We landed in Natal mid-afternoon on Christmas day. Our friend Anna and many of her family and friends picked us up and took us to a wonderful house where we stayed the week. After an incredible meal provided by Anna’s dad, we joined the church to take food, drink, and clothes to the homeless on Christmas night. Thirteen Americans and about twenty Brazilians hit the streets of Natal in the Name of Jesus.
Natal is the largest city in its state with close to one million people. Almost two hundred thousand inhabitants are foreigners, most from Europe who moved to enjoy the climate and beauty of the northeastern coast. As in our cities, there are many poor and needy people. The pastor of the church we worked with became a hero of mine from day one. He knew where to find the hurting and as we stopped at different locations, Orlando went into the streets and alleys announcing food and fellowship for all.
The first place we visited was near a bridge in a rough part of the city. As a small group of homeless men and women gathered, Orlando asked us to share a message of God’s goodness and sing a couple of songs in our language. Anna’s nieces, Renata and Fernanda, were our excellent translators. After we sang a couple of Christmas songs, our new friends sang worship songs in Portuguese.
Soon after we stopped, I noticed a man immediately walk to the car containing the food and clothes. He did not seem to want to wait until after the devotional time to receive the blessings. Being the ex-assistant principal I am, I wished I could have told this young man named Perecles to be patient. I’m sure Orlando said this to him, but he did not seem to listen. Eventually Perecles attached himself to our tallest team member who was wise to get Fernanda to translate. Perecles pointed to his bare feet and told of a time that a bus ran over him and practically destroyed both feet. “But I cried out to the Lord and Jesus healed me completely. But now, as you see, I really need some shoes.” This particular team member wears size sixteen shoes, quite a bit bigger than the feet of the homeless man, so he shared that God has a way of providing for our needs at just the right time and that he would pray God would provide for Perecles. Another team member walked up as this prayer was being offered and noticed that his feet were about the same size as the homeless man’s. At the end of the prayer, the American took off his shoes and gave them to Perecles, who put them on and hugged both foreigners and kissed them on the cheeks, which is the custom of the land. Soon after this beautiful moment, we hopped back into cars to go to another location.
I guess we had driven a little less than a mile when the pastor parked his car on the side of the road and started calling for all to come to the feast. We repeated what we had done at the first stop with different individuals sharing. A larger crowd gathered at this place and as I watched things unfold, I noticed something familiar out of the corner of my eye. It was Perecles! “How did he get here?” I thought to myself, “He is just coming to get more handouts.” My disciplinarian mind was kicking into high gear, but never had I been so wrong. Perecles motioned for Fernanda and the American in sock feet to come to him. He rattled off some Portuguese and Fernanda translated. “When you drove off, tears came to my eyes and I cried and cried. I had taken the shoes of a guest of our city. This is not right.” Then Perecles took off his new shoes, got down on his knees, and put them on the confused American. After tying them, he rose and hugged his new friend. The American tried to explain that he did not need the shoes and that he wanted to give them away, but Fernanda wisely shook her head. She saw what was happening. A man who had nothing was experiencing the joy of giving. “I am used to going without shoes,” Perecles said. “I can’t let a guest go barefoot!” Many tears were shed that night as a tiny section of the Body of Christ from Atlanta joined a tiny part of the Body of Christ from Natal to proclaim the love of our King.
Every night we were in Brazil, we met with different groups of Christians and seekers. On a couple of occasions, our Brazilian friends shared the story of the Christmas shoes, the title of this writing. At the end of the story, the teller would often ask a question. All of us knew the answer. “So tell me, who gave the greater gift?”
“As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. ‘I tell you the truth,’ he said, ‘this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.’” Luke 21:1-4