For weeks, Tariq Rodriguez had been working to usher in a visitor preacher and worship chief from throughout the nation to assist have fun his church’s third anniversary. In 2021, Rodríguez and a small group launched Viela da Graça Igreja in Novo Hamburgo, a small city in Brazil’s southernmost province of Rio Grande do Sul.
Then, it began raining.
The flood did greater than disrupt the small Reformation congregation’s celebration plans. They destroyed the group. The storm, which started on the finish of April, hit probably the most densely populated areas of Rio Grande do Sul and killed no less than 116 individuals. About 130 persons are nonetheless lacking. Excessive water closed roads and even the airport, which grounded flights till Might 30. As of Friday, Might 10, practically 400,000 individuals have been displaced from their properties and 70,772 are in public shelters.
A few of them discovered their method to the Viela da Graça, which is on greater floor and largely shielded from water encroachment. Since Might 4, Rodriguez and members of the 75-person congregation have been internet hosting about 50 individuals in a two-bathroom, 3,500-square-foot constructing.
“As Christians, we would have liked to open our doorways,” Rodriguez mentioned. “And so we did.”
Exterior of the confines of the lavatory, circumstances had been lower than superb. There have been frequent energy outages (1.2 million individuals had been affected by outages) and the constructing misplaced entry to each working and potable water as a result of the sanitation firm couldn’t deal with the soiled floodwater. A close-by residential condominium, which receives water from a effectively, has offered consuming water and showers.
Whereas Brazilian evangelicals are identified worldwide for his or her megachurches, flood reduction efforts have highlighted the influence of smaller church buildings in serving their communities within the nation’s most secular state.
“It is just like the widow’s providing in Luke 21,” mentioned Egon Grimm Berg, govt secretary of the Baptist Conference of Rio Grande do Sul. “They’re giving it the whole lot they have.”
Or generally, much more.
Igreja em Reforma, a congregation based three and a half years in the past by Pastor Emmanuel Malinowski within the Quarto Distrito, a stylish space of Porto Alegre, has 80 members. When the close by Guaiba River overflowed final week, it flooded the primary ground of the church constructing. It might take a number of weeks for the water to recede.
Nonetheless, since final Sunday, the church has been cooking, cleansing and offering donations for 82 individuals in an improvised shelter, offered by a church household within the neighboring city of Canos, which till a month in the past was a warehouse. Now the state civil protection is sending flood evacuees there.
“None [those being served] Evangelicals do,” mentioned Malinowski, who was making an attempt to avoid wasting furnishings within the church constructing when the water started to rise. “We’re giving an necessary testimony to our group.”
Rio Grande do Sul has the bottom proportion of evangelicals amongst Brazil’s 26 states. In line with the newest census in 2010, the capital, Porto Alegre, had 11.6 p.c missionaries, the bottom proportion among the many 27 Brazilian capitals. Most church buildings have lower than 80 members, based on Ricardo Lebedenko, senior pastor of the First Baptist Church in Izuya.
Situated 300 miles west of Porto Alegre — floor zero for disasters — Lebedenko’s 600-member congregation sends provides to distribution facilities within the metropolis of 1.3 million.
Though they’re simply one among quite a few organizations sending assets to the victims, many secular leaders are encouraging individuals to prioritize working with church buildings to donate and distribute garments, bottled water, meals and cash.
“They are saying we’re extra organized and extra organized,” mentioned Tiago Gómez de Mello, pastor of Igreja Batista Bos Novas in Novo Hamburgo.
That is the second tragedy that Gómez de Mello himself has witnessed. In 2014, sturdy winds from a storm broken the church to the purpose the place the constructing needed to be rebuilt. In the course of the restructuring course of and later throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the beforehand 500-person church misplaced 90 p.c of its members. Gómez de Mello took over as pastor in 2022 with the aim of revitalizing the now 51-person church.
Round 5 a.m. on Friday, Might 3, he started receiving requests for assist. He left his residence in Porto Alegre to open the church for 2 households – solely to by no means return.
Water has gathered within the streets and surrounded his home. His spouse, Thais, and their youngsters Esther, 16, and Josue, simply over a yr outdated, had been rescued by boat on Monday and brought to a relative’s residence. Gómez de Mello was lastly reunited together with his household on Tuesday, however solely after 4 days of relentless work on the church, which now homes 45 individuals.
The church buildings’ sacrificial service stems from individuals’s love for God, mentioned Marco Silva, pastor of Primera Igreja Batista de Montenegro, which is 55 miles from Porto Alegre and sends support to smaller church buildings within the area.
“After we put together meals, once we go on boats to take meals, once we fold blankets to hold the displaced, every of these items is an act of worship,” he mentioned.
For church members, then, the main focus just isn’t on suspended worship providers however on alternatives to place their “theology into apply,” Rodriguez mentioned. On Tuesday, the Viela da Grassa pastor recorded his sermon from his lounge and can add it to YouTube for individuals to observe on Sunday. It will likely be a brief program, with two songs of reward, the proclamation and a sermon from Jude 20-21, the verses that served as his private reference throughout this tough time: “However you, pricey mates, construct yourselves up in holy religion and within the Holy Spirit. Praying, maintain yourselves within the love of God to convey you to everlasting life, ready for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Igreja Batista Bos Novas is likely one of the few church buildings within the affected space that has been capable of conduct personal providers. In actual fact, they’ve even expanded their numbers. Gómez de Mello preached on Sunday, Saturday and Wednesday.
On Sunday, the message was about Psalm 121: “I carry up my eyes to the mountains – from whence comes my assist?”
A lot of these in attendance had been conscious that climate forecasts for the area had been calling for extra rain and that temperatures would proceed to drop as winter units in in a couple of weeks in a few of the coldest elements of the nation.
“The church is aware of that our assist comes from the Lord,” mentioned Gomes de Mello, who took the chance to make an altar name on the service. “And after the rain comes the harvest.”
