Tomorrow is too late

Kristen Hiller
International Mission Board

Eric Reese taps on the interior ceiling light, illuminating the cab of his Chevy pickup. He doesn’t need to see inside his vehicle. But after six years of working with the urban poor in the favelas (slums) of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he knows those outside the cab need to see in.

Reese slows the truck to a stop. A man steps toward the open, driver-side window and cocks an AK-47.

“Calma, calma,” Reese says. “We just finished an evangelistic presentation. We’re just leaving.”

When the traficante (drug dealer) steps away from the window and waves him on, Reese, 42, puts the truck in gear and moves.

It’s 9:20 p.m. With his truck windows open, Reese can’t mistake the sound of gunshots echoing through the favela as he heads home to his wife, Ramona, and their two children.

Through kids, you can change a neighborhood

With frequent shootouts, prostitution and drug trafficking in the streets, the slums are no place for children. But Reese came this evening with the sole purpose of sharing the Gospel with the kids there.

“If you can reach those kids,” he says, “you can change that neighborhood.”

It won’t be until 1 a.m. that Reese receives a phone call, identifying the shots he heard as those of a drug dealer protecting his turf. Sitting at his computer in the wee hours, Reese will read the latest headlines about a shootout that began in the “City of God” with the distant shots he heard earlier.

“I believe that God honored our presence here,” says Reese, who is from Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Ga. “If God can open the water of the Red Sea and say, ‘My people pass through,’ God can say, ‘Y’all will not fight now.’ I think the grace of God said ‘Calma.’ I believe that.”

Work in the slums is far from finished

Reese’s work for the day is done, but his work in the slum communities of Rio de Janeiro is far from finished.

“In these communities, it’s an ugly evil you’ve got to deal with,” he says, “but you’ve just got to deal with it. We can’t stand here and just let these people shoot and kill each other without the Gospel being preached.”

Seeing past the violence and corruption of life in the favelas is an ongoing challenge. But the same self-destruction that hinders some from coming to Christ is precisely what compels the Reeses to share in earnest.

“Communicating the Gospel with these folks cannot wait until tomorrow,” Reese says. “You’ve got to share it with them today because you don’t know what their tomorrow holds.”

This pastor understands the urgency

Pastor Javier Ysuiza of Central Baptist Church in Rio de Janeiro understands this sense of urgency. He is working to plant another Baptist church in the heart of the favela.

“Even though this particular location is the most dangerous in the area, this is the exact reason why I need to be here,” Ysuiza says.

Believers step past a drug dealer with a gun slung over his shoulder outside Missão Batista Reviver. They gather to pray inside this Baptist church – the third to open its doors in the City of God. Ysuiza prays alongside fellow believers for the new church. He wants to see Christ transform lives here. For him, in spite of the violence outside these walls, the church cannot be confined to them. It is what believers do with the Gospel once they leave the security of the church that matters most.

Taking the Gospel to the streets

When 26-year-old Ciro Montes asked Reese for help in 2003 to establish a club for young Christian singles, he immediately agreed. After many of the young people there began to be receptive to the Gospel, Reese challenged Montes to take the Gospel to the streets.

When Montes then asked to borrow blood pressure cuffs, haircutting scissors and sound equipment, Reese was curious.

It wasn’t until he went into the favela to help unload the equipment that Reese understood what the young people were doing. By offering free haircuts, blood pressure readings and other social services, the young people offered residents an evangelistic presentation.

“I was just about knocked off my feet,” Reese says. “That’s what the life of a missionary is all about: influencing the national to do what he has the God-given ability to do.”

Act

• Learn more about the Reeses’ ministry and how you can be involved: samregion.org.
• Go: going.imb.org
• Give: Gifts to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering provide vital support to the International Mission Board’s more than 5,300 missionaries worldwide, including the Reeses. The national goal for the Lottie Moon offering is $170 million. Give through your church or give online at http://imbresources.org/index.cfm/fa/store.prod/ProdID/256.cfm.
• Pray: The 2008 Week of Prayer for International Missions, Nov. 30-Dec. 7, focuses on missionaries who serve in South America as well as churches partnering with them, exemplifying the global outreach supported by Southern Baptists’ gifts to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. The Reeses’ ministry will be featured as part of the Week of Prayer.