Time flies. In a few days it will be one year since I quit my job at IBM.

Back then, I didn’t know exactly what God wanted me to do, but I was sure that it was related to social causes and getting involved with a non-profit organization.

Now I can see how He indeed guided me towards that direction.

I found out about integral missions, which is to provide for the person’s needs in all areas: physical, psychological and spiritual. Then I realized that this is an example of what the apostle James talked about when he wrote about faith and deeds (check James 2:14-26):

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. (James 2:18)

We need not only preach the Gospel, we need to live it. And living it means loving our God first and foremost, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. And sometimes, our neighbor is a homeless man who needs some soup. And Jesus.

During this year, I met many people involved with non-profit work, and I got more engaged with it.

Not long ago, I got involved with a non-profit organization called JEAME through a presentation they did about their work at my church.

Their mission is to rescue, reintegrate and rehabilitate children and teenagers who are living in social risk conditions. They currently focus on the ones who live on the streets of downtown São Paulo and the ones who are kept in a state shelter called Fundação CASA.

They had a need they were praying about: they needed someone to help them build a new web site and help them have a better presence in the Internet.

This need was exactly what I was praying about. I wanted to help someone with my skills, and use them to enter this world of non-profit work.

God put us together: they were the answer to my prayers, and I was the answer to theirs.

Since then, I have been working in what is my comfort zone (technical stuff), but I have also gotten in contact with the “real world”. I’ll tell you, it changes you. You start looking at the world differently. You don’t see marginals, you see people in desperate need of Jesus, even if they don’t realize it.

And I am seeing how, with little effort, we can make a difference in other people’s lives (check out this post about a visit I did to another non-profit organization).

We are a few days away from releasing the new web site I’ve been working on. It is just the beginning, we still have a lot of work to do, and we are excited about it.

We will also release an English version of the web site soon (it’s live already, click here).

I will make sure to let you know when the new site goes live. And I will appreciate any comments and suggestions you have, so we can improve it. Keeping in mind that all this work has one main objective: reach more people in need.

Please pray that we can do that.

“Thus far the Lord has helped us.” (1 Samuel 7:12)

Note: I want to make it clear that I don’t believe that you have to quit your job in order to follow God’s will or to help others in need. That was my call. Each person has their own. Just make sure you follow yours, whatever it is.