Thursday, May 17, 2007
Andrew's trip to Belem - 10-14 May 2007
My visit to the Marambaia Presbyterian Church was a delight - no surprise there, given the excellent few days we spent with the same congregation last July. This church, and its sisters in Belem, has a lovely combination of solid doctrine, seriousness regarding the kingdom, fervent, joyful praise and a sense of fun and relaxedness.
I spoke on Ephesians, viewing the book as an appeal not to return to the magic or spiritist practices of the past. This approach not only makes sense of so much in the book, in the way of odd vocabulary (mystery, celestial realms, principalities and powers etc.) and thus (incidentally) defending pauline authorship, but it is also a very resonant reading in our context in Brazil. The titles were: The Eternal Plan (chap 1), The Supernatural Transformation (chap 2:1-4) The Ideal Community (chaps 2 - 6) and The Spiritual Battle (chaps 4 - 6). The response was most encouraging.
The soldier was guarding the plane at Marabá, site of the world's largest iron mine. I am not sure why we needed quite such lethal looking weaponry.
The bridge at Marabá
Rain forest coming in to Belem
Belem
Arrival - the Ver-o-Peso market, ships of all sizes, and the runway.
Groups at the Marambaia Presbyterian Church
Pastor Joesley and Telma, Pedro, Ana-Paula and Ana-Carolina
Evening congregation
Group for expository ministry traning, on the Saturday
Stall working on Mothers' Day Gifts, in a Belem shopping centre.
In one of Belem's excellent markets...
A shrimp man - the hat was donned especially for the photo.
Brazil nuts...
with...
and without their cases. The cannon-ball-like fruit that contain the nuts are heavy and hard: the Belem botanical gardens has a wonderful sign near a massive Brazil Nut tree - Caution, Dangerous Fruit! In Brazil the Brazil Nut is the Castanha do Pará - named after the state where it is most common, whose capital is Belem.
At left, Uxi. Have forgotten the name of the fruit on the right.
Pupunha
In its natural state...
and cooked.. water and salt and a little butter. Nutty and delicious!
An older part of the market
Cacau - chocolate!
Cupuaçu - the king of tropical fruit. For me, cupuaçu is one of the world's greatest flavours. I had some every day in Belem - and brought back frozen pulp and two fruits, plus sweets and biscuits. However, we need to get some perspective on this "exotic" thing...
On Wednesday night I made up a cupuaçu milk-shake to have with my tea. Then salami from Lages, and bread, cheese and ham. Then what?? Must be bread and jam. I opened a jar of Tollerton Post Office Homemade Blackcurrant Jam. What an exotic, amazing taste! If I had been born up the Amazon, with Cupuaçu, Graviola, Uxi, Bacuri, Murici, Açaí, Araça and all the rest, strawberries, blackcurrants and apples would be fascinating. Exotic doesn't mean better, just different!
Wire mousetraps
Poultry and song bird shop
Flying home...
A child's paper kite stuck to the side of our airbus delayed our take-off from Marabá on the return trip to Florianópolis, via Brasília.
My visit to the Marambaia Presbyterian Church was a delight - no surprise there, given the excellent few days we spent with the same congregation last July. This church, and its sisters in Belem, has a lovely combination of solid doctrine, seriousness regarding the kingdom, fervent, joyful praise and a sense of fun and relaxedness.
I spoke on Ephesians, viewing the book as an appeal not to return to the magic or spiritist practices of the past. This approach not only makes sense of so much in the book, in the way of odd vocabulary (mystery, celestial realms, principalities and powers etc.) and thus (incidentally) defending pauline authorship, but it is also a very resonant reading in our context in Brazil. The titles were: The Eternal Plan (chap 1), The Supernatural Transformation (chap 2:1-4) The Ideal Community (chaps 2 - 6) and The Spiritual Battle (chaps 4 - 6). The response was most encouraging.
The soldier was guarding the plane at Marabá, site of the world's largest iron mine. I am not sure why we needed quite such lethal looking weaponry.
The bridge at Marabá
Rain forest coming in to Belem
Belem
Arrival - the Ver-o-Peso market, ships of all sizes, and the runway.
Groups at the Marambaia Presbyterian Church
Pastor Joesley and Telma, Pedro, Ana-Paula and Ana-Carolina
Evening congregation
Group for expository ministry traning, on the Saturday
Stall working on Mothers' Day Gifts, in a Belem shopping centre.
In one of Belem's excellent markets...
A shrimp man - the hat was donned especially for the photo.
Brazil nuts...
with...
and without their cases. The cannon-ball-like fruit that contain the nuts are heavy and hard: the Belem botanical gardens has a wonderful sign near a massive Brazil Nut tree - Caution, Dangerous Fruit! In Brazil the Brazil Nut is the Castanha do Pará - named after the state where it is most common, whose capital is Belem.
At left, Uxi. Have forgotten the name of the fruit on the right.
Pupunha
In its natural state...
and cooked.. water and salt and a little butter. Nutty and delicious!
An older part of the market
Cacau - chocolate!
Cupuaçu - the king of tropical fruit. For me, cupuaçu is one of the world's greatest flavours. I had some every day in Belem - and brought back frozen pulp and two fruits, plus sweets and biscuits. However, we need to get some perspective on this "exotic" thing...
On Wednesday night I made up a cupuaçu milk-shake to have with my tea. Then salami from Lages, and bread, cheese and ham. Then what?? Must be bread and jam. I opened a jar of Tollerton Post Office Homemade Blackcurrant Jam. What an exotic, amazing taste! If I had been born up the Amazon, with Cupuaçu, Graviola, Uxi, Bacuri, Murici, Açaí, Araça and all the rest, strawberries, blackcurrants and apples would be fascinating. Exotic doesn't mean better, just different!
Wire mousetraps
Poultry and song bird shop
Flying home...
A child's paper kite stuck to the side of our airbus delayed our take-off from Marabá on the return trip to Florianópolis, via Brasília.
# posted by Andrew and Cora @ 10:59:00 am 
