Hello from Brazil!
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Dear friends, As we said in our last link letter, we thought that Rio would pull off an amazing Olympics and indeed it did. There were less tourists than expected – no thanks to damaging press coverage about Zika, corruption and levels of violence – but there was still a good influx of visitors and a great vibe abounding. The party of Rio 2016 Some of Rio’s residents were more excited by the arrival of Pokémon Go than they had been by the IOC’s “Olympic Family”… that’s what all the people on their phones in the video were up to we finally realised. They should have gone to watch the rugby sevens instead! Over the Olympic and Paralympic season we were enriched by a number of cross- cultural exchanges. We received a couple of theological college ordinands and their spouses – all of them digging in and contributing in various and talented ways both to the church and to our home community; we hosted Aussies and Japanese teams and we received an amazing batch of country flags from St Paul’s East Ham in London who’d displayed them in 2012! We were thrilled to show them off during Rio 2016 and now we are to hand them on to an international community for Tokyo 2020 – some of whom, sports evangelists, stayed with us during the Olympics. And Jess’ old boss Sarah stayed with us whilst she was here for the “It’s a Penalty” campaign, harnessing the power of sport to protect children from exploitation and abuse globally; it played an historical part in the first child protection campaign allowed inside the Olympics and JESS AND MARK SIMPSON LINK LETTER NO.9 | NOVEMBER 2016 Hello from Brazil! CHURCHMISSIONSOCIETY.ORG/SIMPSON Photo top: There were a high number of security forces during the Games but there is a noticeable absence now... Photo above: Rugby Sevens out in Deodoro, North Rio Name: Jess and Mark Simpson Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Our role: Mark is chaplain of Christ Church, Rio de Janeiro, an international English-speaking church in the city centre. Jess is involved in the social outreach, children’s work and environmental activities of the church community. Our call: To be bridge-builders in Brazil, working across the boundary lines of rich and poor, Catholic and Protestant, and reconciling the Church with its missional call to care for God’s creation
Transcript of Hello from Brazil!
Dear friends,
As we said in our last link letter, we thought that Rio would pull off an amazing Olympics and indeed it did. There were less tourists than expected – no thanks to damaging press coverage about Zika, corruption and levels of violence – but there was still a good influx of visitors and a great vibe abounding.
The party of Rio 2016
Some of Rio’s residents were more excited by the arrival of Pokémon Go than they had been by the IOC’s “Olympic Family”… that’s what all the people on their phones in the video were up to we finally realised. They should have gone to watch the rugby sevens instead!
Over the Olympic and Paralympic season we were enriched by a number of cross-cultural exchanges. We received a couple of theological college ordinands and their spouses –
all of them digging in and contributing in various and talented ways both to the church and to our home community; we hosted Aussies and Japanese teams and we received an amazing batch of country flags from St Paul’s East Ham in London who’d displayed them in 2012! We were thrilled to show them off during Rio 2016 and now we are to hand them on to an international community for Tokyo 2020 – some of whom, sports evangelists, stayed with us during the Olympics. And Jess’ old boss Sarah stayed with us whilst she was here for the “It’s a Penalty” campaign, harnessing the power of sport to protect children from exploitation and abuse globally; it played an historical part in the first child protection campaign allowed inside the Olympics and
JESS AND MARK SIMPSON LINK LETTER NO.9 | NOVEMBER 2016
Hello from Brazil!
CHURCHMISSIONSOCIETY.ORG/SIMPSON
Photo top: There were a high number of security forces during the Games but there is a noticeable absence now...
Photo above: Rugby Sevens out in Deodoro, North Rio
Name: Jess and Mark Simpson
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Our role: Mark is chaplain of Christ Church, Rio de Janeiro, an international English-speaking church in the city centre. Jess is involved in the social outreach, children’s work and environmental activities of the church community.
Our call: To be bridge-builders in Brazil, working across the boundary lines of rich and poor, Catholic and Protestant, and reconciling the Church with its missional call to care for God’s creation
CHURCHMISSIONSOCIETY.ORG/SIMPSON
Paralympic Games. There were numerous other comings and goings and spontaneous visitors and we found it a hugely joyful time, especially since we were able to be present to see some of the unforgettable British medal events!
The hangover of Rio 2016
After the focus of attention on the Games, we’re only just getting a taster of what the consequences are for an impoverished public purse – the head of security for Rio has stepped down after 10 years and says that the pacification programmes have run their course and that it’s a “spent” project. It’s hard to keep up with the overwhelming number of daily news reports of hijacks, muggings, shootings, shoot-outs, assassinations, cover-ups, and embezzlements.
