Viva Brazil!

We finally left Easter Island a day late. When we arrived in Santiago we realized why operations had been limited. Huge wedding tents were up, luggage was being picked of trolleys outside, temporary check ins and offices were everywhere. But things went smoothly. We saw some damage, and although there was a lot, it wasn’t obviously structural. Windows had fallen out, air conditioning ducts had dropped through ceilings, but no collapsed buildings that we could see. We were pleasantly surprised to see our luggage come round the carousel when we got to Sao Paulo!

What an amazing sight to behold as we flew towards Sao Paulo! There was city after city, with only 10-20 miles between them. Some very large by our standards, but many the size of Hamilton probably. I was amazed. Then we flew over Sao Paulo. Wow!! What a huge city. 18 million people or so. High rise apartments everywhere, but still many single level houses, and downtown was a maze of skyscrapers. What a vast metropolis.

We had to wait a while at the airport before we left by van to the conference venue so I thought I'd treat my wife (and myself of course) to a coffee. I spied a coffee shop and using my vast knowledge of the Portugese language, I ordered 2 Lates (Leite - close?). Well it was close, but they came without coffee! Just hot milk. My first faux pas, but learnt something!

The Conference has been great. Meeting up with friends from around the world and making new ones. The emphasis has been “Living the Kingdom” and has been very practical heart challenging stuff. If we don’t live it, every day, in our homes, we can’t preach it. Programs have minimal effect if our lives aren’t a living expression of our message. Christ incarnate! We have had some wonderful free worship times where the Africans have led out in dance. Great stuff. Of course the Brazilians are quick to join in as they are such passionate, celebratory people who live from the heart.

We have been for some walks. The footpaths are interesting! Yes there has been some free time. It has been one of the most relaxed conferences we have been to. Kingdom lifestyle I guess! The beach is a short distance from the hotel. We went swimming the other day. The sea is quite brown but very warm. I have mastered the art of putting used toilet paper in the bucket instead of down the toilet! And I think I now know why we are not allowed to put paper in the toilet. So we don’t have to fight the paper while swimming!

The hotel is on a river. They have some paddle boats which I have not seen anyone on. The river is very brown and not inviting at all, but at least we can see the water. A little further downstream the river is completely covered in weed. There are jetties for boats to pull up to, but you can’t even see the water! But we walked past this area last night and the weeds were blinking at us! Seems like there are glowing insects, fire flies or something, on the weed and these little lights were flashing on and off all over like a Christmas tree. Quite pretty.

Jesus seems to be a household word here. Moving trucks have “Jesus” signwritten across the back. His name is in all sorts of places. He is even the supreme mudflap! Kind of nice, but to be honest, when you are out walking, you sense anything but Jesus in the spirit of the place. I am told that there is a lot of religion without relationship, which is of course sad. But those who know Jesus are sure passionate for Him. They are a beautiful people.

We’ve had a great time here. One of the best conferences we’ve been to. Specific and excellent input challenging heart issues, with scheduled time for processing and planning implementation. But relaxed at the same time. Caught up on some sleep, and tried not to let the abundant food supplied catch up on us! Not much coffee around though.

On Sabbatical!!

Mar 1-4, Tahiti
What an amazing time we are having in Tahiti. Naomi was not at the airport to meet us. She is still in New Caledonia we have discovered. But her family (sister and brother in law) were there. We have been so welcomed by these precious people and spoilt absolutely rotten. We have eaten so much it is not funny. We've been trying to give them money for things and buy thing before they pay for them but they haven't let us. Today we shared in the ladies group that Naomi's sister runs in her house and they took up an offering for us which almost doubled the money we brought with us! Crazy!! We'll get them back somehow.

Naomi’s sister has a friend down the road who drives a 1 month old Dodge Ram Big Horn. Big V8 motor and you need a ladder to get into it! She has driven us all over the island, a couple of times! What an amazingly generous and humble woman of God. She tells me the vehicle cost 7million Pac Francs, which is around NZ$135,000! Meanwhile we are staying in a house which has no shower, but a tub under a cold tap with a cup in it you use to splash yourself and wash the soap off when you’ve lathered up. I’m sure the house we are in wouldn’t be worth as much as the truck! But the truck owner’s house is much nicer. He’s a builder and we visited his work site. What an amazing building he is creating, clinging to the side of a hill with about a 60 degree slope. He clearly knows what he is doing. He is yet to come to the Lord, but he’s a lovely guy. Gille is his name if you care to pray for him.

We are doing a lot of sleeping! Long nights and afternoons as well. Sleeping off all the food we are eating! We discovered a word they use here in French which means "eat, eat, eat." It's "mangere" pronounced the French way! (Mon-j-air)Can you believe it? Not sure that it’s spelt exactly like that, but it sounds like it. It became a bit of a joke. We were constantly stopping to try another tasty morsel someone was selling on the roadside.

