From Grief-Stricken Mom to Real-Life Angel: The Case of Casa do Zezhino

After telling some bad tales about my travels abroad (see, for example, Muggable Me), it seems like it should be time and only fair to tell a remarkably good tale that I learned about during my days of providing consultation to state and private educational programs in Brazil. It is one I have been meaning to tell for a while, and I do at least have a button about it under "Ways to Help Others" over there on the right-hand side of this page: Casa do Zezinho (Little Joe's House).

The following description comes from the English-language site:

"On the outskirts of São Paulo, there is a poor and violent region so dangerous, it is known as the 'death triangle.' Thousands of families live here and don't have the resources to move elsewhere. Children have no access to leisure activities—there are no libraries, no theaters, no museums, no parks to enrich their free time. In fact, on average, three children die in this neighborhood every week by violent means or neglect.

In the middle of this terror is a safe haven called Casa do Zezinho. This daycare and after-school center is a sanctuary for children and teenagers who take part in their educational programs as well as the arts and culture programs they offer. The children are encouraged to explore creative hobbies and engage in cultural activities as well as participate in self-esteem and self-development programs.

Dagmar Garroux, the founder of Casa do Zezinho, and known as Tia Dag, describes it as, 'A house where we learn with children, and children learn with us, how to open the doors which are usually closed by poverty.' Casa do Zezinho provides a sheltered place for the children to play and learn. It is a place where children receive attention, affection, nutrition and education. It is a place where they can find hope.

Their programs include the graphic arts: mosaic, paper recycling art, woodworking, ceramics and silk screening—as well as the performing arts: theater, dance, musical instruments, and singing. Instead of dead end roads, the children are shown the way to make positive choices for their own future."

What the website does not tell you is Dagmar's personal tragedies. I felt an instant bond with Dagmar when I learned that she had had a child with spina bifida, like my Noelle. Unfortunately, unlike Noelle, who has reached the grand age of 33 and counting, Dagmar's daughter died at the age of six. The loss of her daughter prompted Dagmar to found Casa do Zezinho. Instead of losing hope, Dagmar developed an approach to teaching (and life) that she called "hope pedagogy."

Beginning with just a few students, she had reached an enrollment of 300 when her father came to visit this marvelous oasis in the middle of Death Triangle. (I have been to Death Triangle and can personally attest to Dagmar's institution being a real oasis, where hope lives and grows.) Now, Death Triangle has earned its name: it has the highest per capital rate of murder anywhere in Brazil, and deaths come easily, quickly, and voluminously there. Dagmar's father was little more than one tiny number in a large statistic: he was murdered before he ever saw his daughter's triumph. She was heartbroken and angry and stayed away from Casa do Zezinho for a month after her father's death. Then, a group of older students came to her, told her that they missed her and that they had determined who had killed her father. They promised to take revenge -- kill the killers -- if she would come back. As she told me, she realized that this kind of thinking was just the opposite of what she had been trying to teach the next generation, and so she told them that she would only come back if they forgave the killers (and that she would, too). Forgiveness was had all around, and Dagmar came back in full force to build the institution to 1200 children and growing.

Dagmar's Casa do Zezinho is one of many examples of God turning bad into good. Dagmar's losses became a major gain for hundreds of children with some of the worst potential futures in all of Brazil; instead of looking at a life on the street, selling drugs, these children have learned about selling other kinds of things, things that they make, as well as have traveled to Germany to participate in a bi-cultural choir, giving them a perspective on life that ranges far beyond the small triangle in which they were born.

Good from bad is such a common theme with God. How can we we feel sorry at all for ourselves or our kids when God has used their plights to create delights? Because of Doah's experiences, many children who would otherwise have died have lived and a class of autistic children was left far less autistic. (I guess I should blog about the stories behind that statement some day.) Noelle has been a spokesperson for all kinds of disability-related events and campaigns, including being quoted at one point in the Washington Post for her testimony at a Congressman's hearing on special education (the only child to testify). Shura bonded an entire community that had only one desire: that he live (and he did).

