Letter from the Prados — September 2026
There are different seasons within a home.
There is a time to wait. A time to arrive. A time to learn a new language, get documents in order, and look for work. There are questions that arise after a few months gathered around a table. And there are seeds that need years before we can finally harvest their fruit.
This September, stories unfolding in very different chapters came together under the same roof.
FINALLY HOME
After exactly 30 days in the neonatal ICU in Marília, our granddaughter Luiza finally reached 2 kg (4.4 lbs) and was able to go home — in the arms of Larissa and Matheus.
Although she was born well below a healthy birth weight, she had NO medical complications, much to the surprise of the medical team. She is a great miracle! Hallelujah! Rejoice with us!
We also celebrated the arrival of Alan on September 18, the first child of a young Syrian woman we are hosting. He was born at a hospital near our base in Campina Grande do Sul and developed a bacterial infection during delivery that took him to the neonatal ICU for less than a week.
He recovered and has already been discharged. Since Marcelo had been born on September 4, in less than two weeks we welcomed two babies at our base. So much excitement (and so many diapers)!
Baby Alan’s father is still in Syria. He was unable to obtain authorization to come to Brazil with his wife. In recent weeks, a significant part of our work has also been administrative: finding and navigating the process that would allow the father’s name to appear on his son’s birth certificate. We are still waiting for the document to be issued, hopefully this week.
Sometimes hospitality means standing beside someone in an ICU. At other times, it means figuring out how to make a name cross borders and bureaucratic mazes and arrive correctly on a child’s birth certificate.
All of this, too, is part of making a home.
NEW STORIES COMING THROUGH THE DOOR
At the end of July, the doors of our “Green House” in Marília opened to receive a young Christian woman from a North African country who was being persecuted because of the faith she had chosen to embrace.
Whenever we welcome someone, we know we are not receiving a blank page.
Every person arrives carrying an entire story — often still unknown to us — which, little by little, becomes part of the everyday life of the House.
With her came the marks of assaults and threats, loss, emotional wounds, and health needs. There were also cultural differences, an unfamiliar language, and the difficulty of communicating even the simplest needs.
Our team has been walking alongside her through this process and, thanks also to Brazil’s public healthcare system, she is receiving the medical care she needs.
But her arrival brought another story into ours.
She told us about a young couple from her country who had just arrived in São Paulo. They had no contacts, almost no resources, and could not communicate in Portuguese. The little money they had was used to pay for a room for one week. Their time there was running out, and they had nowhere to go.
We activated our emergency protocol, arranged an interpreter and interviews, and soon afterward the House had two more residents.
They are young and eager to learn, and they have been making very good progress in Portuguese. We have also begun the process of regularizing the documents of all three.
At the Green House in Marília, learning Portuguese is part of the first steps for those who arrive.
We are sharing a little of this story to bring you inside the House with us.
Hospitality is never simply about offering someone a bed or an address. It means receiving a whole person — certainly with all they have suffered, but also with their culture, their abilities, and everything they may yet have to offer.
Every life has a story. And every story calls for attention, wisdom, discernment, resources, patience, and presence.
CONVERSATIONS AROUND THE TABLE
This month, one of those stories surfaced during a very ordinary conversation in the dining room of our new base in Curitiba, which is gradually coming to life.
It was a cold and rainy evening. Two of the Syrians we are hosting had finished their work as motorcycle delivery drivers earlier than usual and were drinking mate. The wife of one of them was there as well.
I sat down with them.
We were talking about the cold and about work when one of them asked why there were so many people living on the streets of Curitiba.
We talked about poverty, broken relationships, addiction, mental suffering, violence, and job loss. Arabic, Portuguese, and English mingled around the table, with some help from the translator on our phones.
After a pause, he said he was concerned about his two-year-old son.
Then he asked another question: Which church was the best one?
I explained that I could not tell him which church was the best, but that I could offer him something better.
“I’ll give you a standard, and from there you can evaluate for yourself: look at how much it resembles Jesus.”
I suggested that they begin with the Gospels. Get to know Jesus. Watch how He welcomed people, how He treated children and women, and how He approached those whom others avoided.
If they came to know Jesus, they would have a good standard by which to recognize a healthy church.
I also told them I would be glad to walk alongside them in that search.
Later, I found myself thinking about the different ways we can show Jesus to people.
For thirteen years now, we have sought to be “a home for those who were forced to leave their home.”
We do not make faith a condition for receiving anyone. We choose to welcome, love, respect, and serve.
And almost always, this happens in very ordinary ways: filling out a document, looking for a house, accompanying someone to a medical appointment, teaching Portuguese, solving a problem at the registry office, looking for a job, or simply sitting down together to drink mate.
