Saving Lives RGV BR began as a dream to transform communities, created to meet basic needs and foster safe spaces in 2012. After church during my first mission trip to Brazil, I was saddened by the trash and junk right outside my church's door! There was no safe place for people to be with all of the trash in the lot next to the church. When leaving services after church, there was no safe place for children to play while waiting for rides, and for families who were still visiting. I found drug paraphernalia and discovered people often hid next to the wall by my bedroom because I would wake up to the smell of burning crack cocaine and marijuana.  I had a vision of a park, a safe place for families. I never imagined that it would only take a spark to get that fire going! After three years of planning, the park has been opened, and we have built relationships with the community and the local government. Our initiative extended to creating a vibrant family park in Poa Sao Paulo, converting that former trash lot into a place of joy in partnership with the local government.  We gathered resources and used local laborers to build the space. We paint the park and keep it clean. The Mayor donated exercise equipment for senior citizens and gave us cement benches. These benches are of high-quality cement for use as resting places while people watch their children play. We knew that there was much more that needed to be done! Families in our neighborhood were hungry.

To provide food, we used that same partnership to receive basic boxes of food from the governor of São Paulo.  At first, we were storing the food in our family garage, and later on converted the old church school room into a storage space with easier access. We've proudly served over 1200 families with essential food since 2012, but we noticed that there was another common trend among our clients: cleaning and self-care supplies such as toothbrushes and soap. They didn't have any. So in faith, I moved forward to include cleaning supplies as a part of our program. I worked with local businesses to buy large amounts of cleaning supplies and toilet paper at a good price. I secured a professional cargo hauler to help me procure supplies at the cost of fuel only. His name is Thiago, and he has been a blessing. When we give families food and cleaning supplies, we offer them opportunities to volunteer as distributors and helpers in the park. This changes the mindset of the families, because they are not simply beggars, they are also givers of blessings as volunteers.