Yesterday I went to the Youth Congress at my friend’s church. I was singing at the morning service and Tiago and his father and his friend who’s visiting from Tennessee all showed up. It was good to see my boyfriend...but it will be better to actually get to talk to him when these two weeks of visitors is over...I am not a fan of being chaperoned!
The pastor at the morning service gave one of the best sermons I've heard in ages...years...he had me riveted to my seat! Some of my notes:
* a judgemental attitude is tantamount to immorality
* "the Holy Spirit cannot work in people who are self-sufficient"
* A lot of people in the church are "bom salvos mas pessimos servos" (good redeemed ones but terrible servants)!
* Our evangelism must stop being "funebre" or dismal. We must show love, God's love, and REAL love to the lost. Correcting in love is more than just telling people they're wrong and need to stop and repent and all that jazz. Correcting someone in love means putting ourselves in their shoes, knowing where they're at, and then being willing to help them change.
I loved that last part, because I hated that part.
It is so much easier to "love" someone, tell them they need Jesus, and then walk away than it is to really love someone and let them into my life. It's so much harder to be the Jesus with skin on than it is to be the hellfire and brimstone preacher.
For instance.
The other night I was with a friend and her daughter when she started crying uncontrollably. So we walked to a nearby park, found a bench, and sat down to pray. My friend has been going through a really hard time financially, physically, emotionally, occupationally, family-wise...and that's just her! Her husband is also struggling...and they are just broken by the trials that have come into their lives. So we decided to just sit and pray. In front of us, about fifteen feet away, was a street preacher. When I reached into my bag, I realized that I had left my Bible at home. Now, normally I always "travel" with a small Bible, because you never know when you might need to reference a verse. But I'd cleaned out my bag the night before and left it behind...so I looked around, noticed the preacher and called out to him, "Sir, may we borrow your Bible for a second?" He looked at us, must have seen my friend's red and swollen crying face, and gave us the brush off. A later sign. A later which never came, even though he never opened his Bible the entire time we were there. So we sat there, in the shadow of this windbag, and prayed. We paused, and a lady appeared before us. Angelica. She was selling sweets in a wrinkled blazer and short skirt, with straw blond hair and a heavy, aged appearance. We declined the offer, and I added, "I'm sorry, but we're here crying because of money. We don't have any to give you..." She misunderstood me, in the Holy Spirit's funny way of using my accent, and she cried out, "What? You're praying??? Will you pray for me???" Sitting down beside me, she asked for prayer and we huddled around and began to pray...
It was beautiful.
And I thought about it later, that image. The street preacher preaching repentance to the wind, with not a moment to spare for anyone who might need anything other than the words he was prepared to give. And all around him, crying, hurting people in need of Christ, who needed a gentle touch, not sharp words. "A bruised reed he will not break..."
I'll be working an evangelism crusade this week...I hope that we can emulate Christ in these days, not forcing salvation as if our Lord was a spiritual rapist, but remembering that God always knocks on the doors. He doesn't barge in even if he is the owner. I want to be as well-mannered when I go as his emissary...
And that's all for now.
Love you all, by the way! I've gotten a couple personal emails this week, and I've enjoyed them ever so much! Thank you!
Monday, September 25, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
Visitors on the Homefront
The reason for the lack of blogging this week is because my home is shelter to the lovely Forcatto family who are staying with me until Sunday. We'd packed their schedule with street visits and beach time, but the weather hasn't cooperated. Lots of cloudy and drizzly weather makes for poor beach time. But I think they're still having a good time.
Walter knows almost all of the artists who play on Manguinhos radio. This makes me feel young...I am sure it makes him feel old! Cora, their four-year-old, has the sweetest personality with a sassy streak of serious independence. Adriana is 7 months pregnant though you wouldn't guess it from the activity level she's at, chasing Cora around and visiting the kids on the streets with us. But the belly gives her away!
Today is my first day in a week that I've had the house to myself and I'm using the relative quiet to catch up on office stuff...this update is in honor of my mother, who is riding across West Virginia on a motorcyle with my father...she asked for proof that I was still alive, so here it is!!! Have a good trip mom! Outrun the rain!
Walter knows almost all of the artists who play on Manguinhos radio. This makes me feel young...I am sure it makes him feel old! Cora, their four-year-old, has the sweetest personality with a sassy streak of serious independence. Adriana is 7 months pregnant though you wouldn't guess it from the activity level she's at, chasing Cora around and visiting the kids on the streets with us. But the belly gives her away!
