Study at the Chácara

As most of you know I led a 10-week study on "Every Man's Battle" last year with several men in our church family. We had a great time getting to know one another on a deeper level as we spoke and learned about sexual purity.

Now I have taken this study out to the Chácara. While we were in the states Eastside church of Christ gave me the money to purchase 20 books to have this study with the guys out there. One of our members/employees, Paulo Renato, is going to help me with this study.

We began today with an introduction to the study and book as well as an introduction to our Accountability Groups. We plan on continuing the study for 10 weeks until the last Thursday of March. The guys at the Chácara are overcoming drug and alcohol addiction. There is a great chance that they could be corrupted by an addiction to sexual desire as well. Satan knows how to use sex against God's children - especially here in Brazil.

Starting this weekend the whole country will be in the midst of celebrating Carnaval. This is a time when most Brazilians do whatever they desire (sex, drugs and alcohol to name a few) and then move on with their lives next week. They are actually expected to step away from their lives and be "free" to do what they please until Tuesday night (the day of Carnaval). It is sad and very difficult to deal with for most of our Christian brothers and sisters.

I ask you to join the Christians in Brazil in praying for God to reign over this weekend. Please also pray for the men of the Chácara as they learn how to treat women (God's daughters) with the respect they deserve.

We will be conducting this study every Thursday. If you would like to pray for the men by name I will list them below. I know that it would mean a lot to them to know that they are prayed for by their brothers and sisters throughout the world.

Men of the Chácara:

Isaías (the director)
Gabriel
Airton
Antony
Claudimier
Adão Claudio
Eduardo
Rodrigo
Marcelo
Valter
Braulinho
Anderson
Diego
Jefferson
Ronaldo
Alexandre
Paulo Roberto
Marcos
Leandro
Paulo Rogierio
Josimar
Fabio
Christian
Gutimberg
Tales (at 14 years old he is the youngest to ever go to the Chácara. He and his girlfriend are expecting a baby)
Paulo Renato (my co-teacher who will take the study over in a few weeks)

[Morbid] Cultural Milestone

This is Jennifer. I don’t think I’ve ever written a blog post before, but today’s experience was so unusual, I really wanted to write about it. Let me warn you now that if you’re easily freaked out, you probably should stop reading about here.

After living in Brazil for almost 4 years, we went to our first Brazilian funeral today. Weddings and funerals are great ways of seeing a culture’s value system, so I knew that we would get an authentic glimpse into Brazilian culture and family life by going. I’m not going to tell you about the actual funeral service in the chapel (because we were 10 minutes late and missed the whole thing) but I’ll tell you about what came next. I want to be clear in saying that you can’t make generalizations about a country (or even a city) by going to just one funeral, but I’ll tell you what we observed.

First of all, the dress code for funerals here is whatever you happen to be wearing. I thought that surely we should at least wear our nice every-day clothes, but no – I could have worn any old jeans and a t-shirt and I wouldn’t have been out of line.

Second, embalming is not really practiced here so funerals take place within a day of death.

Okay, now for the interesting part. We drove to the “cemetery” only to find that instead of a grassy field, it was an immense 5-story mausoleum complex. Imagine an apartment complex in the US (with little roads through it and everything). This place was enormous. There were a bunch of chapels (I think 10-20 of them) and the hallways were lined with plates in the wall with peoples’ names and pictures. I had heard that sometimes people in Brazil are buried in the same grave as their family members in order to save money, but I didn’t realize that this is the norm. After the service, we followed the casket down the hall to the appointed square in the wall. The employees of the mausoleum pushed the casket into the slot, then pushed 2 plastic bags in after it – one long and one small. I thought, surely those aren’t other people’s remains. I asked a Brazilian man about it and he said that he didn’t think they’d be in plastic bags, but then I asked some other people and they assured me that yes, those were the bones of other family members. Wow. After the employees put everything inside the vault, they put the cover back on and started slapping cement over it to seal it up again. As we walked away, I looked at the hundreds of other squares on the walls and noticed that most of them bore the names of at least 2 people, and many of them had entire families on them. Pretty amazing. Tonight I’m thinking of the unfortunate person who has the job of opening the vault and consolidating the decomposed remains in order to make room for the new casket. I’m told that all of this happens while the family is in the chapel having the memorial service. Definitely a cultural milestone.

Our History and a Look into the (possible) Future

Well, we are back in Porto Alegre getting back into the swing of things. While we were on furlough we had the opportunity to visit with several church families and some individuals about the work we are doing here. Unfortunately, we were not able to visit with everyone who may be interested in our ministry.

This video is the same one that we showed to everyone that we visited with in the states. If you have about 15 minutes to sit in front of your computer I can promise that you will be much more informed about what we are doing. We hope that you are blessed by knowing what the Lord is doing for his Kingdom in the house churches of Porto Alegre.

Ready for bed

Well, our furlough is winding up. I am looking at 3 bags that weight approximately 70lbs each. In the other room Jennifer is working on the last 2 bags of the same status. We are pushing the limits. Tomorrow we will leave Colorado Springs for Denver and catch the first leg of our 24+ hour journey home to Porto Alegre, Brazil.

We have been all over the place. We have visited 7 churches (3 in Colorado, 1 in Missouri and 3 in Texas) and a lot of family. Furlough has been a blessing because of all the love and encouragement our supporters have given us. We were taken care of above what we could have expected. We have a wonderful network of supporters and we thank the Lord for them.

Furlough has also been difficult because we are never settled in one place for too long. We have seen several different beds. I decided to count up the miles that we will have traveled by the time we arrive in Porto Alegre on Thursday afternoon. The total is over 16,800 miles!!! Needless to say we are a little road weary and are ready for our own beds.

We have a long journey ahead of us to get back home. Please keep us in your prayers as we travel and get back into the swing of things in Brazil. Thank you and God bless your 2008.