Brazil 18 - Some of What I've Learnt

An old friend asked me if I'd learnt anything in Brazil. This was my reply...

I suppose the biggest thing has been something of what it means to trust God without holding onto any material things. But also a lot about people - about how women are still house-proud when all they have is a one-room shack, how ugly society can get when material advancement is prioritised at the expense of everything else, the way that corruption can lead to so much suffering and yet the people who own virtually nothing and live in an illegally-erected shack which is semi-permanently a foot deep in dirty water are often happier than those who are working 70 or 80 hour weeks with the luxury beachside appartments. Except when they've watched one or both of their parents be murdered - that seems to upset people quite a lot, but I've even seen hope for them.

I've seen the difference that one woman can make to individual lives and to an area by planting a church on a rubbish dump where the human life expectancy is 26 and where people thought of themselves as little more than cockroaches. I've seen the way that witchcraft always seems to take hold in the lowest places, and something of the way that Jesus can break that hold.

So yes, I've learnt quite a bit. ;o)

Brazil 17 - Andressa Duarte

I've been in Brazil for 5 and a half weeks now, and I think I've been shown this video 5 times. It's well worth watching, and it's only 5 minutes or so.

For those who don't speak Portuguese (like me!), here's a translation:

Life is a countdown...

Hope, framed in the smile

the mission, engraved in the heart

forever

Sunday - Public Evangelism

And on Sundays, the radio, I start with the devotional.

there's some time for the children, where I tell them some stories,

then later, there are prizes,

and this is the schedule for every Sunday.

Monday - Witnessing

[Andressa Duarte Barragana - 14 years old] Monday, I study in the morning...

and in the afternoon we do a lot of missionary work.

Tuesday - Humanitarian Help and Bible Class

Tuesday, I visit the nursing home.

There we sing, pray, we play...

There are some people, that are so lonely, you know?

they really open their hearts to us.

Wednesday - Social Work

Wednesday we get together at my house,

to work with the community co-op.

We do decoupage, roofing tile decoration,

We do... glass work, picture-framing, we decorate refrigerator magnets,

lots of arts and crafts

'cause the families that work at the co-op are very poor families.

Friday - Intercessory Prayer

Friday, I started a group for intercessory prayer.

So each kid gets these prayer requests, that comes from several churches,

and pray for the name they get on that little piece of paper.

The intercessory prayer, it's very interesting, because

many requests were already answered through our prayers, you know?

Because there is power in prayer.

Sabbath - Personal Evangelism

On Sabbath I wake up a little earlier and invite some kids to go to church

So, that's what my week is like.

HER MINISTRY

On that Sabbath, the same week, I was baptized, then next Thursday I started the small group.

The first person that I went to was Robert. I told him,

Robert, you're going to be very important for this small Group, Robert.

One would take the roll call, the other was a deacon, the other a receptionist, the other a deaconess,

the other would distribute the handouts,

but, every one that had a position there,

they had to bring 2 friends.

So, the number of children was increasing.

From 10 to 20, then 25... today there are about 45 kids there.

The interesting thing is that through my small group it was possible to do all these missionary work.

I'm a normal kid, because

I study, I play, when I have time. I enjoy my parents,

Hang out with my sisters...

Jesus give us 24 hours.

If we take 1 hour to do missionary work,

distribute a pamphlet, a bible study course,

...because... Jesus is coming,

He is showing the signs, the prophecies.

All that is being fulfilled

If we don't do our part now,

If we want to do it tomorrow, maybe there will be no time.

and there was no more time

March 22th, 2008. 7:15 am, Sabbath - Pelotas/RS/Brazil. Last day of Easter Week.

While Andressa was on her way to preach at her church, her car crashed into a truck.

At that automobile tragedy, 4 women passed away.

Including Andressa, 14 years old.

In the little time she lived, she did much.

More than 100 people were baptized, and innumerable others were influenced by her example.

She did all she could, while she could.

How about you?

"If we don't do our part now, If we want to do it tomorrow, maybe there will be no time."

"If we don't do our part now, If we want to do it tomorrow, maybe there will be no time." Andressa Barragana (1994 - 2008)

I live for Jesus

Transcription from here, which seems to use a Creative Commons license.

Brazil 16 - Weddings

I had the privilege of attending a Brazillian wedding the other day (and even some of the reception). I hardly knew the bride or groom, so it all felt a bit odd, but thank you very much to them and the others who made that possible. Here are a few quick reflections on major differences from English weddings. Well, the ones I've been to anyway...

• Timing - Brazillian weddings are normally in the evenings. This meant that the starters at the reception (buffet) were at about 11:30pm. I left shortly before midnight, so I don't know what time the main course was.
• Dress - men were in suits and ties (which are as smart as Brazillians get - apparently it's what they wear for university graduations, but not for work). As a result, many of the suits probably fit the wearers better a few years before... Women were mostly in evening wear / ballgowns, which created a bit of an odd mix. The groom was in a smart jacket, white shirt and silver tie. Close friends of the groom were also in suits, with a matching buttonhole.
• Children - it is normal in Brazil to have a young boy dressed as the groom and a young girl dressed as the bride. They come down the aisle together and feature in some of the traditional Brazillian wedding photos. And no, they weren't the couple's kids.
• Parents - the groom enters the church with his mother before the bride enters with her father. Both sets of parents had throne-type seats on the stage, facing sideways and just behind where the bride and groom were standing. At one point all four parents gathered round the couple to pray for them.
• Photographers - I think I counted 4 official-looking photographers, and three video recordists, one of whom had a very bright light he shone at people when recording them. They were swarming all over the place, often being almost in the faces of people taking part in the service. It was not unusual to have a very restricted view of the bride and groom because of photographers.
• Official photographs - there were quite a few (including groups) taken in the church immediately after the service, but before the bride and groom processed out. The congregation sat quietly and watched.
• At one point, the bridesmaid processed up the aisle with a single rose with a ribbon tied round it. But she seemed to keep the flower and ribbon afterwards - I don't know what the point of that was.

