PROCRESCER

There is a group of children that we work with from the flavelas (poor area) in the area of the Boa Viagem church on Saturday mornings. We call this group of children PROCRESCER, which means "Project of Social and Spiritual Growth in Recife."

A few months ago, Lee and I visited the families of the children in their homes. They always come to the church building, so we wanted to go to their homes and visit with them!

This is one of the mothers who always brings the children, Lucilene. Lee studied the Bible with her for over a year, and she was baptized a few months ago!


It was a big step for her because all of her family, including her children, are catholic. None of her family came to her baptism, but that did not stop her! She continues to come to church every Sunday!


Some of the families of the PROCRESCER children!

Just like the children at the camp, we have a list of the names and ages of the children in the project, so we tried to buy them a gift that matched their age!

We gave them all a present, as well as a gift bag with chocolates, fruit cake, and chocolate milk!

One of our biggest surprises was this little boy (above photo) who came with his sister. When he showed up, he was quiet, shy, and even looked like he was about to start crying. But after we gave him a yo-yo for his gift, he really opened up, and started showing everybody! Big things really do come in small packages!


All of the children loved their gifts! We also gave each child a food basket for their family!
If you look closely in the group photos, you can see the food baskets at the feet of the children!





In addition to the Christmas presents in December, we also gave them gift bags and a cup of chocolates in November! The gift bags were filled with things such as a Biblical activity book, crayons, toothpaste, a toothbrush, soap, shampoo, and cotton swabs. These may not seem like much to us, but when you do not have them, it is a really nice gift! The children really liked their gift bags!




Like the children at the camp, these children are also very thankful for you because they know that gifts like these come from the US from people who love and care about them!