We are churches on the edge, but it is churches on the edge that do the most creative work. There are some countries where a visitor is likely to see only problems and the scale of the challenges. Haiti is such a place where the problems and difficulties seem so complex and insurmountable that they simply cannot ever be fixed. Many nations in Africa evoke the same sentiment. It takes the eyes and love and heart of a native person to see light at the end of the tunnel.
Brazil is such a place too, in a much different way than Haiti.
A visitor sees endless challenges confronting this church. An army of Goliaths pitted against all too few Davids. But equally as visible is the courage and enthusiasm and boundless energy of those small Davids - lay leaders with faith, nuns with strength and courage, priests with the grand dreams and bishops with inspired vision. They may be scattered in their visions and poor in resources, but one senses a courage and commitment that beggars the size of the problems. One leaves Brazil with a sense that many many things may fail the church here, but that something truly wonderful and inspired is in the process of happening.