Brazil: the land of friendly people, little sleep and Acai! I love it!!!

We just came back from an Indian tribe in the forest, just outside Ubatuba.  What an experience!   As Gehta said:  “They all look like Pocahontas!” We played soccer with the boys in the rain, told the creation story to the kids – for the first time – and helped bake bread.  But a story shouldn’t start at the end, so let me jump back a few days.

My first ministry opportunity was on the plane from Doha to Sao Paulo.  I sat next to a very friendly lady from Singapore.  She is a Christian, so we shared the Word and I prayed for her before parting ways.  What a privilege!

Prepare your heart first, then you’ll see the glory of God!  We arrived in Brazil not really knowing what to expect.  After spending 2 night on airports, one more comfortable than the other – a mattress really makes a huge difference, we jumped on a bus to Ubatuba!  Surfing capital of Brazil, with the longest barrel in the world, don’t ask me to explain what that is, it’s some surfing term.  For me, it just means: big waves!

Arriving in Ubatuba – very grateful for having Elaine there, it being her home town and all – we took another bus followed by a walk through a forest to arrive at Shekinah.  It’s a youth camp held during Carnival.  While recovering a bit from jetlag, we met a lot of the teenagers and members of the Agape church – where we’ll be involved during our time in Brazil.  What a lovely bunch!  They are certainly going to teach us endurance!

Before leaving the camp site, we cleaned out a baptism pool, which was used a week later to baptize about 30 members from the church and Helen from our team!

Relationship building is our ministry point for the 4 weeks we have in Brazil.  It might look quite easy, but it takes a lot more out of you than physically building house or a fence.  The language barrier was the first hurdle to overcome.  They speak Portuguese, so when we were blessed with a dictionary, it helped communication with them a lot!

Acts 4: 32-37 talks about the early church and how they had everything in common, shared all they had and grew in numbers.  There is a difference between giving and sharing.  In our culture, I think we’re more prone to give than to share.  I never realized this.  Sharing is building relationships.  For Brazilians, it’s easy to share what they have, it’s incredible how selflessly they give!  But to receive is more difficult for them to do.  The relationships they build are for life.  All of them still refer back to previous GCEX team members – they just love you guys!

We spent a lot of time in the church.  The first week (being Carnival), we went to church every night – Tuesday to Sunday.  A service was never less than 3 hours – 20:00 in, 23:00 out.  It’s amazing!  Translators during the service helped a lot.

After church we usually went downtown, for Acai (it’s a type of berry that is crushed, mixed with ice and chocolate, condense milk, fruit, granola, name it – so nice!).  So no more 22:00 Jeffreys bay lights out!

We’ve been doing some dramas and dances in the church – which is more challenging for some of us than others.  This coming week we’re also going to do dance and dramas at a school and drug rehab centre.

The nice thing about building relationships is that there are so many things you can do while spending time with the locals.  One of these was so go for ice-cream, but here it’s self service!  So you have about 30 different flavors and 20 different toppings and sauces.  I still have to discover places like this in Africa de Sul!

Another great way to spend time is while surfing – or at least while waiting for waves.  So I had my first surf lesson!  Whohoo!!& nbsp; I don’t think I’m very talented for it, but I think that’s because the board was just to small – it has absolutely nothing to do with me not having balance!  Vanessa is a good teacher and she has so much patience.  She had to call me in deeper with a “Vamous!” quite a few times.  Everyone always wants to swim with dolphins, I swam with surfers!   Such a chilled culture.

We invited about 25 people from church over to our house for a South African dinner and fellowship.  We made about 200 vetkoek – which was way too much, still ate them 3 days later!  That was one of the loudest night of my life!

I had my first experience of being lifted on a bicycle!  What a sight, these long legs, almost dangling in the road, dictionary in my hand to keep the conversation going and then my “driver” takes the dictionary to look for a English word.  It was so funny and so much fun!

They are very hungry for God’s Word.  This gave us many opportunities for bible study on the beach, on the coach – with ninja in the room next door, at their houses after lunch.  Vanessa blessed me with a Portuguese/English bible, which really helps a lot as well!

We spent a whole morning at a drug rehab centre – set in a tropic forest, surrounded by water, so beautiful!  They have about 16 guys, who blessed us so much!  I just learned that the more God has freed you from, the more love and appreciation you have for Him.  I saw that in so many of their eyes!  We had praise&worship, Chantelle shared a word from 1 Cor 13 and then we had a bible study from 1 Joh 4.  They cooked lunch for us, so we had true communion with them.  What a privilege!

We felt led not to go up to Natal, but stay in Ubatuba – a lot of ministry opportunities arose.  Drama at a school and the rehab centre, helping with English classes and receiving teachings from one of the Pastors.

As always, a few things that stood out for me in these two weeks:

Joh 11:43 “Lazarus, come out!”  Jesus is claiming power over death.  And this even before He conquered the grave and death.  Now, after His resurrection, just imagine how much more healing power is there in His name.  If you only believe…

If there is a passion in your heart, the enemy will come to destroy it – destroy God’s dreams in your life.& nbsp; God calls you back all the time!  Hold what God put on your heart – obey and follow it.  Don’t give up on your calling from God!  Let your spirit command your mind – not the other way around.  Stand on God’s Word!

We’re working through Calvary Road – Roy Hession in our D-groups.  I’m so convicted by it!  I’m always depending so much on my own strength, always thinking I can do it on my own – even without God.  But it’s not I, but Christ.  “C” is only a bent “I”.  We (I) have to be broken in Christ.  Our will is to be broken to His will.  It’s self that tries to live the Christian life.  “Try” speaks of making it your responsibility.  As long as self is in control, God can do little with your life, because He won’t go against your free will.  You first have to realize you’re sinful before you can understand the magnitude of God’s grace.  I still have so much to learn…

Our “self” is what steals our joy – so by not going our own way or doing as you please, then you will find your joy in the Lord!  Isaiah 58:13-14.

Psalm 37 – DELIGHT yourself in the Lord, COMMIT your way to the Lord, TRUST in Him, WAIT patiently for Him.

James 1:22 “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says.”  I’m very challenged on this!  I don’t always do what I hear, so I easily forget God’s lessons.

Your life is the 5^th gospel.  People tend to read it before opening a bible and reading the other 4.

Please pray for:

• The time we have left in Ubatuba.  The deepening of relationships and growth in discipleship.
• Dramas that needs to be practiced this week.
• The Brazilians and us to understand each other even better – that the Holy Spirit will be our translator.
• Finances

May the love and faithfulness of God go before you as you follow in His footsteps.

Blessings!

Linel*