Ricardo

I was welcomed by a twelve-foot wall with barbed wire on top of it. From the outside, it looked like a prison. But the gates were open. An elderly man seated next to the entrance received me with a smile and asked how he could help me. I had an appointment with Ricardo, I told him.
He got up and let me through the gate and into an amazingly beautiful and well kept compound with a main building and another, smaller one with five or six rooms all facing the bigger one. Flowers and trees everywhere. But what really hit me was what I heard: Was that a Bach cantata coming from the smaller building? 
To cut the story short: Ricardo works with children aged 6 to 14 from this underprivileged and (as he told me) dangerous neighborhood. About twelve years ago, he came to our town and started teaching music to the children. He hired teachers who gave violin and piano lessons, he founded a choir, and after a few years our town had a youth orchestra. 
"This project doesn't cost me more than 3000 dollars a month. This money allows me to pay the salaries of four music teachers and one ballet teacher and to buy instruments once in a while. The rooms were built by Franciscan religious women, and it's their order who finances my project", he explained. And added with tears in his eyes: "They don't care that I'm not a catholic. I'm a Baptist pastor."
While we talked, it was very loud. Children came up to him constantly, jumped up at him, hugged him, teased him. 

The ongoing economic crises Brazil is going through is affecting the project. Money is short. I told him that I would love to hear these kids stories, write an article about it and have it published in Switzerland or Germany. Maybe this would open some doors for him.
  
Bach in the middle of nowhere? Sung by children who sometimes don't even have enough to eat? I still can't believe it.

Thank you for all the comments and stars I received yesterday. Forgive me for not responding to all of them. It was a busy and emotional day. 
Today will be another busy day. I have to get some work done (urgently!), write a few short meditations for the Sundays leading up to Christmas that will be broadcast by a local radio station, and make a visit to the bank (always long lines).