The First Day Out - Rio Missions 2008

The time change is only a little hard to adjust to. We had breakfast at 7:00, but that is 5:00 Clarksville time.

We were going to leave at 8:00, but the hotel valet guys couldn't find the key to the van.

We are working with First Baptist Church, Vila de Pinheiro (Part of Rio). The church is the white part of these buildings to the left of the red one.

This is the associate pastor standing at the door.

You'll want to keep us in your prayers. I don't feel unsafe, but here's how Cheryl described the area in an e-mail to her office.

"Just to give you an idea of the area we are in, 1. my wedding ring is in the safe at the hotel so it won't get ripped off my finger and 2. the speed bumps in the neighborhood are 12 inches high. They were put there by the drug lords to slow the police down when they are called. Because if you drive fast over them you'll flip your car."

We didn't take many pictures. We will be able to take more outside later in the week when the drug dealers get used to us and know we aren't there spying on them. We have one of the Brazilian guys taking tons of pictures of and for us. He has been there with other groups and they don't mind him too much. And he takes many pictures without holding the camera up where you know he is taking them.

We are visiting door to door in these apartment buildings.

There are 20 buildings with 30 apartments in each with an average of 4 or 5 people in each apartment. I doubt we'll see them all in one week's time.

Here's how it works. We knock on the door. If someone answers the interpreter says - well, actually, I'm not sure what he says, but he points to us and says, Americana. And more often than not they invite us in. He says a word or two then turns to us and says, "You can talk to them now." It's very odd not starting off with some informalities, so I try to mention children or the bumper sticker on their door (almost all of them have one about something - many are Christian) and then using the evangicube we share the gospel.

Today between our groups we had 14 or more decisions made - most for salvation. The people here are very polite and very friendly .