Politically, this year has been incredibly tumultuous and the recent municipal and mayoral elections saw levels of violence not seen since 1979: nationally there have been around 100 politically-motivated assassinations of candidates between January and October this year, obviously peaking
around the elections, of which three have been in Magé. The assassinations were all shootings, and by a variety of perpetrators either militias, drug factions, political Machiavellianism or any combination of those. To choose to be courageous and upright in
the political leadership sphere can be unbearably costly here. And the evaporated political will is leaving a stench in the Guanabara Bay. Having been cleaner, it’s
clogging up again… but life carries on, and the city is of course already well on its way into planning Carnaval 2017, as well as all the other big parties and bank holidays that come before then!
Buildings and gardens
The building work for the children’s centre in Magé is underway and the local vicar, Luiz, has taken the full load of the building work, following the plans of our architectural student Luke. There have also been unpleasant setbacks; one of these was particularly upsetting – one of the brothers of a young girl who comes to our Saturday mornings was deliberately taken out, shot dead at home, which scared the kids off for a couple of weeks… yet another young life taken prematurely because of involvement in the drugs trade.
We did a listening campaign with the families of the kids we work with in Magé who all highlighted the chronic issue of access to clean drinking water and better sanitation. We had a little warm-up launch for our new plot of land on November 5, inviting both the local neighbourhood and church folk in Rio. There was seed planting, a tour of the new centre – both visible and not yet visble! – as well as the customary, albeit not so sophisticated, breakfast dish of hot dogs.
“We recently had an exciting meeting of minds with the local food movement, Junta Local. They have been working with a small group of people to give legs to an international fair of food producers who are refugees to the city. There’s a large number of Congolese, Senegalese, Angolan, Colombian, Syrian, Venezuelan, Haitian and many other country groups.”
Top left: A school visit to the vicarage garden
Top right: A welcoming smile from one of the boys at our children’s club in Canal
JESS AND MARK SIMPSON LINK LETTER NO.9 | NOVEMBER 2016
And recently, thanks to Jane and Alex Cacouris’s initiative, we were able to welcome 100 pupils from the school we share a site with to the vicarage garden to learn about compost and worms, plants and seeds, and do some planting of their own. It was a really fun morning and we hope to build on it more.
What’s on the horizon?
After a week’s rest with Jess’ parents in September, we took two weeks “adventure and church” hols to Panama and Costa Rica where we took part in an international conference for English-speaking churches around the world, run by Baptists, and visited a couple of community
experiments in living together and doing urban agriculture. We’ll then complete our hols with two weeks in the UK after Christmas and early January so we hope to see some of you then – we may well be blue with cold since
the temperatures are already in their mid-thirties here and Brazilian summer time only began, officially, recently.
We recently had an exciting meeting of minds with the local food movement, Junta Local, whom we mentioned in a previous edition that tries to link consumer with producer in a closer and more democratic way. They have been working with a small group of people to give legs to an international fair of food producers who are refugees to the city. There’s a large number of Congolese, Senegalese, Angolan, Colombian, Syrian, Venezuelan, Haitian and many other country groups.
Finally, thank you to those of you who’ve prayed and/or willed us on to get pregnant. Happily Jess is now over five months pregnant. One of the most joyful responses we’ve had to this news was from our classic neighbour
Sidnei in Magé who – aided somewhat by a few swigs of transparent booze and with a giddy gollum-like glee – declared with his hands lifted in the air that
our baby would “arrive with life and with lots of life!” Amém to that!
With love
Jess and Mark
You can give online to Jess and Mark at: churchmissionsociety.org/simpson
Contact details: [email protected] [email protected]
PRAYER POINTS
For us to raise up leaders in Magé, and for Alexandre and his family as they plan to spend more time at the weekends in Magé.
• For Mark and Alex as they lead Christ Church over rocky turf – for wisdom, favour and softness to the Holy Spirit.
• For the social outreach of Christ Church, as Jess and Jane and a small group of others look at what projects to be investing in fully.
• Please pray for the seedling idea of the international fair, involving refugees, that it would bring an opening up of the complicated site situation we’re on, and be a blessing to the producers and consumers alike!
• For the little baby!
Above: Magé can pull off a lot of beauty!
Below: A visit with the Seddon folks to Luke and Luiz up in Providencia with Luke’s folks also!