Today is my first day in a week that I've had the house to myself and I'm using the relative quiet to catch up on office stuff...this update is in honor of my mother, who is riding across West Virginia on a motorcyle with my father...she asked for proof that I was still alive, so here it is!!! Have a good trip mom! Outrun the rain!
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Imagination
I was walking through a beco (narrow alley) the other day. The morning sun was cutting through a small break in the tipsy buildings and the rays illuminated a patch of dirty concrete in front of me. A young boy, about four years old, was laying out newspapers and then flopped down, face first, onto them. His little friend with a headful of black curls asked in a typically girlish tone of condescention: "What are you doing?" With a flip of his head, the tot replied, "I'm on the beach..."
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
But I loved it.
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
But I loved it.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Inventory at 1:26 am
Feeling: Peaceful, like perhaps I should go to bed but enjoying curling up with lovely words from old friends via blogs and emails.
Listening to: Far away pagode music, whose words are unintelligible but soothing...and motorcycles racing back and forth along the roads and narrows...
Thinking about: What I'm going to do tomorrow, how people change and yet grow more and more themselves in the process, wishing that huge reunions weren't so logistically impossible.
Feeling: Cold. But winter's almost over...it's just a clear night and that makes for a nice chill coming in the window.
Praying for: My other friends who live in war zones...
I'm going to bed now. For real.
Listening to: Far away pagode music, whose words are unintelligible but soothing...and motorcycles racing back and forth along the roads and narrows...
Thinking about: What I'm going to do tomorrow, how people change and yet grow more and more themselves in the process, wishing that huge reunions weren't so logistically impossible.
Feeling: Cold. But winter's almost over...it's just a clear night and that makes for a nice chill coming in the window.
Praying for: My other friends who live in war zones...
I'm going to bed now. For real.
Sunday
I tried hard to make today unproductive. It was supposed to be my much-needed day of rest. But I woke up at 7:30 with a bug to finish the painting. So I did. All of it...and was exhausted by lunchtime...laid down to rest and completely passed out. I think there was a bit of time-warping going on, because I felt much more rested by the time I woke up than fifteen or twenty minutes of napping should have given me...
All in all, though, I got a day of REST in. I went to church and didn't feel like running away because of all the people around me...and opened my doors after for a bit of internet-cafe-ing for a friend of mine while another girl helped me fine-tune the song lyrics I wrote to sing at the Congresso in a couple of weeks.
Now I'm trying to come down off of the creativity high so I can go to sleep. Somewhere. Since I moved all the furniture myself, I had to take all the books off the shelves. This has resulted in a large pile of things in the middle of the living room...and every other room. I just have to pick what mattress I want to sleep on and then make a trip-proof path for gettiing to the bathroom. Tomorrow I'll clean.
Maybe.
First I have to buy a mattress. And an iron and a blender. Plus food, and stand in line to get my CPF card AND meet Rich and Dave downtown at 4 pm. Cleaning my house therefore takes really low priority...:)
The sermon tonight was on Esau and Jacob and our inheritances (God's future best for us) that we sell for lentils (present temptations). It was an awkward sermon, the pastor saying things like: "That beautiful girl, she's a lentil, full of sexy curves...And that hunky guy with muscles even on his forehead...he can be a lentil in your life!" Lentils. I was actually making lentil soup today but settled for cream of spinach. I really need to go shopping. There was NOTHING in my house today and I was craving red meat. But I missed the Sunday market hours and everything closes early. So it was soup and bread for me...
I think I'm starting to go down rabbit-holes. Bedtime, ladies and gentlemen!!!
All in all, though, I got a day of REST in. I went to church and didn't feel like running away because of all the people around me...and opened my doors after for a bit of internet-cafe-ing for a friend of mine while another girl helped me fine-tune the song lyrics I wrote to sing at the Congresso in a couple of weeks.
Now I'm trying to come down off of the creativity high so I can go to sleep. Somewhere. Since I moved all the furniture myself, I had to take all the books off the shelves. This has resulted in a large pile of things in the middle of the living room...and every other room. I just have to pick what mattress I want to sleep on and then make a trip-proof path for gettiing to the bathroom. Tomorrow I'll clean.
Maybe.
