(Photo: a home parent, children, and, at right, Eduardo the director)

by Eduardo Favoratto, Home Director

A Christian home is the foundation for raising children. Unfortunately, it has become a distant dream as families become increasingly drunk with the things of the world.

Time is a rare and valuable good, wasted on many things, but seldom spent with the family. Here at Brazil Kids, we receive children and youths who have never lived in a family atmosphere according to God's plan.

It's gratifying to apply God's word to the life of these children and adolescents. We notice that, when we test the practical effects of his word, we reap the results. The children learn what is biblical discipline and the change is visible.

In February, the group "Your Dream, My Dream," which helps us in our projects, took the children on a trip to the beach and to the municipal aquarium. There, they saw diverse species of marine life, and it served as a wonderful educational moment.

Many of the children had never had the opportunity to see the ocean, so it was a marvelous experience for them.

Visits by such groups as this one provide great satisfaction to the children and the giving and receiving of affection.

Yesterday morning after our church services a boy came up to me and said, “Can I talk to you for a second?” I told him to give me just a second and I’d be more than happy to talk.

He was about the same size as my 10-year-old, and I wasn’t sure I had ever seen him before. We went and sat down on a pew away from everyone else. Not having a clue what he wanted to talk about, I put my arm around him and said, “Okay, my friend … what’s up?”

He paused and said, “I’m just really sad right now.” In my head my first thought was, “You’re a 10-year-old kid … what do you have to be sad about … is your Xbox broke?” Instead he told me, “I’m just really missing my dad right now. I’ve never been this far away from him and my family.” Realizing he was very serious, I asked him, “Where is your family, and why are you not with them?”

In order to create a better world, we need to make better people. To do that, we need your help.

Every day, countless children and adolescents are removed from the interaction with their fathers, mothers, and people legally responsible for them, because of negligence, bad treatment, violence, and abuse.

We offer a new life to these children and adolescents. Guided by the principles of Jesus Christ, we study the Bible and restore their dignity, life, respect, liberty, health, diet, education and recreation, culture, and family and community interaction. All of these rights, present in the Brazilian Statute of the Child and Adolescent, should be guaranteed in order that a person may be able to develop himself fully.

A Texas congregation that contributes to the Lar Cristão Children's Home wrote us an email in search of recent information about the home. Since the donations are channeled through Southern Christian Home, we don't often have a good link with contributors. This website hopes to provide periodic updates about the home.

Below is part of our reply to the congregation.

My wife and I are on the board of the Lar, and we were there last month for the annual meeting. The people who work with it on a daily basis are doing a great job. One of the elders from the Jundiai church, Eduardo Favoratto, left his secular job, with a significant cut in pay, to take the diretor's position. He's getting it in even better shape, and keeping the papers in order, which is a big task with the complex bureaucracy in Brazil. With the paperwork up to date, it's possible to receive donations from businesses here.

At the board meeting the home administrators distributed a written report, but I passed it on to some of the men here in the congregation, since the church here in Sao Jose dos Campos also sends monthly help to the children's home.

The children receive Bible teaching both in the cottages from the house parents and in group classes, as I recall. There were several baptisms as well last year, but I can't recall the number offhand. I can vouch that the teaching they are receiving is faithful to the Bible, since the people in charge of the home are true to sound doctrine.

We'll ask the director to write up a recap of the past year and will translate that and post it on this site.

The static website for home is located here.

In the picture taken at the annual board meeting in the home's cafeteria and chapel are Jose Maria (board president, Jundiai elder), Eduardo (director, Jundiai elder), Marcelo, Karina (administrative assistant), Vicki, Andre, Randal, Alexandre (Jundiai elder).