And then there are those muggings where in just a few minutes I learned more about cultural aspects of the countries where I was mugged than I could ever have learned (or understood) from university studies. And, of course, there is the story of St. Francis Retreat; the new super-duper digs would never have been undertaken had not the old burned to the ground. Nor is it likely there would have been such a rallying of community support that is likely to last long after the new building opens.

I could go on and on about how many times and ways I have seen God turn bad into good, but I won't. I'll save the discussion for a future post when others can share their experiences, too.

I am, however, reminded every hour of every day of the goodness of God that is poured out upon the children living in a violent neighborhood in the bowels of Brazil through a real-life angel called Dagmar. You see, the clock in my office has the Casa do Zezinho logo, hand-drawn and given to me by a child from Dagmar's oasis.

Lost from My Prayer List

Two people I had listed on the prayer list for this blog died this past week. That is not surprising because I put on that list those who are the nearest to God, and sometimes they leave this earth even though their loved ones would like them to stay.

Let me tell a little about the two who died. They were quite different. One was a mother of ten, who had spent a number of decades in this world and contributed in many ways, not the least of which was her cancer diary. Her name was Cyndi. The second was a little boy, whose coming was awaited with much anticipation and trepidation for it was already known before his birth that his heart was too slow for this world. His name was Matthew.

A mother of ten children, Cyndi, called her blog, "Faithful Promises." She died with an attitude of gratitude, as they say. Would that we all have such an outlook on life when it shows its worst side! On her blog site, Cyndi wrote, "Although at the moment cancer is taking quite a bit of my time and energy, it is not how I define my life. I truly believe that this is a trial to be faced for gain. God can and will use my illness to His glory. Already He has shown His faithfulness in meeting our needs. I believe that He will continue to do so in a mighty way. I am His vessel. And that, not cancer, is who I am." Quite an example for all of us, don't you think? And certainly a wonderful role model for those ten children she called her own. Please keep this family in your prayers.

Matthew's story makes me think of Dale Evans Rogers' book, Angel Unaware. (If you have not read it, I suggest you do so. It is short, and you will not regret the time.) While his life was much briefer than the little girl, Robin, who was born to Dale Evans and Roy Rogers, little Matthew seems to have made a big impression on those around him. Before his birth, Matthew was found to have a slow heart. After birth, Matthew lived only four days and then followed three siblings who had left this world a few years before his arrival. The faith of this family is truly amazing. Please keep them in your prayers.

Praying for someone who is dying is one of the hardest prayers to make, I have found. For what does one pray? That the person will live? What if the living is worse than the dying? And how does one know which is better? That God's will be done? That is not what we really want, is it? We want God to intervene, fix things, heal the person, and return our pre-illness world to us.

As with anything else, we do not and cannot see the really big picture. We cannot know why God intervenes with miracles in some lives and not in others. I guess it just goes back to having total trust. So, I pray the only thing that I can think to pray. I pray that God treat those I am praying for as His special people, as I know they are, and take care of them in the ways that He knows to be best because God's best is far better than anything we can imagine. And then I wait in confidence for God to answer that prayer.

(P.S. Click here for the story behind the praying hands, along with the story of another person who is in need of prayer.)

Tareq Died Today

To protect the privacy of the individual involved and that of his family, I will use an alias--Tareq--to share with you a remarkable story.

Tareq was one of my employees, and it came as no surprise that he died. For more than three years, he battled tumors and heart disease and rarely missed a day of work. What was a surprise was that Tareq managed to spend three years with us that he supposedly did not have. More than that, Tareq was a reminder to all of us of God's love and power.

