around community center Casa Semear! When I tried to challenge the girls to think further than just the community center, their reaction was short and clear: besides the things we do at the community center, there is really nothing else going on in our lives that is so great that it would be worth mentioning! The highlights of their year are the SuperWoman meetings, the teen camp in July, the pyjamas party and the Christmas celebration!
Sometimes we wonder if our presence in this neighborhood, in the lives of these families and kids makes any difference... it seems so little, what we do… those few hours a week that they get to spend at the community center, those few hours that we get to know them, teach them, be there for them... The rest of the week they live in such a negative, destructive environment, a world so full of violence, indifference, dangers, so cold and hard. And many times it seems as if this world they live in has a much stronger impact on their lives than the things they learn and experience in those few hours a week with us at Casa Semear…
But how wonderful is it to see how God uses these few hours a week to influence, to change their lives! These small sparks of love, attention, friendship, harmony and joy do have an impact on these kids´ lives! The huge importance of a smile, a cup of hot coffee with milk, a simple question: How are you doing?, a hug at the end of the day, before they go back home. It´s the small things that make a difference, a huge difference! Even if it doesn´t always look like it, even if we aren´t always aware of it. God wants to use us, how wonderful is that! I pray that He will use me, us, this year to touch and impact the lives of many kids & teenagers. For His honor, not ours… and for His kingdom.
God bless you!
Love,
Caio & Dot
