banhocheiroso

Prainha, Friday June 17, 2005

After going to Minas Gerais with Fernando, Cleber and Rafael for the 2nd Reformed Baptist Congress, we have been wanting to work harder at maintaining fellowship and links of encouragement with these three Bible Baptists from our own town. One way was to combine our own Friday night meeting from time to time with their meeting in the Prainha, the favela on the island where Cleber lives, and where the Forquilhinhas Bible Baptist Church has a congregation. This we did last night. We were a somewhat reduced group – Cora having just completed three days of exams was quite exhausted, and Alberto has just started a short course affecting Friday nights. Marquito and Anna were also unavailable. But I went with Alex and Sara, Timóteo and Lídia, and Ronaldo. Fernando asked me to speak, which I did from Eph 2:1-10. A good time. Many, many children – typical of work in a favela in any part of Brazil. As ever, food and drink and chat “after” the meeting are actually a very important part of the meeting. As was much hi-jinking in the street outside with the children.