STING (our mid-week program for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders) sponsors a boy in Brazil through Compassion International. The children in STING write letters to Lucas and love to receive his letters.

We recently received the following letter from Lucas's pastor dated December 2, 2009.

Dear Friends,

Beloved, greetings in the peace of the Lord.

My name is Antonio Carlos de Farias Ribeiro, and I am the pastor at Igreja Evangelica Assembleia de Deus (Assembly of God Church, Largo dos Santos Congregation), where I minister to your Compassion-sponsored child. I would like to express my gratitude towards your demonstration of fraternal love by sharing your blessings with Lucas Pontes.

I will present you with some information regarding our center, which gives support to the sponsored children.

Our center is located at the outskirts of our city, where there is a great incidence of thefts, murders, and drug dealing. The authorities are not always able to develop their community support in an adequate way. There is a great need of social support to the families, for the reasons mentioned above. Aiming to serve this demand, we coordinate the Projeto Bom Samaritano (Good Samaritan Elementary and Middle School), which, with your valuable support, develops activities to assist children and teenagers in the cognitive, socio-emotional, physical and especially spiritual areas.

In the cognitive area, we provide tutoring classes in the following subjects: English, Portuguese, social integration, math and informatics.

In the socio-emotional area, we seek to prepare children to live within the society and enable them to overcome the obstacles in life.

In the physical area, we offer private class in which health, hygiene and good habits are taught.

In the spiritual area, we have daily devotions, weekly services, Christian education classes, and spiritual follow-up through home visits.

When we become part of the kingdom of God our minds become similar to Christ's, and that gives us a new vision of the world and people. We feel co-responsible for them and especially for the children and teenagers as they are still in the growth process (not that we ever stop growing). We praise God for the joint effort of all of us. The sum of these efforts results in growth for the little ones in various areas, making us honored and grateful for the opportunity to contribute beneficially to these precious lives.

We have often witnessed the transformation in these lives, and their testimonies have influenced their families, causing them to transform as well.

At last, I thank God that I have you as the faithful sponsor for Lucas. We manifest our wish to strengthen our partnership, with the objective of contributing to the continuous growth of the kingdom of God and advocating in favor of our children to release them from spiritual, physical, and socio-emotional poverty, so that they will become fulfilled and accomplished adult Christians.

"Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well" - 3 John, verse 2, NIV.

In the love of Jesus

Antonio Carlos de Farias Ribeiro

Pastor