Taking church to the streets

ATLANTA – The Rev. Eliad Dias dos Santos served members of very poor and unwelcome communities for a decade in her home country of Brazil before becoming a United Methodist missionary in Rome, Italy. She got to know women who had turned to prostitution to feed themselves and their families, and the situations of their children, and other women who had been trafficked or were assaulted and left with no support. When she describes them as unwelcome, she means particularly unwelcome in the church.

“I think it is not possible to stay in the church building and create services for people in the streets,” dos Santos explained. “Normally, the church waits for these people to come to the church, but they do not come. And if they do, they are often not welcomed. They are not even invited into the church. So, I decided to serve the people in the streets.”

As part of her seminary training, dos Santos spent three years working with Catholic sisters in a project to serve prostitutes on the streets of São Paulo. It happened to be in the same community as the church she grew up attending, but she had never seen the community from this perspective and did not know the reality of life in poor spaces.

“Working in the streets was a new conversion experience for me,” she said.

She learned how to slowly build relationships with people on the street simply by being there, outside the church, day after day. She could talk with people in a way that helped them open up about their situations. She listened so she could discern what a next step might be. In this way, she learned how to be of service, when to call the police, when and where to find safe shelter for those who needed it.

The children on the streets are of special concern to her. They may be used to make money for the family or trafficked to another place while their parents think they are working or being taught a trade as an apprentice. But instead, they enter the very worst of circumstances with no way out. Eliad also worked to overcome these situations, even if it meant breaking down a dangerous trafficking circle. She found teenagers but also children as young as six and eight years abused in this way.

“Some of these people come from generations of people who lived in the street,” she said. “These children were born in the street, they grow up in the street, they don’t go to school, and their parents and grandparents have done the same. They don’t have documents or ID.”

After she entered missionary service, dos Santos traveled to Rome, Italy, to work with migrants coming into Italy from African countries, South America, Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Often, they too end up in the streets.

“The difference in Italy from Brazil is that here in Rome, there are associations for the distribution of food. People have breakfast, lunch and dinner. In Rome there are now 12 associations that do this, but, only for food. There are no other services offered,” dos Santos noted.

The Federation of Evangelical Churches in Italy, of which the Methodist Church of Italy and the Waldensian Church, also affiliated with the Methodist Church, are members, received a grant from the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) to build on this project. The church dos Santos works with, called 20^th of September Methodist Church, offered a breakfast project for six years, but the congregation only distributed food for the homeless on Sundays…in the church.

“When I arrived here, after I learned about the process for services in Rome, I asked to have a space outside the church to distribute the food, so we could talk to the people, look into their eyes, listen to their histories. We began to build relationships with the migrants we met.” And so, dos Santos began the long-term process of building a social service program that would answer the needs of the people seeking assistance.

“The idea is to create a place of service all day – people have food but they no place to stay, no space for work,” said dos Santos. “People stay in the parks, in the bus station. We needed a space for the people to stay together to learn things and to form a supportive community – learn Italian and apply for the documents they need in Italy. People often have to wait a year for documents and they cannot work without them.”

Today the church in Rome helps people with their documents, referring them to the correct office and checking to see what is missing. “And we have a space to teach them Italian, because Italian is not offered in many places in the world – it is used in Italy only and a small section of Switzerland. Sometimes violence erupts against immigrants who don’t speak Italian. I visit them in the hospitals and accompany them to social services.”

Friday the church is open for people to come for social services and Pastor dos Santos offers counseling sessions on Wednesdays as well. She listens to find out what people need and how the church can be of better service.

“My question is often, ‘what is your dream here? What do you want and need?’ The church is open for me to walk with you for this moment, to listen and help you find your community with other immigrants.

“I have worked with people who believe that Jesus continues to walk with his people and with the excluded. As Christians, we are the presence of God in these people’s lives, not only helping them materially, but fighting for a more just and safe world.”

Christie R. House is a consultant writer and editor with Global Ministries and UMCOR.

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