Salvador Porters: June 2009

Finishing Classes

Tonight was the final class of an 8 week series I have been teaching up at the building. It is part of an effort to reach out the community and create more opportunities to people about God. I have used our evangelistic Bible studies as the basis for the class. Although the class has not had our desired result of attracting mostly non-Christians, I have enjoyed the class immensely. The first time I taught the class we had a hard time keeping up consistency, but this time was completely different. Early on we settled in with about eight people, one of them being one of our members and another being a seeker from our neighborhood.

The classes have been very lively. Each week we worked through my basic outline and each week our discussions led us beyond my outline into discussions about who God is and how we are able to live with Him in relationship. Tonight as everyone was leaving I felt a little sadness. Over these eight weeks we have grown together and shared much of ourselves. I am sad we don’t have next week to look forward to be together again.

It has been a great class and I pray God’s blessings on all those who came. I pray the most for Othon who came out of curiosity and has now received the seeds of the Gospel. I pray they will grow and that he will be open for more opportunities to journey together on this road.

Couples Night

One of the great (and sometimes confusing) things about being a missionary in a foreign country is the holiday schedule. While we cannot celebrate them all (we would never get any work done) it can work to our advantage.

Some of the holidays are the same (Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day). Some are close. For example our state celebrates both the national independence day and its own independence from Portugal. The state independence day is on July 2, close to both Canadian and the US independence days (July 1 & 4). Of course there are some holidays new to us because we are living in Brazil now (i.e. Tira Dentes – literally “to pull teeth” celebrating a dentist important in Brazil’s independence) and some that we miss all together (I totally missed Memorial day this year). But every now and then we get to celebrate some holidays twice. Such was the case last night.

Because we were on furlough this year Jennifer and I got to celebrate Valentine’s Day like most of you in February, and because our furlough ended before June, we also got to celebrate it in Brazil too. To celebrate we invited all the couples we have at church over to the house for a night of burgers and a movie. In the end we had 8 couples, including one of Travis and Alicia’s neighbors.

It was a great night. I made “American Hamburgers,” which simply means I made the hamburger patties by hand and cooked them on a grill (most hamburgers here are bought pre-made and are cooked on a griddle). Jennifer made her wonderful potato salad and we ate to our hearts content. We watched Baz’s new movie Australia starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman.

Here are a few of the pictures from the night.