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Beach Baptist Church: Reaching Street Kids on the Sidewalks of Brazil

By Tim Hoganson, Brazil

Throwaway children exist in this world by the millions. For those who live in North America, this reality is quite difficult to fathom. In our city of Salvador, Brazil, we see thousands of street kids milling about, rummaging through trash cans, and getting into trouble: violence, theft, drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, prostitution, and everything else imaginable. There are street kid families: the father and mother are in their early teens, and the group helps them care for the baby on the streets! 

Because these children can be uncontrollable, unscrupulous people are willing to rid society of them. We strongly suspect that at least two children that we were reaching out to were murdered. When we arrived at the ministry one Saturday, some young people in the group told us they found two other kids we had been helping lying on the beach with bullets in their backs.

It was in 1996 that God touched the heart of my wife, Joanne, and told her that we should do something to reach out to at least some of this street population. We decided on a simple plan. One Saturday we headed out to a wide spot frequented by street kids on the beachside walkway near our home. I took my guitar and Bible. Joann took her Bible and an illustrated Bible storybook. We both prayed the whole time, as we still do today when we approach these underprivileged victims of parental irresponsibility.

We went into the feira (outdoor market) and rounded up several dirty, disheveled kids. I asked them, “Would you like to have a church service with us?” When they accepted, we led them to our beachside spot on the sidewalk. Sizing up their unruly behavior, I wondered how to get them under control. We even feared for our safety the first few times we met with them, but God gave me an idea. I looked at them and proceeded to mark out a spot with my foot on the sandy sidewalk. Pointing to the square I had traced out, I said, “Look here. This is Beach Baptist Church. We won’t tolerate drinking, smoking, glue sniffing, fighting, bad language, or anything of that nature here! If you insist on that type of thing, you’ll have to step outside of the church!” Can you imagine this sad, yet humorous, sight? Boys clad only in ragged shorts, with soda pop cans full of shoemaker’s glue stuck in the waistband of their shorts, stepping over an imaginary wall of an imaginary church in order to be able to sniff their glue? This is what we did, and it worked. After that, we had a semblance of order in the group.

Within several weeks we had a regular crowd of about twenty to twenty-five street kids, with some adults mixed in. We continue to attract a group of roughly this size each Saturday. It’s been nine years now, and we have seen many receive Christ as their Savior. We take church to them, right where they are. Our main weekly emphasis is that they need to take Jesus as their Savior. 

On more than one occasion a young person who disappeared from our Saturday sessions suddenly reappeared to tell the group that he or she is no longer living on the streets. Some have told us they’ve found a home. In some cases they’ve returned to their parents’ home. In the more successful cases, we’ve seen them go back to school, and we really rejoice when one of them tells us he or she is attending a church somewhere.

While we were dealing with some difficult discipline situations, God gave me the idea of designating some of the older boys as deacons. “Look”, I said, “I need help controlling the group so I can teach the lesson. A deacon is a servant of God in the church who serves people and helps the pastor control things. You boys are the deacons now. You have to be extra good and help us out.” This has helped with discipline, even though these deacons don’t yet understand what it means to serve people in love. One time Joann turned to a boy and said, “I need you to help me control things today, so you are my special helper.” At that the boy turned to the group and said, “Look, the auntie needs my help today to control you, so if you step out of line, I’ll kill you!” Of course, that was not the message we hoped he would give.

You can see we need your prayers as we continue to reach out to this street population, a people abused in this life and on the edge of everlasting ruin.