Brazil Visit 5, Post 10

Although the google blogger feature is easy enough for a technological caveman like myself to use, there is one aggravating feature. I carefully paragraph my posts but Google condenses them into one long paragraph, which must be disconcerting for readers. Last Wednesday I flew to Porto Alegre in the south of Brazil. My friend Samir picked me up, we had a quick bite to eat, and then went to the weekly prison outreach at a center for juvenile boys. There were about thirty brothers assembled, some with guitars or hand drums, and after the usual bureaucratic snafu we were allowed in. We were divided into four teams which went to different rooms. I don't know the difference but our room had about a dozen guys who looked about 15. It was ridiculously easy to enter the prison. We wrote our names and document numbers on a piece of paper but were not searched. Perhaps the reality that the brothers have been going for four years makes a difference. We gave short testimonies and then a offer of salvation was made. Many responded and were given a little book and some candy. Afterwards i asked a friend who told me that 98% of the guys had no effective father in their lives. The prison itself was bare concrete everything exceptfor a picture of Jesus on one wall, something that i am certain would not be permitted in a US government building. They did have a TV and a simulation soccer game that they could play. Sad. Then I was taken to my host's home. This is a family that I have come to know through previous visits, a blind husband, his wife, and three adult children. The oldest is a surgeon, the second an accountant, and the third is an English teacher at an exclusive English school. The second son married in the interim between my visits but the others, 25 and 30 years old live at home, which seems common for unmarried adult children.