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Newsletter - November 2011
| Brazil Revisited Everything in Brazil is large, from the length of the coastline to the size of the land mass; length of the rivers, size of the population and the warmth of the welcome. Emmanuel Press’ relationship with Brazil began very simply two and a half years ago with an email requesting English Christian material for inmates in a female prison (mainly drug mules) who did not speak or read Portuguese. We wrote explaining who we were, what we did and the specialized material we had for prisons. This material is based on the original vision of the founders back in 1927. This was in two parts, firstly that small pieces of paper with the right words (gospel tracts) could change lives. Secondly, once lives were changed they would need discipling so we, at Emmanuel Press, produce and distrubute a whole series of studies on the Bible which includes an initial course teaching all of the basic principles of the Christian faith. We also place studies in more than 120 prisons in 9 countries of Southern Africa The response from Brazil was immediate requesting us to send whatever we could, followed the next day by 47 names of women who wanted to receive our free bible studies. Now we are placing material into nearly 50 prisons in the Sao Paulo region, with rapid growth expected in to all of the 147 prisons of that region. |
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Raquel Vieira, who heads up the Brazilian division of Emmanuel Press, singing to the inmates |
Like many countries around the world Brazil has a problem with crime, but nothing to compare with other countries. The average age in prison is 20 and drugs are a real problem. What is so refreshing is that, rather than talk about it, when faced with a problem the Authorities deal with it. For example a few years ago there was a very large prison in the Sao Paulo region of more than 25,000 inmates, and then there was a riot and over 1000 people died.
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| Even more interesting, each Prison Director has self determination as to how the particular prison works out its programme for rehabilitating the inmates back to society Also, the Brazilian Government have their HIV problem well under control. The first prison we visited was a little disappointing; uneven floors little paintwork but the welcome |
from the Director and his senior staff could not have been warmer. We talked to the pastors of the inmates and shared with them
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the most effective way of using our material. On our visit to a second prison, the welcome was equally as warm. There we were able to talk to two large groups of inmates and challenge them with the Gospel. |
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After our third prison visit we came away stunned by what we saw. Two prisons, close together in a group, the first of which had been visited by Dean Skinner, our Director, about 18 months ago. We were invited to the second prison and another hearty welcome. A lady came out to greet us glowing with the love of Jesus. We understand that a number of committed Christians work in that particular prison.
So Raquel and I came away with the firm conviction that the efforts the Brazilian authorities were making, to ensure that as few inmates as possible would ever return to prison, were achieving their desired aims and accomplishing this through the education and training programmes which enable inmates to return to society as better citizens. John Hooker |
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Previous Newsletters
| 1. | September 2011 |
2. | June 2011 |
| 3. | April 2011 | 4. | February 2011 |
| 5. | Christmas Newsletter 2010 | 6. | July / August 2010 |
| 7. | May 2010 | 8. | 2009 Thanksgiving |
| 9. | Christmas Newsletter 2009 | 10. | October November 2009 |
| 11. | August September 2009 | 12. | May June 2009 |
| 13. | March April 2009 | 14. | 2008 Harvest Report |
| 15. | November December 2008 | 16. | September October 2008 |
| 17. | July August 2008 | 18. | May June 2008 |
| 19. | March 2008 | 20. | 2007 Harvest Report |
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