Returning to the Past – 69th Part

It’s hard to imagine what the Work of God is like if you are not part of it.

The Work of God, especially out of Brazil, is much more limited in terms of conditions. Here in Brazil, there is someone to take responsibility for everything. Out of Brazil, for everything to be done we only count on 1 or 2 people or, sometimes nobody.

In the Women’s program, we had to create a theme weekly, gather all the material for that theme and create each section of the episode that was going to go on air.
Every TV program usually has a production company that does all of this, but Cristiane Cardoso started the Women’s program through faith, and she did everything, then it was Fernanda and then I.

Our brains would be “fried” from so much thinking about the program! We had weekly meetings to discuss matters that we would tape for that week with the wives who would be on the show and it was not easy! None of us studied for this. But faith and the Work of God are like this … they take us by surprised and unprepared. Those who believe throw themselves, and those who don’t will avoid it by making excuses for various reasons and circumstances.

This is how it happened… It was a great battle for me. The circumstances told me that I had no conditions to be there. But my faith always impelled me to look to the afflicted souls.

The mornings on the Altar helped me immensely. This challenge was so great for my faith! It made me active in both my cry out to God and my dependence on Him. However, the answers to my prayers were not visible. But neither God’s silence nor the circumstances would allow me to turn back. When you decide to do something you must do it until you reach your goal. That is what I did!

In what way was I struggling with this?

I’ll explain: My husband was responsible for the work in England and Spain. Only one wife remained from all the ones that started the program. All the others either traveled, or were told to take on another responsibility. The only one that remained was the one who had the most confidence and experience, but she was not chosen to be the program’s director. She spoke very well, calm, etc. But she wasn’t the one who was in charge of it.

Since everything was new for me, I always looked to her for support, to help me with the themes and the tapings. She was the one who could help the most because of her experience with the program.

We would meet on Mondays to discuss the theme of the week, and on Friday we would tape (from what I can remember).
There was a lot of preparation before the tapings, like hair, makeup, and the clothes we were going to wear. All of this was done and chosen by us. When we went to the tapings we would go with “butterflies in our stomach”. And when the opening song came on, that’s when I started the program.

No one knew how I felt at that moment with all those “butterflies in my stomach”. We were very tense … And you know what happened? The program, which was only 30 minutes on air on Record TV, took 2 hours of taping because we made so many mistakes especially from my part.

At the beginning it was even acceptable, but after a few weeks, it begins to be intolerable. Even the wife, who practiced with me, began to grow impatient. I even saw her rolling her eyes because she grew so impatient with my weaknesses.

It was a complete embarrassment! The Pastors’ wives, the cameraman, the studio editor, the photographer, were all watching my mistakes and difficulties. The wife of the one responsible for the country had to be an example, but yet was the one that made the most mistakes.

I remember it was so embarrassing for me to show my imperfections in front of everyone, so much so that, even the wife who was supposed to support me lost her patience with me.
I was never someone to defend myself. Even though I knew the authority I had over the wife, I did nothing. I saw her and understood, that she really had to have patience with me to get the program done, as it had to be.

It was my responsibility to overcome this; no one else could do it for me. Everyone would have to wait for my development. I took all of this to God, for the sake of winning souls. I cried a lot before God. Only God and I knew what was going on. I was ashamed to present myself to people who were watching me, and to show a “small” God because of my speech errors. I thought to myself: “My God! What will people think of the God of the Universal Church, about Bishop Macedo’s daughter speaking Portuguese mixed with Spanish?! What will they say about my God? That my God is weak? What image of my God am I passing?” That was my greatest pain.

I did not care about me… Really! Because when I decided to do the program, I gave myself I decided to give up my life, my will, etc. I really put into practice what I had decided in my prayer, to give my life.

I had to confront the same problems many times, week after week, but I did not give up on talking to God either. Deep down inside, I believed! It was not the circumstances that would dictate what I would do, my faith will.

My faith requires me to give myself for the people.
I was not visualizing my life, my fame or anything else. I focused only on serving God, honoring Him, and taking the people out of the hell they lived in.

That’s how it happened. Next week I’ll tell you more about this battle I faced and what God did.