Advanced Group Class

Here is my Thursday night advanced group class. This is the class in which we study/debate controversial topics related to Christianity. We are obviously not having class in this photo, but eating ice cream and acai. Camila, the girl in the middle in red, left for a three-year master's program in Belgium last week, so we went out for ice cream for her last class session.

They all look sweet in the photo...just bring up predestination, abortion, ethics, or any other hot-button issue and you'll see these sweet angelic smiles change very quickly! Just kidding, I love my students!

Lessons Learned from an Amateur Missionary

I've been thinking lately about the things I have learned since being here in Natal. September 4th marked my 2-year anniversary, and I think in 2 years I've learned quite a bit of what to do- and what not to do, when arriving on the mission field. I have a few friends who are in the same boat as I am, and a few who are getting ready to go onto the field, so I thought maybe writing these things down would be of value. It's also good for me to write these things down, lest I get too cocky and I forget. :)

1. An effective missionary goes on the mission field for TWO reasons: love for God, which is the most important, and love for the people whom he or she will be ministering to. One without the other causes a lot of pain and reduces the effectiveness of ministry.

2. Don't arrive to the new culture and begin criticizing things. Never utter the phrase "Well, in America we do things this way." You are not in "America" and no one probably cares. If you want to share the way things are done where you come from, humbly say "At home we do it this way," or "where I come from we do it that way," but never use those phrases to belittle the way natives do things. Use them to share about yourself, and that's it. I've learned that your new friends usually welcome knowing those interesting tidbits about yourself and your home culture if you share them in a way that is not condescending.

3. Embrace the culture from day 1. Will you go through culture shock? Absolutely. Will you be homesick? Of course. Will embracing the culture help you get through all of those things more quickly? YOU BETCHA. If your family always celebrated Christmas on Christmas morning, but your new culture celebrates it on Christmas Eve, spend your first Christmas on the field celebrating it on Christmas Eve. You will have a new cultural experience, learn new customs, have something to share in with new friends, and help you not feel soooo homesick. Feel free to celebrate privately on Christmas morning, but don't expect the natives to join you or change their plans for you. Maybe over the next few years you can share your traditions with them. If the biggest meal of the day in the new culture is lunch, rather than dinner, start eating a big lunch and small dinner on day 1. This will help your adjustment, your health, and cause you to not feel "inconvenienced" when you have to switch things up.

4. Be graceful. Do the people in your new culture have a tendency to always be running late? Are you a stickler for punctuality? Don't expect to change their customs with rage. Learn to expect what you know will probably happen, and be pleasantly surprised when it doesn't. Show grace to those who need it, because sharing the Gospel is not as bound to hours and minutes as it is to relationships.

5. Don't assume people love the United States. There is a lot of anti-American sentiment overseas, and arriving to a new country assuming that people will be impressed by you will only add to that. A lot of times the sentiments are unfounded, but a lot of times they are totally valid. Either way, don't try to argue your point. Show them with your behavior, your speech, and, most importantly, YOUR WILLINGNESS TO LEARN, that you represent an exception to what they think is the rule. Over time, you will become the rule (so be careful!)

That's all I can think of for right now, but I'm sure there's more. If you read this and find it helpful, please let me know and I'll share more as it comes to mind. Deanna, I'm specifically thinking about you and your team. Your message to me the other day got me thinking about this!

Have a good weekend!

I'm proud of my students when they use English idiomatic phrases appropriately...but....

So today I was in one of my group classes with two students, reading about The Triumphal Entry/Palm Sunday. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story where Jesus rides in on a donkey and people wave palm branches and give him a King's welcome, you can read the story here.)

I asked my reader why the people were so excited to welcome Jesus, and he said: "The people knew there was coming someone to be the Son of God, blah blah blah..."

So...he gets who Jesus was...

Where does one go from here?

I always say life in Brazil is never dull...but along with that I should include that Bible study in Brazil is never dull, either.

AT LAST!

For those of you who don't use a blog reader (I recommend Google Reader, personally) and frequently check my blog for an update and are met with that sad photo displayed in my previous post, you can rest easy because the construction is over! There was a wedding, the FIRST EVER wedding from our church held in that building, on Saturday, and that was the deadline for all of the construction to be completed. Since a picture says a thousand words...here are like 10,000. Enjoy. :)

Wow...good thing OUR church building doesn't look like that!! How embarrassing! (Or...another appropriate title would be BEFORE.)


Tearing off all the grodiness

Tearing down the three columns...that represented The Trinity. They were left over by the Nazarene church from whom we bought this building.

Ok...so it doesn't have an angled roof anymore...interesting. What will it look like?

Gluing long skinny rocks horizontally...one by one...I feel it was probably a task as tedious as laying a cobblestone street.

Hmm...lookin' good!

This title of this photo is "Sneak Peek" because here comes...

THE REAL THING! THE FINISHED PRODUCT! FINALLY!!!

And without the nasty dumpster in front...the dumpster that spent 2 months uglifying our building. This photo was taken this past Sunday, the first Sunday we had worship with the construction (at least on the auditorium...) FINISHED!

So some of you may be wondering why this is so exciting, why I would dedicate two whole blog posts to show you a simple building remodeling project. Well, my friends, because this project was paid for all on our own. Those of you familiar with missions know that many times a mission team will raise funds to build a building, or buy a building. Many times those funds are supplied almost entirely by an American congregation(s). Our congregation is VERY blessed in that it already owns its own building, and has for a long time. (Graciously purchased by the Westover Hills congregation many years ago.) However, when you purchase a 30 year old building, sooner or later some major updates and adjustments will have to be made- not only aesthetic, but structural and legal! (You may or may not notice that the new doors are SIGNIFICANTLY larger than the previous ones. The new ones are up to code.) The new changes were 100% funded by special contributions, the fees paid by our English class students, costs cut in energy conservation (leaving things unplugged, etc.) and a few generous donations by outside visitors. We are blessed to have a church building on a main avenue, in the single largest and most populated neighborhood of Natal, and now we feel like its pretty new face lives up to the wonderful reputation it already has about what goes on inside. May God be glorified through this project! Rejoice with us!

