so here we are back in the states, a week after arriving from brazil, and the question being thrown out is "how was brazil?"

our initial expectation was to start a college outreach program. little did we know, it was going to be so much bigger than that. that's when the zinger comes in. God wanted us to go to continue on the mission that capela da graça has been carrying out, by serving and encouraging them to stay on course with their vision. physically we painted their church and visited the university campus to hang out with students and pass out flyers for Verticality, the friday night shindig. but in terms of spiritual growth, we gave them a brand new church on the outside and ignited a new light for a demographic of the church in londrina that has received little attention. most of us encountered complete strangers at Verticality that had no idea capela existed and/or ever step foot into a church. these people expressed that they never thought that church could be like capela was and that they would come back.  glory to God. 

the church scene in brazil is mainly composed of catholic and pentecostal churches, but those who do not go to church feel as though they are not welcome because of their lifestyle or decisions made throughout their lives.  to have a church that is open to families, singles, beggars, prostitutes, drug addicts and college students is a very far fetched concept for the brazilians.  a good analogy to the mission of capela is simply jesus's life:  nobody is judged that walks through the door.  they are greeted with open arms.  worship can be done with anyone and everyone.  capela ultimately is trying to fulfill the will of Jesus:  "love God, love each other, and share my message to the world."  

although our mission was very influential to the members of capela, we are but a single brush stroke on the canvas that capela wants to paint for brazil.  during our morning discussions, our group understood this concept and we all feel like we can do more. we all truly still want to be a part of capela's mission and their congregation.  the friendships and connections we made with the members of capela will last forever and we dont want to lose them.  a lot of us have been on mission trips before, but for some reason, this one was more than just a mission trip.  something felt different when we started saying our goodbyes at the atlanta airport.  God brought us together for his purpose and truly reached us in a way that we never thought possible.  a group of 19 complete strangers that met back in november have meshed to form an incredible family built through Christ.  if it was up to us, we would have probably all stayed in londrina forever.  when we left, we left friends, a beautiful church, and a part of ourselves.  

for those who have been keeping up with us and the blog, our message to you is to continue being involved with capela da graca and missions in general.  the amount of spiritual growth that we experienced was immense and is incredible to see the way God works within a weeks time.  we want everyone to have the experience we had.  it is very easy to listen to stories and imagine what we felt, but you can only grasp the work of Christ by experiencing it first hand.  we hope to one day to get our  newfound family together again and spread the word of God, be it through brazil or any other part of the world.   thank you to everyone who supported and followed us throughout this incredible journey and we urge you to carry out the will of Jesus.  much love and God bless.

LOTS of pictures of our trip:

http://fierrogt.smugmug.com/Travel

Video of our trip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcBpgWiWsWU

    

The past few exhausting days.

Thursday.

Paint.

More Paint.

1:30 a.m. Paint.

Friday.

University.

Preparation.

Concert.

John Mayer.

Switchfoot.

Stevie Ray Vaughn.

David Crowder.

Free Food.

Loud Music.

Juice.

Good-byes.

Early Morning.

5 Minute Bus Ride.

Hour Long Flight.

São Paulo.

Breakfast.

8 Hour Flight.

Movies.

Turbulence.

Sleep.

Miami.

Berries.

Duke Won.

Much Love.

the pieces are coming together

good morning! we have been telling you a lot about what we've been doing in londrina, but we wanted to give you a snapshot of our vision and our purpose here.

yesterday, eight of us were planning on going to the university to connect with students and invite them to the friday night extravaganza. around noon, we separated into two cars and headed there. in one car, our good friend edu was driving rafael, morgan, allison, and emily burns. we started talking about random stuff on the way there, but burns asks edu if he had anything going on that day such as work. edu said that he was done for that day. shocked, we asked if he works a couple of hours a day. he had cancelled his appointments for the rest of the day [he's a dentist]. humbly, we thanked him and thanked him but he quickly said, "no no no, thank you for cancelling your appointments and coming to spend this week here with us." wow wow wow! talk about encouragement. we were wrecked for the rest of the day. it completely captured our vision:

God is already doing amazing things here in londrina and through capela da graça. we are here to equip, encourage, and continue the mission that they have established. we are not here to create a new mission but to strengthen their existing vision.


with that in mind, yesterday was a step closer to fulfilling this vision and mission. early afternoon while half of us continued to paint, the other half went to uel [universidade estaduao de londrina] to have lunch with the students as well as invite them to the friday night gathering. we did so by walking around the campus and having conversations with people we came across. some of us even got to sit in an english class. later on in the day, a second group went to an english school [cultura inglesa] to encourage the students, answer any of their questions, as well as invite them to the gathering.

THE PIECES ARE COMING TOGETHER!

mad props to everyone else in the group for doing their part. thanks spirtual development team for our inspirational morning devotions. thanks project team for getting everything ready and leading the group with the painting. thanks encouragement team for all that you are doing and your words that lift us. thanks accounting team for keeping up with the expenditure.

guess what! yesterday was emily bedenbaugh's birthday and we sang happy birthday at least twelve times and she had the honor of wearing a crown. they made her a pineapple and dates cake with coconut frosting. mm mm delicious!

so now we're off to continue working. please keep praying for capela da graça and what God is doing and will do through them.

much love

[pictures will be posted tonight]

pens in the hands of the Author

We forgot to add this in for yesterday's blog entry but we had an amazing opportunity to play soccer with the Brazilians! Of course we looked really bad (excluding Mr. Ryan "awesome" VanStick) but we did our best to compete with them. Unfortunately, the first couple games were guys only, but we eventually got the girls into play. After the games were over, we mingles some more and kept establishing great relationships with the members of Capela. AND EMILY BURNS ARRIVED!!! Our beloved surrogate mother arrived in Londrina late last night and we all stayed up to greet her.

