Photography Exhibition

Last Sunday we held a Photo Exhibition for the Kids With A Camera photography group, that is run here at the Lighthouse Community Center.

 

Since you couldn't make it to the exhibition, we would like to invite you to come to it now...  Do you have some time?  Just take a quick look at the exhibition and some photos of our afternoon through this blog post.  You won't regret it! Enjoy the show!

The kids were super proud to show off their photos! 

Vitor was especially excited about this day.  He was the first kid to arrive at the Lighthouse at 9:30 Sunday morning,  pumped and ready to get everything prepared for the exhibition.  Vitor really has valued the photography group and has become a very talented photographer.  We are proud of this guy!

The Photography Exposition took place in a big square at the top of the slum.

The children's photos were hung on this fence surrounding a soccer court in the main square.

 

 

 

 Here are some shots of the the photos on display.  These photos were especially selected for the exhibition and are some of the best pictures the children took.  They really are impressive!

This description about the project was also hung up (in Portuguese) to to explain a bit about the photography project to those passing by.

 

Kids with a Camera – Villa Cafezal 2012
 

The Kids With A Camera project was established by a God-given desire within one girl, Louise McWilliam, who has a real passion not only for photography but also for what can be voiced through captured moments.

Louise has led the Kids with a Camera Team alongside Felipe Matias, who is an amazing photographer and has been the chief translator for the group! Without him this project would not have been possible! Together they have spent the past two months working alongside 9 children from Villa Cafezal...Felipe, Raphael, Carlos Daniel, Webert, Raine, Ana Precila, Larissa, Sabrina, and Vitor. Today we see the finished results of their work in the form of the Kids With A Camera exhibition! Here is the story so far from Kids With A Camera...we hope you enjoy the exhibition! 

The project's vision was to bring light to the lives of the children in this neighborhood...to teach them something new...to develop their skills...to draw out their potential and to highlight their lives through the moments that they capture on a camera! And that is exactly what has happened.

 

Week by week we have come to see a true commitment from these children to come to class regularly each Monday and Wednesday morning. They have listened, they have learned, they have understood and the team behind the Kids With A Camera project have been truly blessed to see them not just develop their skills in photography but also work together as a little team!

 

It has been a privilege to be involved in something like this and to meet with and spend time with this talented group of children. We hope you enjoy the results of their work as much as we have enjoyed discipling them in photography!

 

With love from The Kids With A Camera Team 2012

Many people passed by to admire the beautiful images that were put on display.  It was nice to talk with the various children, teens and adults that came by to look at the photos.  The square is situated right across from a main bus stop so many people stopped to look at the photos after getting off the bus. 

 

A few boys from the photography group enjoyed playing soccer (to pass the time). 

 

The girls just hung out...

 

And Felipe (a YWAM missionary and one of the leaders of the group) enjoyed playing around with his camera and taking photos during the exhibition.
Here are some shots he captured during the afternoon.

 

We are especially thankful for these two special Lighthouse Community Center volunteers, Louise (left) and Ellie (right).  They worked hard to put together the Kids With the Camera photography group.   They actually helped to make this whole project happen and because of this, these children's lives have been deeply impacted through this whole experience!  Thanks girls!

 

 We hope you enjoyed visiting the photo exhibition and seeing a bit of our day through this post.   
We are extremely proud of the accomplishments the kids have made!

Photography Bringing Transformation

Last  month we began a photography group here at the Lighthouse Community Center with a volunteer who came all the way from Scotland (even though she is from Germany) to give photography classes for the kids from our slum.  In order to make this all possible, we planned and organized in advance through emails with this special volunteer.

It seemed like everything was going to work out really well.  After all, we have the space to hold the group here at the Lighthouse, she had the cameras and experience in photography, and I would translate and help deal with the children.  There were however, a few things I feared...

Who would participate?

Would the children really and truly be faithful to the course?

  By the end of the course, will the children have a genuine interest in photography?

We invited various children to participate and we even went to the homes of a few children that we knew were interested in the group to invite them.  A lot of boys and girls instantly said that they wanted to participate.  Of course, after a few years of experience, I knew that not all of the children who said they would come, would actually come.  I also knew we were running a risk.  Maybe not even one of the children we invited would actually show up on the first day of the group.  This made me nervous, but my nervousness passed and on the first day of our photography group eight children showed up.  The following week two more kids joined us and so we had ten in all, which was the number of children we wanted to participate in the group.

We could tell from the beginning that most of the kids in the group were really interested in participating and that they would be faithful to the group.  

However one boy caught my attention.  His name is Vitor. I have known him already for a long time and I remember him well from when he was once a little boy riding his bicycle in the street and playing marbles in the sandy sidewalks here in the slum.  Now he is a strong, tall and lanky teenager.

Vitor is an extremely active boy with a small capacity to pay attention.  I have already had to get his attention many times during our photography classes.  For a while I was really doubting if Vitor wanted to participate in the photography course or not, but he was always there for the group sessions.