If this were your church building...

If this were (was?) the facade of your church building, what would you think? Let's play a free-association type game.

*Look at picture*
*Say what comes to mind*

"Yikes."
"Yowza."
"Yuck."
"Ewww."
"Pewwww-eeeeee!"
"Grody!"
"What is that?"
"Church building? I don't see a church building."
"I didn't know 'Dirt' was an actual paint color..."
"Those 3 columns...what are they for?"
"Oh...that used to be white?"
"May I use the side entrance please?"
"Aww...what a sweet logo..."
"Hmm...is that a two-foot band of red clay tile going up the base of the wall? What in the world?"
"Hmm...maybe they should plant another giant palm tree to cover up the right side, too."

Well, thanks for being so honest....

That picture, which, at one point, to me, was just that...a picture of an actual thing, has now become a portal into the past. Because HALLELUJAH, Glory be to God, were I to stand in the same median at the same time of day and take that exact same picture, the only similarity you would see is a structure with a door in the middle and the same black iron fence surrounding that structure. I'm pretty sure the tree isn't even there anymore, but I'm not really one to pay attention to those kinds of details.*

The remodeling process at CDC has been quite a feat, and a very dusty one, at that, and I have tried my best to document the process with photos. When the final paint coat gets painted and the scaffolding gets taken apart, I will be oh so proud to show you the finished product. Until then...you may go ahead and begin trying to erase thise icky image from your brain.

Like the old adage says, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." My new, church-remodel version goes like this: "You don't know how ugly your building is 'til you make it nicer." Amen.

*Just checked my in-between process photos, and yes, the tree is still there, but there is no need to plant another one. Phew.

Busy Weekend

I got word that I have two very faithful readers who check my blog every single morning, so since I'm working on this "not being verbose so that I blog more frequently" thing, I figured I should try to give them something to read today!

On Saturday I took on every mother-with-junior-high-aged-children's nightmare and invited 14 girls over to spend the night at my house. Granted, none of them were junior-high aged, but if you know Brazilians, you know that sometimes the decibel level reaches that of classic middle-school heights! Kelly, one of the oldest members of our church, will be getting married at the end of this month. Saturday afternoon we had her personal shower, and Saturday night was her "goodbye to singleness" (aka bachelorette) sleepover at my house! We had a lot of fun staying up until the wee hours of the morning chatting and being girly. I felt blessed to be able to offer my apartment for them to use, as it is exactly for this type of reason that I rented this place. The girls really had a great time and Kelly thanked me about 20 times. Andressa, Roberto and Marisa's daughter, always jokes and calls my house "Grandma's house" because anything goes. :) It's true, and I think that the girls were happy to have a place to relax, be able to be silly, and not have any parents coming out and saying "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" (Although I bet my neighbors probably wished they could...oops.)

Sunday we had another English worship service. John and Samantha Jewell, my only American teammates, have decided to return to the United States to work with a church in Miami, FL, so yesterday was one of the last English services that John will lead. It was a great service, and we had some new faces there that have never come before. I always look forward to worshiping in English, although lately it seems like I've been singing a lot of solos! (Have you ever noticed how many songs there are where the women have to echo or sing differently or something? Did you know that I am the one who has to teach those things? Yeah...bummer...)

During the regular Portuguese service we had a special collection for our church building project. We are very blessed to have a really great, spacious building that is ours and we don't have to pay rent on. However, that blessing of a building is about 35 years old and is in need of some serious "reformation," as they say in Portuguese! This was the second special contribution that we have had this year for this purpose, and although our church is small and full of university students (meaning no steady income,) I am always encouraged to see everyone who makes a sacrificial effort to contribute. Our building is used 6 days a week for community outreach, English classes, and church gatherings, so we trust that God will bless our efforts to not only make it prettier but also make the necessary improvements. I'm proud of what our little church has accomplished thus far, and I think you will be, too, when I show you the finished product!

Maybe if my posts were to be shorter I would be inclined to blog more frequently. I, obviously, love to be verbose, and I assume that since I think I'm hilarious and hang on my every word, that everyone else will, too. Well, I guess it's time to face the music and realize that no, people don't think I'm as hilarious as I do, nor do they hang on to my every word. Here's to shorter (and hopefully more frequent!) blogs.

I told you a month or so ago about my advanced debate class on the eve of the first meeting. Well, it was everything I had hoped for an more. I have enjoyed every minute of each class and can see the development in thought and language in each of my students. We have covered topics ranging from "Does Christianity have the highest standard of ethics?" (depends on who you ask) to "Is faith just a big leap in the dark?" (yes, on a certain level) to "What will happen to those who have never heard the Gospel?" (jury's still out on that one...pretty sure it will be out until judgment day) to "Should Christians have to suffer?" (yes, was the consensus that day.)

One of my students in particular, let's call him Thomas, started studying with LST this year and was full of questions about faith and religion. He has had a confusing religious upbringing, and having just turned 18 is stepping out on his own to see where he fits. He never misses a class and usually sits in silence for a long time until I have to draw him out. Once he gets going, though, it's hard to get him to stop! It's been a blessing for me to see his wheels turning and him asking deep questions about how he can have faith in his life. Thomas shared with the LST teams who were here this month how much he enjoys the class, and how he has gotten many answers to his MANY questions through our discussions.

Please pray for these classes and the way that God will use them to water seeds that have already been planted and continue planting more!

(Ok..was that short enough?)