Brazil

Johnny Jones, May 1995

Bryan is a member of the Chinese Bible Church in Houston. We visited there on Mother's Day, when a Campus Crusade for Christ staff person, Dave Trotter, was their guest speaker.

As we listened to people greeting one another in Mandarin, as we noted the number of beepers in the congregation, we felt a long way from Viburnum.

But so is Brazil, where Dave Trotter is currently stationed. Dave talked about an inflation rate so outrageous and so slanted against the poor it was almost unbelievable.

First he told us that it takes 3.5 million Brazilian dollars to equal one of ours. But that's this month. Most months the inflation rate doubles.

That has some strange implications for money use. Checking accounts, for example, pay interest. But the poor cannot get them. Also, credit cards are hard to get. But, for those who can get them, they can be a really good deal. The Trotters go out to eat at a nice place at the end of the billing period. By the time the bill arrives, the money has been so eaten away it's like paying half price for the food.

That also means it's silly to put off purchases. The day the poor get paid the stores are overwhelmed. People need to spend what they make before it gets further devalued.

Even phone lines are a problem. Dave cannot afford to own a phone line, but he rents one, for about $122 per month. Phone lines are sold by the government for $1000 each, but, by the time the government announces a sale, they are all sold. You have to know someone to buy a phone line from the government. Privately, they sell for about $5000 each.

Brazil's educational system has been rated the worst in the world. Only half go to public schools. There are no public school students at the leading universities, where the government pays the tuition. So, to get an education, a person either has to pay to send kids to private schools so they can get into the best universities, or they have to pay to go to other colleges in the nation. Again, the poor are excluded.

But, when the government needs solutions to economic, technological, or medical problems, they turn to the leading university in Brazil: University of Campinas. There Dave and his staff are positioned to influence the future leaders of the country. One of their major problems is that the students generally have big egos. They know they are the country's future.

There is also a problem with security. A man was recently killed in the good neighborhood in which the Trotters live when he parked outside at night. Dave said, "I would never do that." Dave is careful to protect his wife and four young children. All the Trotters' bedrooms are on one hall, protected by steel shutters on the windows and a massive door which they bolt at night, patrolled by two dogs. Dave said their private security force was an owl who perches on a telephone line at night. Because of the superstition, many of the lower classes are afraid of owls. The biggest religion among the lower classes is spiritism. There is massive occult and cult activity.

But security is a problem for the numerous street children, and for the half a million child prostitutes. Dave talked about how the police force, in a misguided effort at providing order, cynically kills hundreds of these desperate kids each year.

It should be obvious that, despite Brazil's euphoria at winning the World Cup USA in '94, despite being Latin Americas' largest and most powerful country, there are overwhelming problems. During the last election, when Dave asked people who they would vote for, the most frequent answer was, "It makes no difference." As the Trotter's flyer said, "Many Brazilians now agree that the solution to these apparently insurmountable problems is not to be found by changing presidents, political systems, or by adding new taxes or laws--these ideas have all failed in the past." Dave feels the time is ripe for them to come to the reality that "The only way to change Brazil in through the life-changing message of new life in Jesus Christ."

That's true for America, too, you know. Despite being the world's most powerful nation, despite our magnificent heritage of liberty, we also face problems that threaten to overwhelm us. And our reality is the same as Brazil's.

Bryan's church has a heart for world evangelism because so many members have friends and relatives who live half a world away. Although our loved ones are closer, we had something important in common: Our desire that those we love come to know Jesus.

So there we were, in a Chinese church in Houston, Texas, a city where you can see Cadillacs with longhorns mounted on the hood driven by men in white Stetsons, listening to a guy who spent five years in France talk about his work on a campus in Brazil. And we were welcome and comfortable. Amazing!