CHILDREN'S CITY (MAY)
Our children and adolescents from the CHILDREN’S CITY are like other children and adolescents, they like to play, run and sometimes they are mischievous. With so many children in the same place, the problems accumulate and appear bigger.
In the midst of the games, running and mischief, I like to hug these small children and the boys and girls (some already adolescents or entering their adolescence) that we care for in the CHILDREN’S CITY. Some are more courageous; they come and hug me, kiss me and talk to me.
One of them almost every time we meet asks me, when are you going to build a doghouse? We want to build a kennel so they can have some dogs to play with. We still have not built it, but it is part of our program, we want to have other animals in the CHILDREN’S CITY too.
What impresses me about these children is the joy on their faces and the degree of hope they have. When I think about their origin, I realise that this reveals a profound change in their lives. The majority of them come from broken homes, from families impoverished through sin, through vice and through immoral values. Some of them do not know their fathers, as they are children of single mothers who sometimes have children by two or more men. Others have lost their fathers or mothers, or both, sometimes violently. Still others have a father or mother in prison, or their mother is in prostitution so she can survive.
Stories that are very sad, stories of poverty, lack of family, lack of school, lack of orientation lack of everything. They usually arrive in a very bad way, sad, without hope, without prospects. Have you lived with a sad child without hope? It is a desolate picture, but then in a little time they start to change. The environment helps, the big playground gives them a safe place to play and the people who care for them are Christians who do their work with love and with their heart. Over everything, the Holy Spirit works in their hearts as a response to prayer.
The Valley of Blessing is especially a place of prayer. In our Prayer Centre we have a Permanent Prayer Vigil, 24 hours a day every day, all day and all night. As well as this, we have campaigns and we continually have special programs of prayer. The Holy Spirit has come and is working wonderfully in the various areas of the Valley of Blessing and in the children and adolescents that we care for.
For them our prayers continue. We do not want to give them just food, clothes and school, we want to give them much more than this. We continually pray that the Holy Spirit will teach us and help us to bless these children in such a way that they will be transformed by the power of God, and praise the Lord this is happening.
I delight in this because it is a big challenge for me and when I realise that the grace of God is working in these lives bringing joy, hope and salvation I am very happy too.
OUR CHALLENGES (March)
The Valley of Blessing assisted 1,100 children, adolescents and families in the year 2004. We praise God because He gave us the human and financial resources so that these boys and girls are fully cared for through the social programs that we developed.
We do the best we can with what we have. We give our boys and girls food, clothes, school materials and medical and dental treatment. We care for their educational and psychological needs. Along side these we give spiritual guidance so that they will have a healthy upbringing.
Since 1985 we have improved our work investing the money that we receive from the people and partners that God raised up to sustain these social projects that give support to children and adolescents in situations of risk. God acts in the world through people that are moved with compassion and seek to do His will. He honours those who are concerned about children and adolescents in situations of abandonment and risk.
Through the support of various friends that God raised up, we were able to build seven homes so that our children and adolescents could have a dignified life touched by the love of Jesus. Many of these children are not orphans, some have a mother and father, but are abandoned or were victims of physical and emotional aggression, sexual abuse or other terrible attacks that you have already heard of. Our challenge is to receive boys and girls from zero to eighteen years of age and bring them to the knowledge of the love of Jesus.
As I have already said, we assisted 1,100 boys, girls and families in the past year. They were helped in “New Life House” and “Assisted Liberty Program” in Sorocaba, also in “My Father’s House” and “Assisted Liberty Program” in São Paulo and in the “Children’s City”, “Day Care Centre” and in the school “Colégio Vale da Bênção” in Araçariguama.
Can you imagine how many human and financial resources were invested so that our children and adolescents were blessed? Can you imagine how many resources we are going to need to continue helping children and adolescents that need our compassion and assistance?
This is the size of our challenge. “Ours”, because we count you as being committed to this cause. “Ours”, because alone we are not able to progress with the support for boys and girls in situations of risk. “Ours”, because we have compassion and want to change the situation of misery and abandonment of our children and adolescents.
