Impact Rio
by Sydney Reynolds
This summer I had the incredible opportunity of helping to lead our Impact high school students on a mission trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I grew up as a missionary kid in Rio, so to be able to now take the Impact youth back to the church I grew up at was incredibly impactful for me. I feel confident, however, when I say I was not the only one impacted by this trip!
Impact partnered with South Plains Church of Christ in Lubbock as we took a group of 30 Americans to work with the Igreja de Cristo do Campinho (The Campinho Church of Christ). While we were in Rio we helped put on a youth retreat for 95 people. This bilingual retreat included youth from 6 different Brazilian churches in the area. This was an incredible way for all of us to see how BIG our God truly is. He does not live in just one church, one city or even one country but stretches the whole earth to UNITE us all.
Thanks to this common ground, the language and cultural barriers were broken down and true friendships were made. It was so encouraging to see the way our Impact youth embraced the new culture, and with a little help from google translate, were able to uplift and encourage the youth in Brazil. After the retreat we spent the rest of our time in Rio helping at the Campinho church where we did a series of service projects to give the church an uplift, and made efforts to connect with a local school. The neighborhood surrounding the church has become increasingly more violent and influenced by drugs, which unfortunately has greatly affected the schools in the area. One of the principals, desperate for change, reached out to the church for any sort of uplift and encouragement. This opened the door and allowed us to go and spend 4 days repainting an auditorium and spending valuable recreation time with the high school students. The prayer is that this connection between the Campinho church and school can continue to flourish. I am so thankful for the way God planted the seeds for this trip to be possible back when I was a youth, and I cannot wait to see what fruit will come from the seeds that were planted in the hearts of our Impact youth from this incredible trip. God is soooo good.
