Culture Shock!

Well, let me tell you. You can be acclimated to a foreign culture for years and still be shocked by some of the "cultural" things you observe. Jennifer and I witness stuff in Brazil almost on a daily basis that really makes us laugh out loud. Before I tell you this story, though, I want to apologize to anyone who may be offended if you or your child do what we saw today. Actually, I'm not sure I want to apologize, because in so many ways I think it is weird and wrong.

Today we were at the mall and we needed to go to the diaper changing station. At this mall there is a room that is set aside for mothers to nurse their babies and for parents to change diapers. It is a great setup that I think should be available in every public place. Anyway, we entered the room and Jennifer began to feed Elisa. There were several parents in the room with their children (mostly infants and toddlers). As we looked around we observed a couple who looked to be in their late thirties and their two children (boy approximately 7 years old and girl approximately 5 years old). We both took double takes as we noticed this perfectly "normal" 7 year old boy was laying across a chair, stretched out, drinking milk from a bottle! At first, I thought there was no way that he was really drinking from that bottle. I thought he was probably goofing off with his little brother or sister's bottle while their diaper was getting changed. However, we watched in disbelief as he finished the bottle, stood up, handed the bottle to his mother and walked out of the room with his parents and sister in-tow. Unbelievable! Truly unbelievable!

Please understand, not every 7 year old boy in Brazil is going around sucking on a bottle. This really got our attention and made us laugh a little bit (whether is was wrong to do so I don't really know). Anyway, we were shocked today and expect that it is probable that we will be shocked again.

Prayer Meeting

Every Wednesday night we have a prayer meeting with our church family. This has been a good way for more of us to be active and involved in each other's lives. Each time is in a different location with a different host. We have seen just 2 or 3 people meet and we have seen as many as 23 come together! The following pictures are from the meeting that Jennifer and I hosted last week. It was a wonderful time of praise and adoration to our Lord!

Brazilian Missionary Conference - 2007

Every year the missionaries in South America (primarily Brazil) get together for a time of renewal, relaxation and encouragement. This year our team hosted the Brazilian Missionary Conference in Canela, Brazil (1.5 hours outside of Porto Alegre). Our keynote speaker was the wonderful David Wray (Abilene, TX); our men's resource speaker was Bob Chisholm (Dallas, TX); our women's resource speaker was Jean Blackwell (Newark, Delaware); and our teen resource speaker was Andrew Deister (Lewisville, TX). We all had a blessed time! Thank you to all who came and encouraged!

a time of worship and praise!

more worship and praise!

even more worship and praise (this time holding hands)!

Here we are listening intently to David Wray's lesson on Spiritual Formation.

This is most all of the group that made it to Canela for the Conference this year. We would all appreciate your prayers as we reach out to the "not-yet" Christians of Brazil.

Out of the building! and moving on...

Sorry it has been so long since my last update on this blog. A lot has been happening with our transition into house churches and with our annual Brazilian Missionary Conference.

December 17th was our last Sunday in the building that had been our church family's "home" for just over 3 years. The week before Christmas (December 18th through 22nd) we spent a lot of time packing up the building and preparing for the move out. On the 26th of December the moving truck came and hauled almost everything to a storage facility. For the time being all of our chairs, desks, tables, office supplies, shelves, books, cabinets, etc. will be housed in this storage facility.

The 24th (Christmas Eve) was the first Sunday that we spent at the Blume's house for worship. We have been meeting in their backyard every Sunday since. We are currently looking for a house to buy and set up as our "Resource Center". We hope that this will be a place where our church family will come and fellowship throughout the week. This will be a place where the children can have an after school Bible study program, the men can have churrascos (bbq), the ladies can have fellowship and studies, and the youth can have devotionals. We hope that this will be a place where we can set up offices and have Bible studies and leadership training. Really, the list of what we can potentially do with this "Resource Center" goes on and on.

Our Sundays have changed a little bit. Of course, we are meeting in the Blume's backyard now. In addition, we are meeting at 9:30 in the morning instead of 6:30 in the evening. We are spending more time in fellowship and our class time involves us moving into a time with what will be our house churches. We currently have 4 groups that will transition into house churches.

So, right now we are meeting as a whole every Sunday. In the future, we will meet in our house churches every week in their designated locations. Once a month or so we will get together as a large Christian family at a hotel conference room or a school in order to worship and fellowship together. In two weeks we will have a huge (in our terms "huge") celebration at a park in a town near Porto Alegre. We ask you to pray about this celebration and the encouragement that we hope it brings to our Christian family in the Porto Alegre area. We also ask you to pray that our ministries and our house churches would thrive as we focus on reaching out to the "not-yet Christians" of our city.