Sunday Worship with FBC Pinhiero

1 Igreja Batista na Vila do Pinhiero isn't far from the entrance to the favela.

The people there are warm and kind. Each day during the week several church members would join us each day as we went door to door telling people about God's love and how they could know Jesus in a personal way as their Savior and Lord. Pray for them as they follow up on the many who prayed to accept Christ. It is difficult for people to feel comfortable joining a church because they know they have to quit smoking and drinking. We kept telling them we weren't there to have them join a church or start following a set of rules, but we wanted them to know Jesus.

The service Sunday morning began with some congregational singing.

Hmmmm, can't find a picture. They sang wonderfully. They used an overhead projector for the words and sang with some accompaniment tracks. They had a couple of guys and Ii think I remember three girls leading - singing in microphones. This is a picture of the congregation as we read Psalm 145.

Scripture reading. A testimony. A prayer. The man in the yellow shirt is their Associate Pastor. The Senior Pastor was out of town.

Our mission team sang "How Great Is Our God".

I played "Amazing Grace" in Portuguese. This violin belongs to Ray's son. It is a wonderful instrument.

Then I preached. Tulio, who had been my interpreter all week, was my interpreter Sunday morning as well. He did a great job.

The church members presented us with gifts after the service. The painting was done by the guy in the middle. He was the church member that went with Cheryl and I each day. His wife (on his right) crocheted the edges of the dishcloths. It was so wonderful to get handmade presents.

After church we went to a Mexican restaurant and met up with the medical mission team from Atlanta that was just beginning their mission.

Then we shopped a little at the Hippy Feira (an outdoor area - I would describe it as a bazaar.) We bought t-shirts for our grandchildren.

They had a lot of beautiful paintings.

I REALLLLLLY wanted one of these bamboo saxophones. They were sooooo cool! Some were shaped like clarinets too. But they were R100 (which is about $70). I figured Mike wouldn't be too happy if I used the church credit card to buy one - but it was very tempting...

We ended up the day with a wild ride to the airport. I guess the driver thought we were behind schedule. I don't think the van had any shocks. If you've ever ridden The Runaway Mine train at Six Flags over Texas you have an idea. Wheeeeeee! It seems faster in the tunnels.

Tomorrow I'll post about our adventure coming home titled Surviving the Streets of Rio Only to Almost Die on I-24. You won't want to miss it.

Here's a picture of Ray and Sharron Fairchild, the missionaries we partnered with.

Saturday in Rio - Seeing the Sights

On the seventh day in Rio we got to rest a little. At least rest from working in the favela. We hopped on a big tour bus and set out to explore this beautiful city.

There are always some really cool sand castles along the beach. The pace of life here is slow, but when you drive "floor it!" so it was difficult to get pictures that weren't blurry.

I'm not sure I would want this job.

Many of the beautiful buildings of Rio were built when it was a Portuguese colony back in the 1800s.

Our first stop was Corcadova, the mountain where the gigantic statue of Christ is. It is called Cristo Redentor, Christ the Redeemer. Princess Isabela freed the slaves in the late 1800s (after the USA slaves were freed. They wanted to build a great statue of her and call it Isabel the Redeemer. She said if they built a statue of a Redeemer it would have to be of Jesus because HE is our Redeemer. Good for her! So the statue of THE Redeemer was built in honor of the lady who freed the slaves. Cool.

As we waited in line, there was a funny "hippy" statue. Then we noticed that the statue moved. Someone said, "if you drop money in his bucket he'll make you something." Lisa, never to miss an adventure, dropped in some coins. I'll have to find Charlie's video of it for you to see, but here he is presenting Lisa the flower that he made.

To get the Cristo Redentor you ride a train straight up a hill, well, maybe not straight up, but you can see out the window how slanted the view is outside.

The statue is HUGE.

You can't help but think of Christ's words, "come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest."

There were a lot of people posing like it.

Next, we went to lunch. We went to a charrasaria (I'll check the spelling later). It was great. I don't have food pictures today.

Late afternoon we headed to Sugar Loaf. It's a giant hill sticking up out of the ocean. As Cheryl puts it, "you hang on strings to get there."

Cheryl doesn't do heights. Here she is hanging on as we rode up.

Here's our missionary, Ray, taking a picture.

We stayed for sunset - incredible!

Everyone took lots pictures.

Right in the middle of this picture, the little bump above the mountains is Corcadova. If you enlarge the picture you can see Cristo Redentor.

English Lessons

I know many of you reading these posts don't know everyone on our mission team. Charlie is from East Tennessee and has that wonderful East Tenneessee accent.




Charlie with bananas - they are delicious here!! That's Tulio and Ray behind him.

One of our interpreters is named Tiago. Tiago translates to James. One day we were trying to explain the differences between West, Middle and East TN. We then told Tiago that his name would be different. He looked very puzzled. "Yes. In West TN you would be called Jimmy. In Middle TN you would be called James. And in East TN they would call you Jimbob.




The inside of the building of the church we have been working with.


