In purely economic terms, possibly up to two-thirds of Brazil's population live in serious poverty and the gap between rich and poor continues to widen. While living in Brazil in 1999-2000, Judith & Adrian worked in a home for street boys in a large city and in a favela (shantytown) in a rural context.

Having now moved permanently to Brazil, besides teaching in churches and colleges, Adrian & Judith hope to continue involvement in social projects. Through their mission they envisage using resources from the UK to help tackle pressing problems. These resources will not just be financial aid but physical help - short-term teams - visiting Brazil for specific projects of development and evangelism. The Stewarts launched one such project in 2005.

In Recife in the Northeast of Brazil the church is, in general, small and poor and the church the Stewarts belong to is no exception. Church is a lively and happy experience but often resources are lacking. Soon after arriving they discovered that the all age Sunday School was rather pushed for space.

Out of the 9 classes, 6 of them had to share rooms (that is 6 classes in 3 rooms). Coupled with the noise of wall fans (essential in a tropical climate) and the loud traffic going by on the road outside they wondered how anybody could be learning anything! The pastor shared his dream that the church would one day build another storey on the church hall to make more classrooms and gain much needed space.

In late 2004 they had a breakthrough on this dream when the Presbyterian Church in Ireland Youth Board offered them a team of 12 young folks to come and do some building work in August 2005. It was a wonderful surprise, they spent many exhaustive months struggling to raise the funds for the materials: selling old cameras and watches sent from the UK; organising inter-church football tournaments; anything they could think of to scrape together the money needed.

The 3-week visit of the team was even more wonderful, not only did they work incredibly hard and achieve lots – building the floor of the first storey – but they really inspired the church to join in and work hard, and to believe that this project was more than a crazy dream way beyond the hopes of a poor north-eastern church. After the team left, the church continued the work and by the end of October the men of the church had managed to complete the first stage of project and the church had gained some vital space to the relief of the Sunday School teachers.

The dream continues with the hope that in 2006 and 2007 the church can carry forward the project and build classrooms on the first storey of the church hall.