"Greater things have yet to come and greater things have still to be done in this city..." ~ Bluetree

When I drove across the country with Graden and Jono, we listened to lots of music, to say the least. The song "God of This City" came on and I skipped over it. Jono asked, "You don't like the song?" I explained how it was kind of annoying to me because it had been played on the radio so much. And how the lyrics were extremely repetitive - "Greater things have yet to come and greater things have still to be done in this city," over and over and over.

"Cheddar, do you know the story behind the song?" Jono is well-versed in the history behind songs (similar to a man we met in a Mormon-country coffee shop who stated that the "Encyclopedia of Rock 'n' Roll was his Bible). He then told me of a band (Bluetree) who played a concert in a bar/brothel in Thailand. Surrounded by drug traficking, child prostitution, debauchery, and thousands of lost souls the band began to sing to the Lord, "You're the God of this city..." They saw that even in the midst of the depravity, God was still the God of that city. And He wasn't done - He still has things He wants accomplished in that seemingly hopeless city.

Hearing that story gave me new ears to listen to that song and it is now a favorite of mine. Last week as I walked through the favela (a slum in Rio) called, Morro dos Macacos (Hill of the Monkeys), that song played in my head as a prayer the entire afternoon. Jeremy and Jason (two of the missionaries down here) teach some soccer classes and Bible studies at a community center within the favela. Six teenage boys in their afternoon class took the three of us up to the top of the favela. It was quite a trek to the top. It felt like we were climbing stairs for years, weaving in and out of little alleys between the homes. The further up we walked, the poorer the homes were. Some were just cardboard and trash nailed together to form four walls. The people who live at the top have to walk those stairs anytime they need anything (there are no roads for cars at the top). Some even have to carry water up because they do not have access.

When we got to the top of the hill, there was a little pasture with a large cross off to one side. The pasture overlooked the enormous city of Rio de Janeiro. As we made our way towards the cross, there were about 10 young men with guns overlooking the other side of the hill, to make sure that drug dealers from the rival gang were not trying to invade. They didn’t really seem to care that we were up there so we just kept walking.

When we got to the cross there was a man, R*****, about the age of twenty sitting by it, gun in hand. He was very friendly and started talking to us (in Portuguese of course). He ended up telling us that he had been shot five times in his life and pointed to each scar. At that point, Jason said something along the lines of, “You know, R*****, God has spared your life for a reason.” I’m not sure who initiated this, but the next thing I knew we were standing in a circle, holding hands (the drug dealer, the 6 teenage boys, the three of us) and praying.

God is the God of the people of Morro dos Macacos, whether they know it or not. He created each of them, fashioned their hearts individually (Psalm 33:15), and longs to give them the full life that He died to give. The drug dealers, the prostitutes, the kids who are stuck growing up there. It's encouraging to remember that God isn't finished yet - greater things are left to be done in that city.

Acts 17:26- 28 “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him with live and move and have our being…”