Variety is the spice of life

After a couple of days relaxation at Porto da Galinhas (Port of Chickens) we got back into the thick of things on Saturday night when we went up to Cha de Cruz. We had been asked to lead the Bible study which was aimed at mature teenage Christians and is normally led by Pastor Marcio from the seminary.

Cha de Cruz is about an hour and a half away but we will tell you more about the journey in another blog. It was good to be there to see some of the teenagers that we had met in the first week at camp. Cha de Cruz is the site of a sister project which has been running for nearly 20 years. It is a glimpse of what the work in Tejipio could become. It is a particularly poor and difficult area with many social problems. The project therefore has made a huge impact on the lives of many, providing both physical and spiritual nourishment.

We decided to focus our time on prayer, using the Lord's Prayer as our text. David led a short intro and then we looked at different aspects of prayer. Jonny and Laura shared from personal experience how prayer had worked in their lives.

Rebecca had organised a number of prayer stations which helped the young people think about different ways of praying. We had a map of Brazil to encourage them to pray for their country; paper fish on which they could write the names of non-Christian friends; salt and a candle to remind them that they should be salt and light in their community and washing hands to encourage them to serve each other. While the Brazilians don't do anything quietly it was moving to see them huddled in prayer at each station in their small groups.

Sunday was Father's Day here and the church at the seminary had organised a community outreach through a special Father's Day breakfast. It was well attended including people who would not normally attend church on a Sunday. Again it was very emotional as fathers were given the opportunity to relate their feelings about their children.

At church last night Jonny and Laura again shared their testimonies. God's hand was clearly in this as Pastor Pedro preached about listening to God's direction for your life, using the story of Jacob wrestling with God as his illustration. Praise is always a joy to be involved in, despite the language barrier and we do like it when we recognise a song. We even added to it by ended the service with a rendition of The Lord's My Shepherd.

Last night Jonny and Sharon took an overnight bus ride with Judith Stewart and Judith Burns to the interior, to a project that Sharon had spent time with during her previous stay here. Apparently she is being treated like a celebrity there and people keep stopping her in the street to speak to her. Perhaps it is a good thing they are only staying one day as they return on the overnight bus tonight.

Workshops began again this morning and it seems that even Brazilians don't like cold, wet Monday mornings. Attendance was poor this morning but picked up this afternoon. Perhaps, given all that we have to do this week, God knew that we needed things to be a little easier today. It is great to see the children and young people engage with us even if sometimes they seem to have far too much energy! We are grateful to Everton, a local Brazilian guy, who has come to help us with language and interpretation - and who managed to correct our dodgy translation of "He's got the whole world in his hands"!

Workshops will continue on Tuesday and Wednesday in Tejipio. On Wednesday evening we will move up to Cha de Cruz to take part in a praise service and get ourselves ready to take the programme there on Thursday. This is a daunting prospect for us as over 300 children attend the project during the course of the day. We are planning a 3 hour programme that we will repeat both morning and afternoon.

Prayer points:

• Safe return for Jonny and Sharon from the interior and that they will get some rest on the overnight bus


• Health for the team and energy to get us through the next few days


• For the workshops in Tejipio - that relationships with the children would continue to grow and we would see God touching their lives.


• The programme at Cha de Cruz - that our confidence will be in God and that what we do will have an impact on the children and young people who are there

PS - it's not all sunshine here you know. Today it has tipped it down with rain. The Brazilians have even found it cold. We however are still complaining about the heat! We are grateful to Fatima who sorted us out with hot chocolate, soup and sweet breads for tea - a real winter warmer!