This lament from Psalms may seem to echo the plea of the urban poor wherever they live, but in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Christian Scientists are striving to meet the spiritual needs of families in one of the most pitiful slums of the city.
The work started when a call for Christian Science help came from someone in a crowded neighborhood where the inhabitants were without benefit of sewers, streets, running water, or schools. The sick person had a quick healing after being visited by a Christian Scientist. Then he sent the Scientist on to another in need, and so it went.
"Then we had to care for the continuing spiritual needs of those healed," recounts a man who worked on the project with other members of Christian Science Society, Pôrto Alegre. "We began to visit them once a week, when whole families were at home." At first only men made the calls, but later, women began to carry on the work. If the people could not read, Scientists read to them, until a literate friend was found. They were given Bibles with marked passages for special needs. Christian Science literature was distributed, too, "something small that would not scare them by the amount of reading material," said the Scientist.
