Sunday, August 10, 2008

One family: God's family

Today we celebrated with our new church family. We started with Vacation Bible School for the kids from 2:00 till 5:00 and then had a worship service with all the church people in the building we are still working on. We sang in English along with Cher, who sang in Portugese. Kristin gave the sermon and Andressa translated. In addition to the typical elements of worship, the girls of the church performed a play they had written for Father's Day – which was today in Brazil. Also the younger girls performed a dance they had choreographed to a praise song about God's family. They were great. The girls had worked very hard on their performances and it showed. We were all touched by the number of children who turned out for the VBS and again for the worship service. The children outnumbered the adults but this is a church predominately of children and teenagers. The music was provided by Mario and his band. They played for us to sing and for Cher to sing the other songs. It is amazing to see how their musical talents are shining through.

The highlight of VBS was the parachute. The kids loved it and were amazed by its size. They will definitely enjoy it for weeks to come.

The service was very special as we watched a shell of a room being transformed in minutes to a place of worship – even though it wasn't – finished. It become filled with people who although we didn't all speak the same language, we were all there for the same reason.

Another gift we had today was that we were joined by Pietro and Mario who are staying at our hotel. They are from Italy and are living here for a month to see Forteleza and to learn Portugese. We asked them to join us and to come see what we were doing at the church. I think they learned a lot, not just about our cultures but about what being a Methodist means.

All in all it was a wonderful day. We played, sang, prayed, and worshipped with the church here in Forteleza as one family – the family of God.

2 comments:

Kim said...

We've been reading your stories!!! Amazing work!! Sending prayers and best wishes for the rest of your trip!!
Love,
Kim and Grace

Unknown said...

We've all been enjoying the updates and pictures! Thanks! We're continuing to keep you in our prayers.

With love from the "Miss Amy" fan club,

Jonathan, Kara, Kaitlyn, Caleb, Ashleigh and Braden

P.S. Have you spread the Brush UNO rules to that part of the world yet?