A Sole Mission
by WILLIAM VALLADARES
Photos by Helen Michelsen

A shy, little orphan girl from Belo Horizente, Brazil.

Ann Gel Fairlie, assistant director in Montclair State's Publications Office, was trapped in a dilemma last year when her 18-year-old son, Konrad, and her 15-year-old daughter, Helen, asked for permission to go to Brazil on a missionary assignment with their church's youth group. As a parent, Fairlie struggled with the idea of allowing her children to travel without her for two weeks to the Brazilian favelas (ghettos), or keeping them home and shattering a value system that she spent a lifetime nurturing in them.

A local girl waits for her soup to heat on an outdoor open stove.

The thought of her children wandering among the meninos de rua (street kids), in an urban battleground where firefights between 10-year-olds armed with handguns who patrol their drug lords' turf from rooftops, local vigilante groups and police "death squads" are routine, terrified Fairlie. But faith, trust and an unswerving commitment to serving others compelled Fairlie to reluctantly send her son and daughter to the unstable suburb of Nova Lima in Belo Horizente.

"My children and I are members of The Lamb of God Church in West Orange, a nondenominational community with an incredible youth group," said Fairlie, a single mom. "I know the people who organize these missions and I believed they would never put my family in harm's way. But more than that, Konrad and Helen convinced me of their desire to help less fortunate children. I've instilled in them how important it is for both adults and children to go out and help others, and that's what the trip was all about."

When her children returned, Fairlie became fascinated and inspired by their work in orphanages and an HIV hospital. "They told me it was a life-altering experience that they wanted to share with me," she said. "When I saw their photographs and listened to their stories I wanted to help those poverty-stricken Brazilian children, too, so I volunteered to go as a housemother this past summer."

Another factor that convinced Fairlie to let her children go, and that inspired her to join them, was the teens' commitment to serve and their tireless preparation. "The kids all raised the money to pay their own way," she said. "My son, an artist, auctioned off his paintings, while my daughter, a photographer, pasted pictures on small wooden boxes, laminated them and then sold them. I remember the night she sat at the dining room table to count the money she earned for the trip. She needed $700 and raised $707."

But that was only part of the preparation. The group also filled five large suitcases and two large trash bags with 100 pairs of shoes, underwear, clothes and toys for the Brazilian orphans.

A woman and her child come outdoors to greet the young missionaries bearing gifts.

"We handed out new sneakers to children who had never worn anything on their feet other than flip-flops, even during the winter when average temperatures there register in the 30s," said Fairlie. "I'll never forget the delight on the kids' faces when they laced up their new shoes. James Padley, the pastor who runs the church in Nova Lima, told us there was a tremendous need for shoes and underwear. Clothes, he said, were a bonus. Flans, a Brazilian woman who helped us distribute the clothes and shoes, put away most of the toys for Christmas because in their world a Christmas gift is unheard of."

It was a rocky start for this band of north Jersey missionaries, one Fairlie described as disastrous from the time their plane touched down in Brazil. The mission where they stayed was isolated deep in the jungle, surrounded by screaming monkeys. The group was to use public transportation, but because the house was so far out, they were forced to scramble to rent cars.

"The nearest grocery store was a four-hour roundtrip and the car was so tiny that the bread alone took up all the seats," said Fairlie. "Driving was terrifying, not only because we were in unfamiliar territory, but because stopping at Stop signs was optional. Patty Poluyniak, the other house mom, and I were responsible for cooking meals for 28 people--three times a day--in a cramped kitchen with a tiny propane stove. It was freezing, there was no heat or hot water and one of the toilets broke the first day. We tried not to consume the tap water when we brushed our teeth, but it sneaks in. Almost everybody came down with colds and stomach problems, and we all got lice. Not one of the kids complained, because they all knew this wasn't a vacation. It was hard work, wonderful hard work."

Witnessing the abject poverty in one of the poorest favelas in Brazil during the three-month rainy season put their hardships into perspective. Fairlie watched families huddle against buildings in feeble attempts to stay dry and warm as their makeshift homes constructed from cardboard boxes disintegrated and washed away in a rainstorm.

"I expected to see a poor world full of melancholy homeless, helpless people," said Fairlie. "What I found was that no matter how impoverished these people are, they have the ability to find more joy in life than our richest celebrities, and that they always find some gesture of giving back."

Though Fairlie doesn't speak a word of Portuguese, and most of the people they met spoke no English, they smashed the language barrier by communicating through signs of affection. One day while the group visited a local park so the Americans could play soccer against some local Brazilians, Fairlie met a little girl named Paulina. "When I pointed to her chipped painted earrings and told her how much I loved them, Paulina immediately took them off and insisted that I take them. I also got to know Angie, one of the funniest, happiest kids I've ever met. We communicated through sign language, hugs and smiles, and it became extremely important to Angie to give me the pennies in his pocket. Both children were disappointed when I didn't accept their gifts."

The reality of the perilous streets crept in when the sun went down and the people in the park started running. "One of our translators told us that the drug lords were coming for their nightly meeting and we were warned to literally run for our lives," said Fairlie.

The most meaningful aspect of the trip for Fairlie was coordinating a street fair that went on for several days, complete with face painting, cotton candy and thousands of hot dogs. The group even set up a trampoline they brought with them, which, according to Fairlie, was a big thrill for the hundreds of children who walked great distances to be there.

Housemothers Fairlie and Patty Polyniak.

"We visited one woman with three children ages 8, 4 and 6 months," said Fairlie. "Her hair was matted, she had no toilet and the stench of her home was sickening. She had a tiny outdoor stove but didn't have an opportunity to light it often because she didn't have a morsel of food to cook. When we gave them clothes and several weeks' worth of food the woman burst into tears. When the family turned out for the street fair, that mother, proud as a peacock, paraded her kids in their new clothes and shoes, hair washed, up and down the street showing them off. Then she used some of the food we gave her to bake us a cake."

Her first taste of missionary work left Fairlie hungry for more, so she and her family plan to go to Belfast in the summer. The culture there, she's been told, is that children are raised to hate Protestants and Catholics. Most of them don't even know why. The new challenge will be working through the hate.

When a severe mold problem in Fairlie's apartment recently left her temporarily homeless, she and her children had to get rid of almost every possession and most of the clothes they owned. "After witnessing the joy and love that emerged from poverty in Brazil, my kids told me not to worry, that it was just stuff and that we had each other. As for me, I will never again take for granted having shoes on my feet in the winter. The Brazilian children we met taught us that it's possible to be happy when you have nothing, and that a piece of candy or a hug can invoke incredible joy."

A group of children who were playing with pebbles in the street take a moment to show off the candy they just received.

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