About the Lighthouse

What is the Lighthouse?  What is YWAM?

The Lighthouse is a community center that serves children and families in a poor community called Cafezal, which is a part of the largest slum in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

We are a part of a Non-Governmental Organization called Youth With A Mission (YWAM).  We are specifically connected with YWAM Belo Horizonte, which is a network of various YWAM mercy ministries in Belo Horizonte focused on ministering to children living in at-risk situations.

The Lighthouse Community Center depends entirely on financial donations to operate and does not generate any income for itself.

Today, an international team of Christian missionaries, from various denominations, work at the Lighthouse Community Center sharing the message of God’s love and hope through various programs offered to children, teens and adults.  It is our goal to bring transformation to the people of the slum in five specific areas:  transformation spiritually, intellectually, physically, emotionally and socially. 

A Little Bit of History...

In April of 1992, the Lighthouse Community Center  was established by a Dutch man named Jan van de Beek.   At the time Jan worked with another ministry of YWAM Belo Horizonte, called the Rescue House.  This ministry works with homeless children and adults, by taking them off the streets and helping them move into shelters, rehab clinics and trying to contact their families.  Jan began to realize that most of the children and adults living on the streets actually come from the slums.  As a good and practical Dutch man, he thought,  "Why not work on prevention?  Let's go to the slums to do preventive work so that this situation does not happen anymore."   Guided by this idea, he and a team began to evangelize in poor communities and they also started to look for a house where they could begin this preventative work.

Around this same time, there was a man building a large beautiful home for his wife, located in the Cafezal community.  At the time of the initial construction, the area surrounding the construction site was a beautiful mountain side with a breath taking view of the city – it was not a slum.  However, over the years, slowly a slum community began to grow up around the beautiful house.  When construction was completed, the man's wife did not want to live in the beautiful house anymore.  The couple decided to sell the house, that they had spent years building, and for a good price!  Around this time Jan just so happened to meet this man and he bought the beautiful house we now call the Lighthouse Community Center. 



Since the ministry of Lighthouse Community Center began, various types of programs and activities have been offered to the children and people living in the slum to teach them and also encourage them to develop themselves on various levels.  As the saying goes, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”


The Reality...

Just like other slums in the world, the people living in the slums of Brazil face harsh realities.  The slums of Brazil are often full of violence, drug trafficking, drug addition, broken families, lack of education, poor living conditions, sickness, unemployment and social breakdown on various levels.  Many people living in the Cafezal slum are in great need of encountering the love of God and a hope for a better future.

We have a passion to bring this message of God's LOVE and HOPE to the people living here!