But Charlie has helped Tiago a lot with his English. He decided that was important because Tiago is engaged to a girl from FBC, Seveirville. Of course many Tennesseans have been going to Rio since we have a partnerhsip here. Tiago knows helpful English phrases like: fixin' to, I (pronounced "ah") reckon so, slicker than a greased pig, and many other fine Southern sayings the textbooks don't teach.

I can't find a picture of Tiago.

Rio Mission - Day 6

Graffiti on the way to our work area.

This was our last day of door-to-door evangelism. We had a total of 60 people who prayed to receive Christ. At least that - we didn't always get cards filled out and sometimes several people in the family would pray but they would only list one or say "familia" and then we don't really know how many. It was very exciting to see God at work.

Favela near our favela. It looks nicer than it is.


We noticed something interesting. We had two families today and several on other days that mentioned to me and Cheryl that they have adopted children or grandchildren. (See http://www.papalyndel.blogspot.com/ if you haven't seen my adopted grandchildren) No one mentioned adoption to the other teams. Lisa had several mention to her that they had husbands or family members who had passed away this past year. We might have had one mention that to us.




Another picture of us at lunch. That's Ray in the white shirt.

All the groups had people mention that it was very odd that we found them at home that they just happened to be home from work that day for one reason or another. We happen to know God had them at home so we could talk to them.



Tomorrow we will relax for a little bit and see the sights of Rio, like Christo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) the giant statue of Christ on the tallest mountain overlooking Rio. (Cheryl's calls it the Christ of the Ozarks statue. We always laughed, but it ends up that the one in Arkansas is a smaller replica of this one.)




The view from the top of the church building.


Sunday we will see our new Brazilian friends one more time as we worship together at their church. I will play the violin with their associate pastor playing the keyboard. I'm going to preach too. I don't know if the associate pastor will also preach or not. Tulio, my interpreter for the week, will interpret. The pastor is on vacation. I don't know if he will be back Sunday. Then Sunday evening we fly out. I think our flight leaves around 11:00pm.




Click the picture to enlarge it if you need. Notice that behind the glass are today's chickens. In the cages are chickens having their last meals before they end up behind the glass.


Thank you for your prayers during the week. My stomach is happier now that I've had several doses of Imodium during the day. We have been safe and God has blessed our work. Pray not only for our services Sunday, but services at Hilldale and around the world. The fields are white for the harvest. God may not have called you to Brazil this week, but He has called you to Clarksville or Nashville or wherever it is that you live. The harvest is His and He has prepared it. What are you waiting for?

Brazil - A Land of Contrasts

Or perhaps I should say, "Rio - A City of Contrasts"

I've shown you some of the poverty and mentioned some of the scary, out-of-our-comfort-zone things. Here is some of the beauty of Rio. (So don't feel too sorry for us.)

The view out our window at breakfast.


Driving to First Baptist Pinheiro




Looking to the left off our hotel's rooftop balcony. We are on Copacabana Beach.
That mountain is Pao de Sucre (sugar loaf) http://www.copacabana.info/history-of-sugar-loaf.html.

Looking to the left. Over there is Impanema Beach.

Rio Day 3 - Out of Our comfort Zone

We know that God has great plans for this week. We saw another - mmmm, I would say 15 decisions to follow Christ made today. It's dificult to keep track. We only understand in part what is being said. We have to totally rely on our interpreters. I understand some since I studied Portuguese so much this last year, but there is still a whole lot I don't understand - especially when they speak quickly.

but that is one of the things that has taken us out of our comfort zone. We present the gospel in a very short amount of time and when we say, "do you want to ask Christ into your life today?" they say, "sim" (yes). It seems too easy. We have to remember that God is the one that is in the business of bringing salvation and that Jesus said to come to Him as a little child.

Other ways we are out of our comfort zone.

Last night's desserts for instance.

The food is good, but the spices are so different. Our stomachs are wondering what happened.

Today in one of the homes we were visiting with the mom and two of the children came into the room. They both were covered with chicken pox sores and scabs. At least I am hoping that's what it was.

Then, the very next house when we asked the mom how we could pray for her - she was already a Christian - she said her son was sick and wanted us to pray for him. Then she took us to his room as she told us he had the flu! Oh my! But then she said she thought it was just an allergic reaction to the mosquito spray.

Which leads to a big out of the comfort zone area. There are many, many mosquitos. They were having a convention at the bottom of several of the stairwells. So we spary with "Off" before we go out, but we still fight them off. But Charlie's group - in one of the stairwells - didn't notice the mosquitos because they were running from a rat!

The guy on the back of the motorcycle who was speaking loudly and waving his hands around took us a little out of our comfort zone since he had a pistol in each hand.

The streets are lined with cars like this.

But even though we are uncomfortable, we know God is using us to help reach the people of this community. They are over 130,000 in this 1/2 square mile. The Brazilians are very friendly and almost all who are home will invite us in. They are willing to listen because we are Americans and have traveled so far to talk to them. They listen very politely to us as we share the Gospel. Most say "yes", a few say "no" or "later". We know it is up to God and the local church to follow up and disciple them.