Friday, October 21, 2005

Recife Trip


Recife Trip 18
Originally uploaded by Brazil Bean Brewed.

This week we got out of Salvador for the first time. It was a nice change of pace. Alicia and I went to Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, 12 hours to the north of Salvador by bus. We went to see our friends from ACU, Bio and Daisy. Bio studied Hebrew with me in the grad school and was influential in convincing us to come to Brazil. Ever since we arrived in Brazil they have been telling us that we have to go and see their lives in Brazil. The week that we spent there ended up being way more than we ever could of imagined. Recife is another huge growing city of Brazil that is close to the size of Salvador. It is referred to as the little Venice because of the rivers that run through the city. But more than enjoying the city we ended up learning so much from the mission work that is going on in the city. The first Church of Christ missionaries arrived there 25 years ago and today there are 7 churches. The church that Bio works with is about 10 years old and has about 150 members. It was great to meet the other missionaries in the city some who have dedicated 25 years of their life to the work. It was good to see mature churches with trained national leaders and preachers. It was also good to ask the missionaries for advice as they remembered back to their first year on the field and all the many adjustments. Recife also has its first AIM (Adventures in Missions) team, which is the missionary apprentice program that I went to Ecuador with. They had just arrived and Alicia and I were able to spend a evening with them and encourage them in their language learning. We also learned so much about Brazilian life from Bio and Daisy. Alicia was able to learn some new Brazilian recipes. We were able to ask alot of questions about the Brazilian mindset and get some well informed answers. We got a lot more than we bargained for and took a lot of videos that we showed to our team at the next team meeting. Note: The picture is at the harbour in downtown Recife. Bio is squatting in the middle, Daisy is behind him, Jasmine their daughter is with Alicia. Hannah the other daughter is in front of the Downings, the other family that work with Bio.

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