Chris is fine. I have not been too well today. Mainly stomach problems. Just eating too much and different I think, along with the tiredness from recent weeks catching up with me! Hence all the sleeping. But I feel a bit better now that I have had a sleep this afternoon and refused to eat too much tonight. We have been amazed at the abundance and generosity of God expressed through His creation here in Tahiti. Everything is huge! Saw a palm today with leaves virtually coming out of the ground and they were 6 metres tall at least! Massive. But we have also noticed the people express the abundance and generosity of God. We saw so much of the Father in them. What a privilege. The family had two cute little girls, 6 and 4 yrs old. They adopted us as Papa and Mama cause they don’t have grandparents. The fact that we couldn’t understand a word they said nor they us didn’t seem to concern them a bit. Love crosses all boundaries I guess.

Mar 4-7, Easter Island
We are having an awesome time. Only two of our three flights so far have been cancelled so I guess we can't complain. The earthquake in Chile caused the terminal at Santiago where we are heading to implode apparently, and they are working from tents. So apparently they are restricting the number of flights allowed in as a result. We went to the airport in Rapanui (Easter Island) to check in and found a sign on the door telling us to come back tomorrow. That makes us a day late in Brazil for our conference, if they remember to change our connection bookings as well that is! We tried calling the airline today to make sure that they had sorted them out but got nowhere fast, so I guess we just have to trust them, or God.

We have been blessed by local hospitality in both places and it has been wonderful. Easter Island is amazing with its history of the Rapanui people, who speak maori and spanish. We stayed with a NZ guy Marc with his Rapanui wife Tuhi and their boy Heki’i. He took us on a guided tour around the island. We hired a car and bounced around the island. We only had to use 4 wheel drive to get up the drive to his house though. I am sure they can't be much better than African roads. But time will tell. The Moai or statues are amazing. The biggest one standing is 8.6m high and weighs 84 tonne! They carved these things out of the side of the rock hill then moved them hundreds of metres to where they stand, on top of a platform under which the king that they represent is buried. Ingenious people. They reckon it would have taken 20 people working full time for a whole year on one to create it. They carved the things with lumps of slightly harder rock they held in their hand! And how many people it then took to move them and how they moved them is still a matter of contention. You can understand that when there were 13,000 people living on this small island, there wouldn't have been much for the men to do. So at least creating moais would have occupied them. There are 867 or something of these things around the island in various places, many never having made it to their destinations. They remain standing on the side of the hill, broken in the middle of fields etc. Really fascinating place. There was a time in 1870 when the population got as low as 117 people because of a number of factors including civil war, pillage of people to Peru for slavery, and small pox which had been introduced by the return of some of these people. It's been a sad journey for these precious people. They are just like the Maori. We feel right at home.

When we came here we said, “God, we want to see you in Easter Island because we know you have been here long before the arrival of people from other lands.” We have been impressed with the evidence of eternity in their hearts and their search for God as we have studied their history in the local museum, talked with local people, and observed the artifacts of their customs and history as we have traveled the island. They believed that they gained mana (strength and blessing) by making these moai and erecting over the gravesite of their former chief. The Bible says that if we honour our parents we will live a long full life and be blessed. Same thing in different words. Later in their history they began what is described as the birdman cult. They had had a period of civil war and almost wiped themselves out, so replaced the warring for supremacy with a competition (not rugby!). Each tribal chief had a runner who competed on his behalf against the runners of the other tribes (12 in all!). They believed that doing this gave the creator God Makemake the opportunity to choose, and the chief whose runner won was then shaved from head to foot and went into utter seclusion for one year to spend time meditating and “hearing from God” on behalf of the people. Only the high priests were allowed to go near him, speak to him, listen to him or feed him. They would relay their messages to the people and he would rule from this place of seclusion until the next competition. Some amazing stuff.

Sadly the Gospel did not come to the island until just a few years ago. The Catholic Church (non-evangelical model) came in but without the Gospel of a relationship longing Father God. Until today, there has been only one Church building on the island, and that is Catholic. We witnessed the dedication of a new evangelical Church built by a Brazilian AOG Mission today. It was great. But the Catholics are very cautious about this “sect.” It is sad to think that after centuries of searching for God they have been duped with religion about God, and continue in so many of their old distorted beliefs and wallow in alcohol and drug problems, with no understanding of the victory that has been won for them, while believing they are believers. It is almost as if they have been inoculated against the Gospel now, whereas in the past they would have been hungry for it. Please hear me right. I have many wonderful Catholic friends who love God and would have brought the Gospel had they came!