After two weeks of the photography group, I was walking down the street  and I saw Vitor’s mother (who is actually his grandmother who raises him). On her wrinkly face, which is usually with a sullen and harsh expression, was a natural smile.   With her thin smiling lips and cheeks upraised, she was expressing so much joy on her face that it seemed like she had even more wrinkles and you could barely even see her eyes.

She came in my direction and said, "Vitor’s teacher's called me in for a meeting at his school and I thought it was because he had gotten in trouble again. When I got there I found out she just wanted to praise him and tell me how how much Vitor has improved during the last few weeks."

Very proud of her boy she repeated herself (as a good old lady should) saying again and again how Vitor was improving, and then she  went away very happy.

I was very encouraged that day. We rarely see results of the work we do here with the children living in the slum. Sometimes it takes years for us to see the fruit of the seeds we have planted, but this story was testimony of something genuinely happening in Vitor’s life, and his own mother was seeing this happen before her very eyes.

I hope the Holy Spirit of the Lord will continue to surprise us so that we may hear more and mothers, fathers and grandparents telling us the testimonies of transformation in the lives of their children.

Post Written By:  Felipe Matias

Pool Repair Project

 

 

Here on the Lighthouse grounds we have a swimming pool.
About 10 years ago, a group from Holland raised all the money to construct the pool and the whole structure around it. We use the pool to work with children and we also offer water aerobics classes for the ladies of the slum. 

  

 The swimming lessons we give are very important because we have the opportunity to teach about safety and overcoming fears, it encourages physical activity in a safe environment, and offers a leisure activity for the people living in the community.  The pool is of great importance because the slum does not have many places that offer swimming or swimming classes.  Also we are able to allow the public schools and other NGOs operating in our community to use the pool.
 

 

The vinyl pool has a durability of about 9 years. We have already passed this time span and we are finding more and more holes in the vinyl every day. Repairs are expensive because we need to drain the pool to be able to paste the stickers which close up and block the leaks. Several technicians have told us that it is not worth it to fix the holes anymore, so now we need to replace the whole vinyl.   In addition to replacing the vinyl, the water that was leaking for some time pushed against the structure of the pool and the wall beside it.  Now, we also need to repair this damage.

As you can see, we have emptied the pool to prevent any further damage and then set up this pool repair project.
 

Pool Repair Budget 

 

The Challenge

 

We know the value listed above in our budget is a big challenge. We are seeking individuals, churches, and businesses wishing to contribute. Maybe you can make that commitment or maybe you can help with just a part of the challenge. If you are unable to contribute but know others who might be willing, please send this pool repair project on to them.

We believe the pool adds greatly to our work and we know that even though the value is high, with God all things are possible!

Tuesdays Working with the School

During the month of October, on three different Tuesdays, the Lighthouse was quite lively with two groups of thirty children coming from a local school.  The children came both in the morning and afternoon and stayed here for two hours. Our DTS team took care of the children, preparing special times for them.

 

 

 

The children were separated in three groups and participated in three rotating sessions of 40 minute activities.  The children had the opportunity to do skateboarding or skating, a time on the Lighthouse playground, and a time of arts and crafts with a mini-lesson to learn an important value from the Bible.

 

 

It was a bit challenging because the children were excited to come here, but everyone on our team could find a way to show them love of Jesus.  The work with the school was a great opportunity for us to have contact with the many children living in the slum. It is very good to have the structure of Lighthouse here in the slum to take care of the children enrolled in the schools. It is a great testimony to see a Christian organization taking time to be involved in the community.

 

It was a real pleasure and a blessing to be involved here at the Lighthouse Community Center!

Written by Jean-Pascal from Switzerland. Jean-Pascal and his wife are participating in the YWAM Belo Horizonte 2012 DTS.

A DTS Student's Experience

 

As we (the DTS team) were in a church in the community Cafezal, the pastor invited us to pray for the person next to us. With my husband we turned to a girl who was 7 years old and asked her if she wanted to pray. She asked us to pray for her father.

 

 At the end of the prayer, I could see all the heaviness on her shoulders. I don’t know what had happened to her father, but I know that the weight I could feel on this little girl was really too heavy for her age. And I realized once again how the needs and the distress are big in this community.

Who is going to help this girl and the others in their daily life?

 

The work and the activities for children, teenagers and adults at the Lighthouse Community Center brings a true support and comfort to the community.

 

 

 

I really enjoyed participating in the Saturday programs organized for the children (ages 5 to 11), which were run by the Lighthouse and a local church from here in Belo Horizonte. 

 

  The program consisted of the following: the children participated in 3 different activities, each activity lasting 40 minutes (skating, arts and crafts, circus activities, games, etc.).  We also spent 30 minutes of the program sharing the gospel. What a joy to see that these children can have fun in security and forget for a moment their difficulties.

 

 

 

Another great moment during this time of outreach was the parents’ day that we organized. With 70 invitations, only 3 parents came, showing the reality of parent’s absence, especially the fathers, in the lives of their children. But what a joy to see the pride in the eyes of a teenager who could bring his father. What a joy to see these parents playing with their children. And, who knows, perhaps one day it will become normal in the community Cafezal?

 

 

 

Written by Rachel from Switzerland. Rachel and her husband are participating in the 2012 YWAM Belo Horizonte DTS.