my weekend in Brasil

Here is an update from Brasil for the past few days...

Thursday we met in the morning with the team, had lunch and discipleship and then partnered up when we got to campus and tried to talk with students. Me and two other students ended up talking with Eric (ereeek) for about an hour, and went through the knowing god booklet with him. We gave him a Portuguese copy but he read English fine so we gave him one of those then, too. It was cool to learn about him and what he thinks about things, especially that he is still deciding where he is in his own spirituality – he agreed with a lot of what we said about Jesus, God and sin. He kind of believes that there is one truth and then all the other religions lead to the same place, which seems to be a common North American belief. We had supper at a small restaurant in one of the facodajes (colleges)… amazing cheeseburgers! :] way better than the Maltese in Medora. :]

I feel like sharing on campus is like opposite as in the U.S. At USD, usually approaching people is ok, but the conversations don't go well because people don't care about spiritual things or don’t want to talk about it. Here it’s like once you get over the awkward “Excuse me, let me interrupt your fast-paced Portuguese and ask if you speak English?” the conversation is fine. Mainly, if they say they speak English they don’t, and if they say they know a little, they know a lot. We tell them we are touring brasil and want to learn about their culture. Then they look at us funny but talk to us for like an hour about stuff and we eventually ask them about their beliefs. It's a great system. All the students on campus HAVE to know English to get in, so that's good. all over the rest of the city, no one really knows English.

The language barrier is ok sometimes, not good at other times. Thursday night on the way home we found the bus we were supposed to take- it wouldn’t open it’s doors right away, but eventually it let us on. We ended up getting dropped off at the bus stop somewhere and they made us all get off and we had no clue what to do. Luckily a few people speak Portuguese decently so they figured something out with the bus driver.

We eat breakfast free all the time in the hotel. Depending on the day we either eat lunch or supper on campus - always at least one meal. The other we just go out to eat somewhere. We don't have a kitchen anywhere so we can't make food. One US Dollar is almost 2 Brasillians dollars (hay-ice) so we can buy a really good quality supper for about 12 hay-ice, which is only 6 US dollars.

Had a great weekend – Friday afternoon we hung out on campus and tried starting a game of ultimate- the only people interested in playing sports with us were a group of guys with a soccer ball so we did Brasil vs. America after they had all warmed up. And guess what….WE WON the first game! 10 minutes or 2 goals- we scored 2 before they scored any, I think. That night we as a team went out to supper and I had some amazing food – a huge piece of chicken, rice and beans, French fries and Maracuja, my new favorite drink. :]

Friday night we had community time – we all had to do skits. Basically ours was a musical about two students dating on project without the directors knowing - I played one of the directors (Londa). At the end of the skit the other 'director' was singing this love song to me because we were secretly in love the whole time ... I felt kind of awkward but it was funny.

Saturday a few of us went to the Eldorado mall and got starbucks and spent time in the Word there- the cashier spoke English, but I only found that out after ruthie ordered for me in Portuguese. :] After that a few of us went to the grocery store and I “almost got hit by a car” as everyone else says. It wasn’t that close. If it wasn’t for the ambulance a few cars back, I would have been fine.

Sunday morning we walked for about ½ hour I bet trying to find the right bus to take us to Calvary International Church, (English speaking). Once we found our stop it was another ½ hour by bus and we got there just in time. It was about 2 hours- a lot of standing up and sitting down, the music was decent, good message. A lot of people didn’t like it, but it reminded me a bit of Hillside. People wanted to visit a more charismatic church, so I think I might go with them next time just to see what it’s like. It will probably freak me out.

Sunday night we hung out as a team for 4 hours – spent time in worship, which I helped with (and was really missing!!) and just spent time getting to know each other. For the last hour or so we spent time in the Word in small groups. I was really tired and wasn’t looking forward to spending MORE time with the group. My small group consisted of me and 3 other guys I don’t know super well, so it was good for me to spend time with them. And I really enjoyed looking at examples of short term missionaries in the Bible and applying the things that I learned from the examples to my time here in Brasil and when I get back on campus. I will be a senior and needing someone to fill my shoes, and carry on the movement when me and my friends are gone, which is the same place Alfa e Omega (Cru) is at here at USP.