{"id":80,"date":"2020-03-25T16:45:13","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T16:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/desafiojovem.workmove.pt\/en\/?post_type=history&p=80"},"modified":"2020-03-25T16:45:13","modified_gmt":"2020-03-25T16:45:13","slug":"belmiro-de-jesus","status":"publish","type":"history","link":"https:\/\/desafiojovem.com\/en\/history\/belmiro-de-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"Belmiro de Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

My name is Belmiro de\nJesus. I was born on the Portuguese island of Madeira, in 1975, shortly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

after my parents return\nfrom Mozambique after the Portuguese revolution that ended 50<\/p>\n\n\n\n

years of dictatorship. My\nmother was from Mozambique and my father was from Madeira.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the age of eight,\nafter my father\u2019s death, we – my mother, my three brothers and I came to live\non the Portuguese mainland. My father’s family had always been against the relationship\nof my father with a black woman, so after his death my mother decided to leave\nMadeira since, she was not accepted by his family. This big change started the\ndownfall of my family. Without my father\u2019s authority around, I got involved\nwith drugs and all kind of crime. Meanwhile, in a span of four years, my mother\nand three brothers all passed away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to the fact I got\ninvolved with drugs and crime, I ended up being arrested and I thought it was\nthe end. Imprisoned, alone and without any family, I could not imagine any kind\nof future. While in prison I met people from Teen Challenge and the work they\ndid with inmates. I noticed there was something different about these people.\nThey knew my past and they accepted me all the same – this captured my\nattention. I started attending their meetings, learning the Word of God; I\nlearn that God loves me to the point of sending His only son to die in my\nplace, and one day I decided to give Him my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My life was gradually\nchanged. Miracles happened and I entered the Teen Challenge center in Cucuj\u00e3es,\na village in the north of Portugal, where I spent 14 months doing the\nrehabilitation program. Later, I moved to the reinsertion center in Fanh\u00f5es,\nclose to Lisbon. Afterwards, I got my first job. I wanted to become an\nautonomous person and to be seen by society as useful and worthy. However,\nafter a while God reminded me of a commitment I earlier had made to him: to\nSERVE Him!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I left my job and\njoined the Teen Challenge volunteer street team – Operation Joshua,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

where I served for\nseveral years. I also was part of the prison work team, where I was privileged\nto go back to the prison I once was in to encourage the inmates and tell them\nmy story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My newfound life in\nChrist was not without obstacles, problems, pain and some bad decisions, but\nknowing that I was unconditionally accepted and loved by God made all the\ndifference. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though I had lost all my\nfamily, I now belonged to a much bigger one \u2013 I had brothers, sisters,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

fathers and mothers that\nloved me, cared for me, cried with me, counseled and scolded me, and held me\nwhen I needed to be held. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, I have my own\nfamily I am married and I\u2019m the father of a beautiful girl – God has fulfilled\nhis promises in my life – one of them is being a father.\n\nGod is faithful! His\nlove and acceptance can heal the pain, the rejection, and the scars of a sinful\nlife. I believe that what He has done in me, he will do in the life of anyone\nwho\u2019s willing to give Him his whole heart.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":81,"template":"","class_list":["post-80","history","type-history","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desafiojovem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/history\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desafiojovem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/history"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desafiojovem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/history"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desafiojovem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desafiojovem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}