Sunday In the Southern Hemisphere

Today was an excellent day! We participated with the Igreja Comunidade de Cristo in various ways. We were part of the English service, which was more of a class preceded by singing and with opening and closing prayers. Between the praying, scripture reading, and song leading, all six of the adults on our team had a part, which helped people to get to know us. We had an interesting discussion on the Transfiguration, which at home would be pretty standard fare. Here some Spiritualists claim it gives support to seances and contacting the spirits of the dead. Wow! Who would have thought of such? Not I.

Then we went to the regular worship time, which was in Portuguese. The singing went pretty well since the words were projected and the song leader was good. The man in front of me turned and told me what scripture was being read. The young woman beside me told what was happening next. Then she offered to translate the sermon for me! I was delighted. Josh and Gina accepted translators,too. I was amazed at how quickly she could tell me what had just been said while still listening to what he was saying. About half-way through the sermon, I started putting two and two together, and just as I was ready to ask her, she whispered, “You do know that that’s my dad, don’t you?” Just what I was ready to ask.

After church we ate with a long table of Christians at a mall food court. Then two families took all of us to the fort that was built by the Portuguese in 1598. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed a leisurely look at the fort with pleasant companions. I’m going to have to use Steve’s laptop to load some pictures to show Finn with his new little friend, Philippe. They were quite a pair, shepherded, of course, by Kinley and Knox. A full day for all of us.

We are cooking our meals in the apartment to stay on budget, so then some of us walked to get groceries–a 55-minute wait in line to check out. Gives perspective on our Kroger lines!

Overall, an inspiring day with lovely people. And it was the first time in years that Steve has had both of his children with him on Father’s Day, so that made it even better.