BACKGROUND REPORT 

by The Rt. Rev. William Mikler

The Jardim Gramacho landfill is the largest garbage dump in South America. No longer active, this enormous trash heap is home to 12,000 people who have neither running water nor sewage. Most all live in shacks made of cardboard or tin, and share the dump with wild pigs, vermin, snakes, and buzzards. Many of the inhabitants are children who do not know who their father is. The Life Change Project Rio team that serves in the dump is comprised of young Christian volunteers, most of whom are in their late teens and twenties. In a little more than a year the team has grown from one person to seventy-five volunteers, and includes professionals, doctors, and high school and university students. The team works in concert with several NGOs that focus on social projects, but Life Change is the only team whose primary focus is on comprehensive evangelism.

William Mikler is a missionary bishop who serves the Life Change team in an advisory capacity. The team members call him “Papa Will.”

 

VISION STATEMENT 

by Victor Tiziano, Team Leader

Life Change aims to serve God in a fully integrated way, following the main command of Scripture that is to love Him above all things and our neighbors with all our hearts. We are missionaries with hearts that beat and burn for lives. We live and preach love, always focusing on the exact translation of what love is: Jesus. Our activities in Gramacho aim at feeding the spiritual hunger and thirst of the families that live there and providing basic hygiene and sanitation to help combat and prevent diseases caused by the accumulation of waste.

But above all these things we aim to bring literacy, education and the Gospel message to the 12,000 people living at the dump. We don’t fight our fight for mere charity but rather for an intense Christ-centered revolution in people that is fired by biblical concepts, principles and values. We look forward to a radical change from the inside out, fueled by the grace of God. The benefits of charity are immediate, but temporary. So we understand that only the Gospel—genuine, active, practical, interdenominational, affordable and inclusive—is capable of generating eternal change. The power of God satisfies the hunger and thirst of the soul and transforms character, renews dreams, undoes false wisdom, brings dignity, and change a person’s life story. We are dreaming of a new reality in Jardim Gramacho, a more just and dignified reality in which all honor and glory be to God, for He is the reason for this project.

Victor Tiziano is a 28 year old entrepreneur and lay evangelist. 

 

PRAYER REQUESTS: Please pray for the following:

1. An outpouring of the Holy Spirit that will lead to the conversion of thousands of residents, including parents, children, and the well-armed teenaged drug traffickers who are beginning to listen to our message.
2. Effective discipleship for converts that will produce a thorough reformation of life and culture.
3. Grace and means to mount a Christian school for the children in the dump.
4. For the grace and means (manpower and materials) to build a chapel in the heart of the dump, when the time is right, so that ongoing pastoral care can be provided to the residents.
5. Grace for workers with a 40 year (one generation) commitment to transform Jardim Gramacho into a God-glorifying garden. (Note: jardim is the Portuguese word for “garden.”)
6. For the Life Change Project to develop a godly system that (a) can be replicated in favelas (shanty towns) across Brazil, and  (b) serve as a seminary for a generation of reformers.
7. Grace for the new microfinance programs that are being mounted to prove a long term success.

 

To read our prayer guide, click here.

To learn more about the Cornwall Alliance Day of Prayer for the Environment and the Poor, and to sign up for a prayer time slot, click here.