Perhaps that is why hospitality requires more from us than simply offering help.
It requires attention.
We need to watch, notice, and listen.
I wrote a longer reflection about that evening and what the conversation awakened in me. You can read it on Teleiós: “Conversations Around the Table.”
A FRUIT HARVESTED FOUR YEARS LATER
On September 4, I received a message from Aman, an Afghan physician and pediatric surgery specialist whom we welcomed with his family in June 2022:
“Today the final result of the Revalida exam came out. I passed.”
What joy!
I immediately remembered a conversation we had shortly after he arrived in Brazil.
Aman had been offered a job at a meat-processing plant. He came to me asking for advice. He said he knew he could handle the work, although it was physically demanding. His concern was something else: if he accepted that job, he probably would not have the time or energy to learn Portuguese and study. Without that, he feared he would never be able to practice medicine again.
I remember looking at him and making a rather bold proposal: if he committed himself fully to learning Portuguese and preparing to validate his diploma, we would walk with him and make sure he had what he needed to devote himself to that path.
He smiled, with tears in his eyes.
And he committed himself.
Aman and Fátima in 2022, at the beginning of the long journey toward validating their diplomas.
The road was longer than we may have imagined during that conversation.
There were four years of Portuguese, exams, study, new attempts, and a great deal of work. During that time, Aman and his wife, Fátima, entered the master’s program in Health Sciences at UEM and completed that stage together this year. Aman is now also pursuing his doctorate.
Until that message finally arrived:
“I passed.”
Then he added:
“You are a fundamental part of our story here in Brazil.”
As I read it, I returned to that conversation in 2022.
In some way, I felt as if Aman were saying to me: “Thank you. You fulfilled your part. Here is mine.”
Perhaps he never thought of those words in exactly that way. But that is how my heart received his message.
Some fruit takes four years to ripen.
And it is worth remaining.
You are part of this story.
PREPARING THE HOUSE — AND TELLING ITS STORIES
While all of this is happening, we continue working on the renovation of our new base in Curitiba. There is still much to do. Each space that begins to take shape helps us imagine the life that will happen there: encounters, conversations, work, meals, prayer, silence, and hospitality.
It is a beautiful project and, at the same time, a major financial and operational challenge.
One of the spaces at the new Abuna House in Curitiba, beginning to take shape.
But we are not working only on the physical House.
In recent weeks, we have also devoted considerable time to reorganizing the way we tell who we are and what we have learned over these thirteen years.
A new Instituto Abuna website is being built.
This is not simply about changing photographs, colors, or pages. We have been returning to our history, documents, photographs, and accounts to find a more faithful way of presenting what Abuna has become.
Home. Belonging. Dignity. Journey. Participation.
We want those who come to us to understand that hospitality is not simply assisting someone in a vulnerable situation. It is walking with people while new paths become possible — and recognizing what each person brings and can offer.
At the same time, we are rebuilding the Teleiós website.
It has accompanied us as our first “digital space” since 2006. After a quiet period, it returns with a clearer purpose: to be our personal place for writing, reflection, and discernment about faith, mission, hospitality, encounters, and the questions that arise along the way.
Some stories belong to Abuna. Others call for a more personal, pastoral, and theological conversation. Often, the two meet.
The conversation around the table that night is a good example. It also became the first text in this new phase of Teleiós.
WE CONTINUE
When we place the whole of September on the table, we notice how many different seasons coexist within the same House.
One child finally leaves the ICU.
Another is born and begins his story far from his father.
Three people arrive from North Africa carrying stories we are still learning to know.
Three Syrians, after four months in Brazil, work, learn Portuguese, and begin asking unexpected questions around a table.
A physician receives, four years after his arrival, the news for which he had worked so long.
A new House begins to take shape in Curitiba.
And we continue learning.
Perhaps one of the things these years have taught us is this:
We cannot judge a story by the chapter in which we find it.
Some are only beginning. Others are passing through difficult pages. There are chapters we wish would end quickly. And there are fruits that take years to ripen.
That is why we remain.
Thank you for remaining with us as well — in prayer, friendship, and sharing.
PRAY WITH US
For wisdom as we care for our team and the relationships within the Houses. Today there are four Houses, with nineteen residents.
For the financial resources needed to bring the Curitiba base fully into operation. We are working to obtain the necessary permits from the Fire Department, Anvisa, and the Environmental Department, and we also need to equip and furnish the kitchen and bedrooms.
For Val’s health.
With affection and gratitude, in Him, for the little ones,
José and Val Prado
September 2026