I came to know Tareq right after I had taken up the position as his boss's boss's boss. I suppose, given the managerial distance between us, I should not have come to know him at all. However, early on, Tareq had a problem, a serious one. An immigrant to the USA from Iraq, he had family members back home, ones who had not wanted to leave Iraq. Among them was a son. Somehow, members of the insurgency learned that Tareq was working with an organization in support of the US government and targeted his son. (Of course, just being Christian in northern Iraq has, even before the war, been enough to put one in danger.) In the case of Tareq's son, first threatening messages were left. Then, another relative was killed, a case of mistaken identify. Tareq's son went into hiding, pretty much in the same area where Saddam Hussein was able to go undiscovered for weeks. Tareq went to his supervisor for help; the situation was overwhelming for that supervisor, and he sent Tareq to his supervisor. In this manner, Tareq was passed upward until he rather quickly landed in my office in pretty desperate shape. Rather than send him to my supervisor, the "proper" thing to do, I helped him call the Washington office of our senator, which I considered the proper thing to do. It would be much faster, and the worst that could happen to me would be a reprimand for working out of channels. In the interim, we just might be able to save Tareq's son--and we did. The senator leapt into action, contacting the US Embassy in Iraq, which was able to ferret Tareq's son out of the country (one of those exciting adventures that does not get reported and should not, for the safety of all involved, be reported in any more detail than I have provided here).

And so, I knew Tareq, and Tareq knew me. In fact, after that he felt bonded to me in some way, as to a protector, both because of my assistance with his son's rescue and also because I extended his contract a couple of months past the surgery period so that he could continue to get medical benefits. Therefore, it should have been no surprise that he would want to say good-bye to me. He had worked every day throughout his period of chemotherapy for cancer, but once the tumors were shrunk, he was cleared for a long-needed quadruple by-pass.

On the morning before his surgery, Tareq cleaned out his office. He did not plan to return to work, the doctors having given him only a 3% chance of survival, the cancer and heart trouble being a deadly combination. He said an emotional good-bye to his colleagues, then headed for my office. I was out of the office. He left a note. I found the note and went to his office. He was gone, saying good-bye to other colleagues. I left a note. And so it went all morning until he had to leave without saying-good-bye.

The last thing he sent from his computer was an e-mail note to me, thanking me for my support and asking me to pray for him. Now, I had a dilemma. I work in an organization where not only is separation of church and state expected, it is required, and as the senior leader in my division, it is up to me to enforce it (along a myriad other rules). Was the prayer of one person enough? I asked myself. Well, yeah, probably it was, but I wanted more for Tareq. I wanted the prayers of his colleagues. And so, using careful wording to avoid raising many objections, I forwarded Tareq's note to the 400 employees who work for me with a request from me: "If you have a belief system that will allow you to honor Tareq's request, please do so."

Well, many people (actually, most people) responded to that request. We had Christians of several denominations, Jews of various persuasions, and Sunni & Shia Muslims all praying together, often in the same office. Even Buddhists joined in. They prayed, as well, in their churches, synagogues, and mosques and relayed that information to Tareq. We also sent flowers and cards to Tareq. All this cheered him up during his recovery. It was the prayers, though, that were special. They not only bonded all of us to Tareq but also bonded all of us to each other. My organization went from a place where religion had been sidelined to a place where one could feel the spirituality of those working there as soon as one walked through a door.

Three weeks later, I happened to be in the office area where Tareq used to work -- and there sat Tareq. "What are you doing here?" I asked in surprise.

"I beat the odds," he grinned, "and the doctors are still in shock!"

Those extra three years that we have had Tareq with us have continually reminded us of the power of prayer, of God's love, and of how God's people can work together, regardless of religion, for the good of each other and for the glory of God. Since that time, God has always come to work with me and with most of my employees. Not that God was not that before, but now we allow ourselves to speak of God, turn problems over to God, and deliberately include God in our work life. As a result, our organization has gone from being a business-as-usual, impersonal, unemotional set of offices to an involved, gentle, loving, happy, huge family of God where coming to work is something to look forward to every day.