February 1st is a very important day for me. You make ask why? Well since you ask, I'll tell you.
February 1st is the day that I abandon my comfortable home in the United States of America. It's a day I leave my family, my new found friends and friends I've had since I was a child. It's a day I literally take the next step into my next season, calling, and destiny. It's a day I grow like I've never been able to grow before. It's a day of new beginnings and all new things.
February 1st is the day I hand my one-way ticket to the security attendant at the airport and fly off to Brazil.
And why Brazil? What is it for?
Because God has called my heart there and I must follow. It's for the poor, the broken, the lost. The prostitutes, the orphans, the fatherless. God has broken my heart for the broken.
The generosity of the people/the culture have nearly brought me to tears at many points in my two trips to Brazil. They are so giving of not only their earthly possessions (purses, shirts off their own backs, personal Bibles, etc.) but also of their lives. So many are sold out to the Lord and what He is doing in this hour. They've tried it all: prostitution, drugs, alcohol, money, clothing, worthless items and they've come to the realization, He is everything. He is it. There is nothing else. I have and continue to learn so from them.
Even though there are so many, who are giving their everything to follow the One who gave it all, there are so many who aren't.
I remember going to Brazil for the first time in July 2009. I was walking the city streets of Curitiba, Brazil and on the side of the street, a man with no legs had a small tin in front of him for loose change to be donated. I saw pamphlets with numbers on them to call for prostitution, lining the streets. I saw women in church services, crying out, broken, looking for true love, the Father's love. I saw God's love being manifested through healings, deliverances, and forgiveness. People were stepping into the true revelation of God's love and falling in love with the Man, the one I've never seen but know. I saw so many broken, lost and hurting people. God began to break my heart for them.
On my second trip to Brazil, God loaded on more compassion and even more desire to be there, with the Brazilian people.
The prostitutes have stolen my heart. I want them to know Him. To know His love. To know His grace. To know who they are in Him. To know that no matter what they do, where they've been, they are loved by Him. So about 75% of the reason I'm going to Brazil is for these broken women. I want to love on them, I want them to know that they have a Father, they have Someone who not only loves them, but likes them.
Another big reason I'm going, is to go to the poor on the streets. To love them to life. Matthew 25:40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' I will be doing what Matthew 25 talks about, giving water to the thirsty, giving food to the hungry. I will be sitting with, living with, loving on the "least of these."
It's my calling, it's my destiny, and it's becoming my life.
So February 1st, I'm going to a place where my heart longs to be. I'm nervous, a little scared and curious as to how it will all go down. But I'm also at peace, excited and trusting that He is and will continue to care for me and all my needs. He is so good and so faithful.
Eu te amo, Brasil.
Know Him
<3emma