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.

Birthdays and bricks

Today was Coty and Mario's (our new friend) 17th birthdays. We celebrated with cake, candles, prayers and cards. Hopefully this was Coty's best Brazilian birthday.

We started the day at the church by taking the piles of bricks up to the roof where the second story is being built. Together we did it in about two hours. All of us got very good at passing bricks as if they were feathers. While we did that Laiana (another new friend who is 9 years old) taught us our numbers in Portuguese and we repeated our numbers 1 through 10 many times as she learned them in English. She was a quick English learner and was very patient with us when we didn't pick up Portuguese as quickly. She was especially patient with Jimmy who was having some dificulty communicating with her but she persisted and insisted he learn the numbers as well.

We did some stimulating of the Brazilian economy later in the day at the market. We all shopped and had fun trying to bargain with the sellers. Coty had the best luck in getting the bargains. We enjoyed dinner in the Cultural Center which is an older part of town that has been restored with restaurants and shops. Most of enjoyed chocolate pizza for dessert.

We had a great day, at the site and around town. We are hoping that tomorrow the materials will be there so that we can put the windows and doors onto the church. It is very exciting to see the progress and the love that is being shared. As they told us yesterday, they have been waiting for us for a year and clearly they are happy to see us. We are all experiencing the love of God as we share, learn and build together.

Thanks for your prayers and we will chat again tomorrow.