First I have to buy a mattress. And an iron and a blender. Plus food, and stand in line to get my CPF card AND meet Rich and Dave downtown at 4 pm. Cleaning my house therefore takes really low priority...:)
The sermon tonight was on Esau and Jacob and our inheritances (God's future best for us) that we sell for lentils (present temptations). It was an awkward sermon, the pastor saying things like: "That beautiful girl, she's a lentil, full of sexy curves...And that hunky guy with muscles even on his forehead...he can be a lentil in your life!" Lentils. I was actually making lentil soup today but settled for cream of spinach. I really need to go shopping. There was NOTHING in my house today and I was craving red meat. But I missed the Sunday market hours and everything closes early. So it was soup and bread for me...
I think I'm starting to go down rabbit-holes. Bedtime, ladies and gentlemen!!!
Saturday Night
It’s a rare Saturday night for me. Tiago has sent me home with instructions to take a day to myself...write, paint, be creative, and rest. I guess he’s taking stock of the bags under my eyes...
It’s a rare Saturday night for me because my house is a mess: books and newspapers scattered all over the living room floor, my bed uninhabitable, the dishes unwashed, my nasty second attempt at dinner still on the stove (attempt number one was opening a package of preservative packed alfredo and broccoli noodles to discover the bag crawling with crunchy brown beetlebugs), and generally, things in a state of uncomfortable disarray. And I’m leaving them like that so I can write this update. See, what usually happens is that I have good intentions when I get home. But washing dishes and making dinner and doing laundry and all the other urgent little things take up my time and I end up putting it off for another day...
Today is that day. Or rather, tonight, since it is 11:48 pm.
I’m sort of twisted up on a mattress, writing this. My bruises prevent any really comfortable position right now. The front room, where I normally keep my computer, is a mess due to my still-in-progress painting job. So I’ve set up shop in the spare room, surrounded by loose furniture and bags of who-knows-what that I’ll have to go through when I put the front room together again. I’m painting in honor of Walter and Adriana’s visit (WMF friends) who will be arriving mid-September. The black hand and foot-prints on the walls weren’t really all that hospitable. My new buttercream and burnt bloodorange walls are fabulous!!! And so are my bruises...sustained after flying through the air when my stool failed to support me properly...I’ve got four or five inches of bruise on my hip, plus a nasty one on my back and several dotting my arms, knees, and legs. That’s what happens when you decide to fall along the doorframe before you hit the ground...
If I had a digital camera, I would take pictures. They’re pretty impressive. Of course, my favorite part wasn’t Tiago washing paint out of my hair, or looking at me like I was an idiot for laughing and crying at the same time. The best part was that falling PUT MY BACK IN PLACE! I’ve been whining for a chiropractor for ages. My back was hurting so badly that there were days I wasn’t walking properly...and no one could seem to get it to “pop” like I felt it needed to...and then I fell and knocked everything straight again! There are blessings to being clumsy, sometimes.
I’m about half done with the painting in the front room. It’s going slow because I’m doing it alone. Tiago helped that one day, but he’s going to be working all this next week with a deaf team (American sign language interpreter to English, English to Portuguese, Portuguese to Portuguese sign language...MINIMUM three translators for any conversation...) and won’t be available to help me. My girlfriends are too small and sissy to help and my other American peeps have given me solid “no’s.” I’m re-evaluating those friendships now...
(I think I’m joking there...)
So unless I’m willing to call the skinny and tall ex-boyfriend to help me, it looks like I’m going to be on my own. Thank the Lord I had a mother who was a Jane-of-all-trades!
It’s a rare Saturday night for me because my house is a mess: books and newspapers scattered all over the living room floor, my bed uninhabitable, the dishes unwashed, my nasty second attempt at dinner still on the stove (attempt number one was opening a package of preservative packed alfredo and broccoli noodles to discover the bag crawling with crunchy brown beetlebugs), and generally, things in a state of uncomfortable disarray. And I’m leaving them like that so I can write this update. See, what usually happens is that I have good intentions when I get home. But washing dishes and making dinner and doing laundry and all the other urgent little things take up my time and I end up putting it off for another day...
Today is that day. Or rather, tonight, since it is 11:48 pm.
I’m sort of twisted up on a mattress, writing this. My bruises prevent any really comfortable position right now. The front room, where I normally keep my computer, is a mess due to my still-in-progress painting job. So I’ve set up shop in the spare room, surrounded by loose furniture and bags of who-knows-what that I’ll have to go through when I put the front room together again. I’m painting in honor of Walter and Adriana’s visit (WMF friends) who will be arriving mid-September. The black hand and foot-prints on the walls weren’t really all that hospitable. My new buttercream and burnt bloodorange walls are fabulous!!! And so are my bruises...sustained after flying through the air when my stool failed to support me properly...I’ve got four or five inches of bruise on my hip, plus a nasty one on my back and several dotting my arms, knees, and legs. That’s what happens when you decide to fall along the doorframe before you hit the ground...
