weekly update - brasil

Here's a quick update of my week to catch you up on my life. :]

Because a student I was supposed to go sharing with on Tuesday got sick halfway through the day, I ended up riding alone on the bus to campus last Tuesday. I only got worried once when I thought the bus had already passed my stop. I walked around for half an hour on campus trying to find people from our group. Once I did and we got supper it was time to leave campus, so Tuesday was spent mostly praying and walking.

Wednesday we did a ‘Cup and Coke’ Outreach at both POLI and FEA. We had cups of Guaranna (a soda so highly caffienated they don't sell it in the US) given out at each faccodaje to any student who filled out a short survey. Many on our team were even able to answer questions students had about the organization, and several shared the Gospel. Overall we now have around 400 surveys, which we have stared to follow up.

We had a long weekend with an extra day off since USP had no class Thursday and Friday in observance of Corpus Christi. Saturday a group went downtown to visit an old, huge cathedral and do some shopping. I bought a pair of puma’s for $15 USD. The subway station was very different from the rest of the city – quiet, clean and efficient. Downtown was beautiful – awesome architecture. I even did a little shopping and bought a pair of shoes for 15 USD.

On Monday, Andy and I talked with a 'record' 10 students - but half of which did not care to hear about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s the first time all summer I’ve had more than one rejection per day. I did come home happy with the day and not even really discouraged.

Andy and I are becoming very direct in our approach- take a minute to explain who we are and why we’re in Brasil, then do a Quest survey- which provides us a chance to get to know them a bit, then transition to the Gospel, if they are intersted. It seems like a good system. We shared the Gospel twice- with two Buddhist students, and two Masters Philosophy students. We also met up with Carolina, a student we had met two weeks ago. She still believes in Spiritism, and we are still trying to muddle through the difference between it and Christianity.

All in all, a great week! Tomorrow we are trying to have an outreach but the Evangelism Team just got word that they were denied permission to use the area- we are hosting "Score a Goal on an American" - students have two tries to shoot a penalty shot on someone from our team (if they make it, their name gets entered in a drawing for a PS2, which is really sweet because electronics here are way expensive. We want to use the grassy area outside the Engineering building (the same place you did it last year, Wendy), but for some reason they heard we were associated with Alfa e Omega and they said no because it's a religious group. this has really been the first time we have been 'persecuted' against in Brasil, which is good. Pray that we would have wisdom in what to do, that we'd find a spot to hold it, that students would show up!