In 2005, we have the challenge to start a new project supporting adolescents and their families in Araçariguama. We are increasing our Foster Family project so that more children and adolescents can be placed in a substitute family for an undetermined time. We want to finish the work on the house for volunteers in the Children’s City, alongside the other targets that are being set.
To make all this become a reality we need your involvement with our work. You can be involved in various ways – continue supporting the work financially, make a donation and tell your friends and family so they too can support our work.
Pray about and participate in our challenges for 2005. You know that you will be involved with an organisation that has a commitment to bless children and adolescents that need help. Seek ways in which you can respond to these challenges, we are praying that you and your family will be moved with compassion and will bless these boys and girls who need your support and care.
God bless you.
City for Children 
THE LOVE OF JESUS THROUGH THE VALLEY OF BLESSING (February)
Through the years it has become clearer in our minds that the Valley of Blessing is not our own work, it is not the work of men and we did not invent it ourselves.
We did not have the financial resources to buy a site to build a small building for the Mission. We worked in rented buildings in Ipiranga, a neighbourhood in São Paulo city. Paying the rent each month was a big challenge and we had a little over each month to pay for other needs. They were very difficult years for us financially, but in the midst of these difficulties God prepared for us an area of more than 19 hectares near São Paulo.
When we came to this property, we put what we had into some existing buildings. We did not have money to buy blocks, sand, cement, stones, wood or tiles to build the minimum that we needed. However, in the midst of the poverty, the Lord started to send us in a miraculous way, the construction materials, financial resources and the people, so little by little we could build accommodation for the staff of the Valley of Blessing.
Today, when we think about the Administration Building, Central Dining Hall, School, Seminary, Accommodation, Prayer Centre, the Homes in the City for Children and everything else we are amazed. How was all this possible? Only 22 years after this property was donated to us!
When we arrived, there were just green fields without trees, flowers or any beauty. Today it is a village with roads, lights, a lake, buildings and many people.
Humbly we bow before our Father and worship Him; we bring our thanks to Jesus for His grace over us during these years. To the Holy Spirit we surrender everything in recognition of His action over us.
Besides all this, and even more surprising, are the hundreds of lives touched with the love and power of Jesus through the Valley of Blessing during these 22 years. Brothers and sisters who came to study in our Seminary and are on fire with the power of prayer. There are hundreds of missionaries in Brasil and other countries, doing the work of God, who were trained in the Valley of Blessing.
There are many testimonies of physical healing and restoration of the soul and spirit. People who came a long way to pray or receive prayer in the Valley of Blessing who returned home filled with the grace of God.
In addition there are the children and adolescents, hundreds blessed through this work. Many today are restored, have a family and are moving on in life. They arrived broken, abandoned and fearful, but in this place, they were touched with a love from heaven and were loved. Today they have a new life.
The Valley of Blessing has become a place of prayer; this is a mark of our ministry. Pray, pray and pray again. Then pray once more and return to prayer and pray more.
Where did all this come from? Ourselves? Is this the fruit of human intelligence? Why do we have this property? Where did we get the money to build? Why did people come? The grace, the miracles? From the bottom of my heart comes a feeling of gratitude, fear, reverence and brokenness that says IT IS THE LORD! IT IS JESUS! He has poured out His love over us; His presence has filled the Valley of Blessing all these years. The Holy Spirit has worked so powerfully in our favour.
While I write, I have the desire to say: Now to Him who is able to do more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through out all generations, forever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3: 20,21).
Join us and thank the Lord for all his goodness to us.
WAVES OF SOLIDARITY (Janurary)
(I thought I would put all the Newsletters that I have sent so far this year on this blog.)
For many nations and people the year 2005 began very differently, the catastrophe that occurred in Asia shook the world as they saw a tragedy without precedent.
Confronted with calamities of these dimensions it is human to seek explanations. Some people stop to think and reflect over the true meaning of life, others look for hope in the midst of pain and others act with gestures of solidarity. We can see that the world response to this earthquake has been extraordinary. Governments, institutions and people creating genuine waves of solidarity have given millions of dollars.