If I had a digital camera, I would take pictures. They’re pretty impressive. Of course, my favorite part wasn’t Tiago washing paint out of my hair, or looking at me like I was an idiot for laughing and crying at the same time. The best part was that falling PUT MY BACK IN PLACE! I’ve been whining for a chiropractor for ages. My back was hurting so badly that there were days I wasn’t walking properly...and no one could seem to get it to “pop” like I felt it needed to...and then I fell and knocked everything straight again! There are blessings to being clumsy, sometimes.
I’m about half done with the painting in the front room. It’s going slow because I’m doing it alone. Tiago helped that one day, but he’s going to be working all this next week with a deaf team (American sign language interpreter to English, English to Portuguese, Portuguese to Portuguese sign language...MINIMUM three translators for any conversation...) and won’t be available to help me. My girlfriends are too small and sissy to help and my other American peeps have given me solid “no’s.” I’m re-evaluating those friendships now...
(I think I’m joking there...)
So unless I’m willing to call the skinny and tall ex-boyfriend to help me, it looks like I’m going to be on my own. Thank the Lord I had a mother who was a Jane-of-all-trades!
Friday, September 01, 2006
Other things that I did today
Feeling slightly like Superwoman, I declare today one of the most productive of the past weeks.
List of accomplishments:
getting x-rays
going to the beauty salon
going to the bank
paying bills
paying rent (and avoiding lunch with the landlords)
going to the doctor (2nd time in a week)
translating email for a friend while eating lunch
cleaning my home
washing last night's dishes (How we managed to have a group dinner and no one washed up is still a mystery. Next time, I'm going to nominate a washer-up-er.)
taking a nap
hanging out with Tiago, including going to the mall and buying house stuff
writing two blog entries
And it's still just 10:30 at night, so I have at least another two hours of productive time, given my energy surge (thank you caffeine!)
I have a lot of quirky stories I want to post...maybe they'll make it up here...
List of accomplishments:
getting x-rays
going to the beauty salon
going to the bank
paying bills
paying rent (and avoiding lunch with the landlords)
going to the doctor (2nd time in a week)
translating email for a friend while eating lunch
cleaning my home
washing last night's dishes (How we managed to have a group dinner and no one washed up is still a mystery. Next time, I'm going to nominate a washer-up-er.)
taking a nap
hanging out with Tiago, including going to the mall and buying house stuff
writing two blog entries
And it's still just 10:30 at night, so I have at least another two hours of productive time, given my energy surge (thank you caffeine!)
I have a lot of quirky stories I want to post...maybe they'll make it up here...
September 1
Today is the one year anniversary of Jeferson's death...or, the one year anniversary of when we buried our friend. I was contemplating this today, looking at an old picture of Jeferson from 2003, his face young and innocent but already sprinkled with smile lines and the marks of a hard life. Opening my Bible, my eyes fell on Psalm 140. I'm including it here as I read it this afternoon, slightly modified:
"Rescue us, O LORD, from evil men; protect us from men of violence, who devise evil plans in their hearts and stir up war every day. They make their tongues as sharp as a serpent's; the poison of vipers is on their lips.
Selah, let us rest in and praise the Lord.
Keep us, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; protect us from men of violence who plan to trip our feet. Proud men have hidden a snare for us; they have spread out the cords of their net and have set traps for us along our path.
Selah...breathe, for the Lord is good.
O LORD, we say to you, "You are our God." Hear, O LORD, our cry for mercy. O Soverign LORD, our strong deliverer-who sheilds our heads in the day of battle-do not grant the wicked their desires, O LORD: do not let their plans succeed, or they will become proud.
Selah. Tears.
Let the heads of those who surround us be covered with the trouble their lips have caused. Let burning coals fall upon them; may they be thrown into the fire, into miry pits, never to rise. Let slanderers not be established in the land; may disaster hunt down men of violence. We know that the LORD secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy. Surely the righteous will praise your name and the upright will live before you."
As I read this psalm, I felt as if I was following Jeferson on that fateful day one year ago: entrapped, deceived, led into a massacre. I felt the futility of prayer...cries for mercy, for deliverance, that seemed to be brought to nothing but more senseless violence, evil and death. And I cried, reading for Jeferson a psalm that promised so much...because he was not protected from the hands of the wicked, or shielded from their schemes. Their plans did come to fruiton and they were proud. For a few bitter moments this afternoon, I was angry at God for the supposed promise of these verses, promises that seemed empty.