Now on to today. Woke up, ate, had our spiritual development discussion in the beautiful park by the hotel and quickly got to the church for a full day of hard labor. It was hot. The team was broken up into separate tasks and we got a lot accomplished. We repaired parts of the main stage that were poorly supported, cleaned and prepared the exterior of the church and began the arduous task of painting the church. Emily and Kendra were missed as they were working all day on beautiful new designs for different aspects of the church. The new sign on the front of the building, the pamphlet for Friday's concert, a sign that has the church's schedule of the week on it and two other signs with the new Capela logo on them. In all, it was a very productive day. A few of the members of the church dropped by occasionally to see what was going on.

Please continue to pray for Brazil.

much love

boa noite

a picture is worth a thousand words... [i think a video is too]

capela da graça

bom dia! [good morning!]

The day started a little different than the day before; we had a team breakfast.  We took over the breakfast area in volume and capacity. Right afterwards, we walked over to the church to encourage, serve, and dance at Kid+ [Their version of KidStuf]. It was amazing! [It feels like we use the word to describe everything, but it describes it well].  Afterwards we got a brief city tour of Londrina.  We drove past countless buildings but all of a sudden it turned into a beautiful natural setting. Amazing! We got to the place where we had lunch and little did we know that we were about to eat lunch with the most beautiful, countryside, green, amazing scenery right behind our table. The food was unbelievable as well as the company. Some of the Brazilians joined us. After that incredible lunch we decided to venture outside.  The surrounding area was scattered with different kinds of fruit trees and gardens.  One area that we really enjoyed were the hammocks in this large shaded area.  If we had more time, we definitely would have had a siesta here.  Instead, we had some siesta time at our hotel so we could digest the massive amount of amazing food we ate.  Some took naps and some took advantage of the pool, but we all met later to have a quick devotion and discussion.  After the devotion we headed back to the church.  All of our team looked so nice.  The worship service began around 7:30 and was filled with passionate praise and worship music in portuguese and an amazing message by Paulo.  Following the worship service, we headed off to a pizza parlor that broke the norm in terms of toppings for pizza.  These were some of the pizzas we ate: beef stroganoff, corn, egg, lady finger peppers, ice cream, filet mignon, and hearts of palm.  Yes we tried all of them and some of us were daring enough to eat the lady fingers.  Bad idea. They were hot. We were there for a good three hours, talking and getting to know the Brazilians. And that is when we barely got back to the hotel and crashed.

Thank you so much for your prayers. We would ask that you please continue to pray for God to move through the college campus.

much love

toda terra seca solo fértil então será

hello everybody.

we just got back to the hotel not too long ago. our minds are shutting down. this will be a short one. but fear not, in a few hours, we will be waking up to eat breakfast and write a full recap of today's activities.

much love

oi, meu nome é...

What an amazing first day. Started the day off with an glorious Brazilian breakfast. Some of us were brave and energetic enough to go for a jog while others went for a walk. 

In terms of first impressions, the Brazilians are the most welcoming and friendly people we have every met. When we first went to the church this morning, we were greeted with open arms and awkward kisses to both cheeks. The looks on some of our faces were priceless. We were worried that there would be a huge language barrier to overcome, but to our surprise most of the congregation knows some english. Once introductions were made, we had the chance to see the rehearsal for the children's worship service. They were incredibly energetic!

We returned to Golden Blue Hotel Express to have a quick devotion and were very encouraged for the upcoming activities and work [such as painting the front facade of Capela da Graça] that will take place this week. Guess what! We went back to the church for {Insideout{ Brasil but words cannot express the intensity that ensued, so check out the video below.

Afterwards, we, and a few Brazilians, went to the best hot-dog joint in the world. Arnaldo's! It was like joy wrapped in bread.

side note [a.k.a. raf calls it a tangent] - Arnaldo is the founder (hence its title). He started selling hot-dogs from a little cart. It was such a hit, that he opened a restaurant. But that was not enough. People still wanted more. So there are now 40 franchises in the state of Paraná (the state in which Londrina is located for those who did not do so well in geography).

Back to our story. Joy in bread. Ate a lot. Smiles. Juices. More Smiles. Amazing. Delicious.

Heading back to the hotel, we almost got hit by a compact car.

another "tangent" - raf says we were ok as long as we were traveling in a pack, but there was still panic in the air.

Now we are chilling at the hotel, getting ready for tomorrow. We hope you guys have a great evening. Please continue to pray for Brazil, for us, and for the bigger picture.

much love

p.s. 

morgan says "hey mom and dad"

kendra says she loves her family please stop worrying grandma

jessica says "grandma i know you're reading this, don't worry please"

john says "yeah"

tomas says "hey ya!"

kyle says "holla!"

sam and charlie says "shout out to biff and biff's mom." and sam also says "hey to family, friends, and girlfriend."

meagan says "shout out to jeffrey. we're playing pool next time i see you. you're going down because i got some practice."

mallory says "i love my family."

em says "i love my family and shout out to my brother matt. you're missing an amazing trip."

_____________________________________

quote of the day: "I could talk to a wall all day but I can't talk to a wall that doesn't speak English." -Meagan

cultural shock of the day: at capela da graça, a young brazilian man came to greet everyone [by the way, when men and women are greeting, they kiss on the cheek]. he greeted the girls according to his culture, but when he greeted lisa, she quickly pulled away from the friendly kiss. after a few failed attempts, he gave up and awkwardness was in the air.

word of the day: Obrigado/Obrigada - thank you