Está na chuva…é para se molhar (You’re in the rain...its to get wet)

I was talking to Fabio, one of the guys I share a room with and quickly becoming a close friend and we were talking about life and ministry and the difficulties and challenges of them both and he told me this saying and I kinda liked it. I think sometimes we want to have our cake and eat it too when it comes to missions and our relationship with God, we want all the good things, all the positive things, but without the struggles. I think back to my Intervarsity manuscript studies of the book of Mark, the first half of the book is largely about Jesus performing miracles, healing people and proclaiming the good news. It is a Jesus that is easy to believe in and seemingly easy to follow. Everyone he touches is healed and everything seems to come up roses, but then comes the moment in Mark 8 when God asks the disciples who he is and Peter steps up and answers correctly that he is the Messiah, Jesus in turn replies that the Messiah must suffer, be killed and rise again after 3 days. Peter, seemingly smug with his first answer rebukes Jesus and tells him he mustn’t do that. Jesus responds with “Get behind me Satan”. I think so often we seek to worship and follow Jesus but ignore his command to “Take up the cross and follow me”. I think of Bonheoffer when he says that the Lord bids us come and die and in that we find that we can live.
This past week has been a full one with lots of ups and downs, struggles and blessings. I continue to get to know the guys from soccer better and it’s been really neat to see them start to respond to the gospel message. There is a good possibility that John (missionary who connected me here at the community house), a seminary student and I are going to start a new work in the favela where the soccer guys live. It is a favela that struggles more and probably has more problems and more extreme poverty. It’s kinda crazy how the definition of poverty is such a relative thing. The more I get to know the favela I live in and the surrounding areas the more I am just amazed that people can live the way they do. Favelas are just areas where people invaded land that didn’t belong to them and just started living there. In my favela pretty much all the houses are made of a really low quality brick, but are much sturdier than many other favelas which are constructed largely from scrap wood that people managed to find. It’s crazy to understand how people can live this way, knowing that any day the government could come and basically kick them off the land. It’s a strange way that the legality of the place works, because in my favela there is legal government sponsored electricity and even people have addresses, so there is some government recognition of limited rights of dwellers, but ultimately they have no real rights to the land. It is also interesting to note that even most people who live in what could best be described as wooden shacks often have washing machines, refrigerators and televisions. It simple amazes me that people who sleep 3 or 4 to a bed would have these items, but it is just a different way to look at money.
I continue to play soccer on Thursday nights with some guys from my church and other Mennonite churches in the city. It’s been cool to become friends with some of the guys and feel like I’m one of the best players there, I know it sounds funny, but it helps me to feel like I fit in with the culture and feel better adjusted simply by being able to play soccer well. My language abilities continue to improve (though I am a bit worried that my Spanish speaking is getting worse as it’s so easy to mix the two languages). The past two Sundays the people from the house have attended a Brasilian Chinese church where most of the service is in Portuguese but translated into Mandarin Chinese. It’s been interesting getting to know some of the people from the church and being able to see the diversity of the world church.
On Friday night we had our monthly prayer vigil, we had been fasting during the week for Giló (the demon possessed guy) and would ask for your continued prayers for him. We talked a lot about missions and going to the ends of the earth. The floor of the main common area of the house has a mosaic map of the earth and we talked about taking God’s love to places where there is no light and we prayed well into the night. It was a pretty amazing night of prayer and worship and I felt God’s presence there. I would ask for prayer for the people of my house who are all in process of finding God’s will for their lives, most feel a call to missions and are in the process of support raising and anxious to get to the field. (will write later more about Brasilian missionaries) On Saturday we had our Radicais em Cristo (Radicals in Christ, which is the sort of kids club run out of the house every week) on Saturday and our theme was being a Radical in the church. We read about Jesus flipping over the tables in the temple and declaring that His house was to be a house of prayer for all the peoples of the earth. I pray that that day might come where the church might truly be that, might truly seek to be a place of healing and prayer for the nations. The rest of the afternoon we had them divided into various groups to be in charge of the Saturday night service we have in the house. There was a drama group, a choir and a worship team made up of the kids (age 5-12) and then I took the teens and taught them a skit. It was a skit we used in Mexico that I translated into Portuguese about the body of Christ. On Saturday night they all showed up to the house, many with parents and the place was standing room only, it was amazing to see the kids excitement at being up front and participating in the service. There are two more weeks of the Radicais group before the end of the year camp, please pray for the kids to get there verses said and do what they need to do to be eligible to attend camp and for the funds to come in to allow the camp to happen as well as all the planning that needs to take place to make the camp a success. Thanks again for all your prayers and support, I love and miss you all!

Pictures to come shortly.