And then I read the last verse again.
The Lord does secure justice for the poor. But He doesn't say when. Or how.
All of my hopes and desires were pinned on this earth, on the here and now. I wanted to see justice done before my eyes, to see the cause of the needy lifted up in the place where I live, in the place where Jeferson lived, in the places where the poor are gathered. And yet it seemed to me as if God was saying, "No. You're reading the text wrong. Those are David's pleas to Me...protection, rescue, salvation. The promise in this psalm isn't protection from evil or suffering. That's what he wanted. That's what you want. But that's not what I promise you. Sometimes, I'll give you that. But the real promise is that the I AM is with you, that the I AM secures justice, that the upright will LIVE before me. It's in the future tense. It's not about this earth."
Oops. There I go, trying to work God into my comfortable web of manipulations, and I got caught.
But the truth is, reading this psalm with those new lenses makes it more powerful. Our desires for revenge can rest. Our worries can rest. We have the assurance of life before God...not just the short and fleeting life that the wicked scratch out for themselves before returning to dust...
And I rejoice, because I know that somewhere, before God, Jeferson is (or will be, depending on whose interpretation of the afterlife is correct!) worshipping and communing before the face of God. God brought him to his true home before me. And while I'm still sad, I know that sleeping on the streets of heaven has to be incomparably more blessed than sleeping in the grandest mansion here on this scrabbling little planet. Imagining him there, instead of on the dirty streets of Lapa? Joyful beyond words.
"Rescue us, O LORD, from evil men; protect us from men of violence, who devise evil plans in their hearts and stir up war every day. They make their tongues as sharp as a serpent's; the poison of vipers is on their lips.
Selah, let us rest in and praise the Lord.
Keep us, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; protect us from men of violence who plan to trip our feet. Proud men have hidden a snare for us; they have spread out the cords of their net and have set traps for us along our path.
Selah...breathe, for the Lord is good.
O LORD, we say to you, "You are our God." Hear, O LORD, our cry for mercy. O Soverign LORD, our strong deliverer-who sheilds our heads in the day of battle-do not grant the wicked their desires, O LORD: do not let their plans succeed, or they will become proud.
Selah. Tears.
Let the heads of those who surround us be covered with the trouble their lips have caused. Let burning coals fall upon them; may they be thrown into the fire, into miry pits, never to rise. Let slanderers not be established in the land; may disaster hunt down men of violence. We know that the LORD secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy. Surely the righteous will praise your name and the upright will live before you."
As I read this psalm, I felt as if I was following Jeferson on that fateful day one year ago: entrapped, deceived, led into a massacre. I felt the futility of prayer...cries for mercy, for deliverance, that seemed to be brought to nothing but more senseless violence, evil and death. And I cried, reading for Jeferson a psalm that promised so much...because he was not protected from the hands of the wicked, or shielded from their schemes. Their plans did come to fruiton and they were proud. For a few bitter moments this afternoon, I was angry at God for the supposed promise of these verses, promises that seemed empty.
And then I read the last verse again.
The Lord does secure justice for the poor. But He doesn't say when. Or how.
All of my hopes and desires were pinned on this earth, on the here and now. I wanted to see justice done before my eyes, to see the cause of the needy lifted up in the place where I live, in the place where Jeferson lived, in the places where the poor are gathered. And yet it seemed to me as if God was saying, "No. You're reading the text wrong. Those are David's pleas to Me...protection, rescue, salvation. The promise in this psalm isn't protection from evil or suffering. That's what he wanted. That's what you want. But that's not what I promise you. Sometimes, I'll give you that. But the real promise is that the I AM is with you, that the I AM secures justice, that the upright will LIVE before me. It's in the future tense. It's not about this earth."
Oops. There I go, trying to work God into my comfortable web of manipulations, and I got caught.
But the truth is, reading this psalm with those new lenses makes it more powerful. Our desires for revenge can rest. Our worries can rest. We have the assurance of life before God...not just the short and fleeting life that the wicked scratch out for themselves before returning to dust...
And I rejoice, because I know that somewhere, before God, Jeferson is (or will be, depending on whose interpretation of the afterlife is correct!) worshipping and communing before the face of God. God brought him to his true home before me. And while I'm still sad, I know that sleeping on the streets of heaven has to be incomparably more blessed than sleeping in the grandest mansion here on this scrabbling little planet. Imagining him there, instead of on the dirty streets of Lapa? Joyful beyond words.
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