I keep thinking that it would be good if these waves of solidarity were created not only immediately after catastrophes but that it would be a constant gesture in each one of the rich nations and in each one of us.
In the Valley of Blessing, we witnessed one of these waves for the children and families especially over Christmas and New Year. Many people opened their homes and took our children to spend Christmas with them; others came to donate clothes and food.
Many churches mobilized their members to “adopt” our children and those that attend the Day Care Centre giving them some clothes and toys. Some families put so much in the bags that the children could not carry them on their own. Some bags donated for the children who are taken care of in the Day Care Centre contained the basic necessities of rice, beans sugar etc. all of this makes a needy family happy and gives them the hope that as a new year commences there is, at that moment, someone who remembers and is concerned about them. What we witness many times, on their part, is the best in the human spirit, the motivation to help and to share with those who have less.
This raises the following question: Is it human to have the desire to help, to distribute, to share? The answer is YES.
Moreover, is there a commandment from God that we should help others? In Gods word, it says, “Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.” (Timothy 6:18)
For us one more year has begun, as we return from holiday, whether to school or to work, everything will return to normal. The rush from day to day will bring more goals to be achieved, more obstacles to overcome and challenges to be met. In the Valley of Blessing, it is not any different; the children will return to their school activities, some will return to their families others will be adopted. Others will come to be cared for by us and we will keep close contact with and support many families.
We continue to need your help and your support, we care for more than 600 (six hundred) children and adolescents monthly and more than 500 (five hundred) families. Representing a number in excess of 1100 (one thousand one hundred) people.
My prayer at the beginning of this year is that you too have the blessing to “ DO GOOD, TO BE RICH IN GOOD DEEDS, TO BE GENEROUS, AND WILLING TO SHARE” That you can be part of these WAVES OF SOLIDARITY that are able to help mankind and bring joy to the heart of God.
God bless you
Some of the children at the Day Care Centre
DAY CARE CENTRE (April)
If anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward. (Matthew 10:42)
João Marcos started coming to the Valley of Blessing’s Day Care Centre in October 2003, he was only four years old. At the time his parents worked on a small farm, they also had three other children.
João Marcos came to our attention because he was a very quiet child he almost never talked. In the beginning, we thought it was possible that he had hearing difficulties, and because he could not hear well he could not talk. We did some simple tests such as calling him with a whisper or asking him to pass some objects, this he did without difficulties, but he continued to be very withdrawn and passive.
After talking with his mother, we realised that João Marcos had been malnourished as a baby. His mother told us that she had used enriched food, according to medical advice, but thought that her son’s behaviour was normal, as there had already been a similar case in the family. We then realised that besides malnutrition, João Marcos had not received any stimulus to help his development.
Six months after he came to the Day Care Centre, his parents lost their jobs and had to live in two rooms with four children. This was one more difficult situation that this family had to face.
We decided to give closer attention to this family helping them with food and clothing, João Marcos’ sister also started coming to the Day Care Centre.
Today their father is employed and is in a better financial situation, but the most important thing is to see João Marcos playing with his friends, his favourite place in the Day Care Centre is the toy room. This is João Marcos’ last year with us because he is starting school next February.
He has changed into a normal child, when he was with us we did the best we could to make him a happy child, and he is! This story is very similar with that of millions of Brazilian children and families, families who leave their home city in search of a better life and suffer unemployment, hunger, malnutrition etc. We are thankful to God because we could help João Marcos and his family.
In the Day Care Centre we care for 125 (one hundred and twenty five) children and their families. For this we count on the collaboration of various people, we have six teachers, five classroom assistants and two cooks. Daily they work together caring for the children, with the support of volunteers.
We actually care for approximately 550 (five hundred and fifty) children and adolescents in three shelters and two Assisted Liberty Programs.
We want to continue our work, because TO GIVE A CUP OF COLD WATER can be very significant in the lives of these children and adolescents, as well as their families. This can demonstrate that OUR GOD who is rich in mercy is interested in each one of these little ones.
Continue with us! Continue with our children!
Gary Thompson
p/p Pastor Jonathan Santos
