My sojourns in the desert of northeastern Brazil brought me in contact with some really weird people.

Danilo and Fatima. Both in their mid-30’s, Danilo is an engineer and his wife Fatima is a school teacher. Danilo was making $7,000 (US) a month in his job. Both walked away from it to move to a town that didn’t know Jesus. Well, it wasn’t that the town didn’t know Jesus, it was that it was a hell-hole owned by Satan; prostitution and drugs have given the town an especially ugly reputation. Little girls barely into puberty have had multiple babies because they sell their bodies for $2.50 or are sex slaves; boys not even 10 years old are strung out on crack; 95% of all crime in the town is committed by kids between 8-14, and they are cold-blooded killers, assassinating someone for a wristwatch.

The fact that they gave up a comfortable lifestyle to move to this town is weird enough. He took a pay cut to $750 a month and she quit work altogether. Just to serve Jesus.

Weird.

When the church that was “supporting” them pulled the plug on their income because they insisted on working with the prostitutes and druggies instead of the “respectable” people in town, their income dropped from $750 a month to $0. Yep, $0. And, they stayed, trusting in God to provided.

For six months they’ve been laboring away in hell-holeville. Forty people have come to know Jesus and a building has been given to him to hold worship services in. He’s made an inroad into the drug and prostitute culture and still doesn’t get paid squat. He does get more than his fair share of death threats; the drug dealers know how dangerous he is.

He’s not gone hungry yet.

How weird can you get?