Brazil 15 - Politics 2 - The Force of Madness

Well, it seems as if good old Nilton has pretty much stopped with the noisy vans and the flag wavers and so on, which leaves the main person doing the campaigning as being Andre Campos. In the interests of equal-opportunity blogging, I thought I'd give you some reasons not to vote for Andre "The Force of Madness" Campos...

• He is incapable of smiling (see above picture), and yet his face seems to be better than any of his policies, which aren't mentioned.
• He can't count either. There are clearly two people named on the election poster (his proposed vice-prefeito is in the small print at the bottom), but three faces. Or maybe him or his vice-prefeito is just very two-faced.
• He has the biggest and the loudest loudspeaker vans. If an Andre Campos van is driving past your block, and you have the misfortune to be on the ground floor, you can't hear loud rock music. He is therefore the least considerate of all the candidates.
• He appears to be some kind of communist (see above picture).
• As well as the forms of campaigning which never should have been legal, he still uses some of the forms of campaigning which are no longer legal, like painting on walls, which is apparently Officially Naughty now. All the people I've seen actually painting political stuff on walls (rather than political stuff that was already painted) have been painting Campos.
• In common with the other candidates, he is reported to have offered assistance to several church groups, but only if they agree to endorse him.
• The poorest area I have been to in this city had all the walls plastered with Campos slogans, which suggested he is the buyer-in-chief of the votes of the poor.

Brazil 14 - You Might be Brazillian If...

All anecdotal...

• The "sweet biscuits" section in your local supermarket is larger than the tinned / processed vegetable section and the pasta section put together, and you think this is normal.
• If you are trying to get to sleep, and there is a loud and not-especially efficient fan in the room, you would turn it on.
• You think that an acceptable way of reserving your parking space on the pavement is surrounding it with ankle-high black chains, ready for some unsuspecting numpty (me, for example) to trip over them while walking at night.
• You think that a postal service which might deliver to your house / flat every 10 days or so is normal.
• You are surprised if anyone maintains the building they live in.
• Most people you know have both black and white recent ancestry (Brazil has almost total mixing, in large part because it was founded on mixed marriages).
• Given that, you do not remark on the fact that most people on Brazillian TV programs are whiter than average, and most people in the slums are blacker than average.
• You see lots of skyscrapers every day, but have never seen a crane that builds them. (The Brazillians seem to do without, and don't seem to have the big girders in theirs. My guess is that makes them much harder to maintain, and it's much harder to tell how safe they are.)
• Faced with a choice between doing something the labour intensive way and using a machine to do it, you employ people to do it the labour-intensive way. Labour here is very cheap.
• You think that cheap plastic garden furniture is completely normal for use indoors.
• You think that the main function of canals is to dump "used water" into.
• You think that the Falklands War is really interesting, and you aren't British. (My guess - it's because Argentina lost, and the Brazillians like that).
• On entering a shared dormitory where people are already asleep, you carry on talking in a loud voice.
• Regardless of physical and financial conditions, you stay cheerful.
• You think the main purpose of fire escapes is storage.

Sermon on Matthew 14:22-33

Yesterday I found myself preaching twice, with translation into Portuguese. This is roughly what I said... The passage was Jesus walking on water from Matthew 14:22-33 because I don't think it's right for the preacher to choose the passage, and that was what the C of E lectionary said...

Today is Fathers' Day. I wonder what your memories of your fathers are like. Maybe they are bad and painful, maybe they are good. Maybe you don't remember your father. Maybe today is happy for you or maybe it is sad. But wherever we are, I think today's passage has something important to tell us about what it means for God to be our perfect Father.

I want to tell you about one memory I have of my father. I was only a boy then, and I was learning to ride a bicycle, but I was very scared of falling off. So we went to somewhere where there were not many cars, and my dad made me practice. I would try to ride the bicycle, and he would run along behind, holding it. After we had been going for a while, he told me that he often let go – that I had been riding the bicycle on my own, without him holding it.

That is one of the most important things that fathers do – they teach us how to do things and then help us feel that we can do them.

In some ways, that is very like what God does for his people in this passage, and in some ways it is very different.

To help us understand this passage more clearly, we will think about it as four events – four moments in the life of Jesus.

The first moment is that Jesus prayed. Jesus prayed. I want you to picture the scene. It is evening, the sun is setting, Jesus has sent the disciples and the crowds away, and he goes up a mountain to pray. It would be easy for me to talk here about how important prayer is – that even Jesus, God himself in human flesh, saw the need to pray to God for a long time, even until three or four o'clock in the morning. That means he was praying for about 9 hours. Jesus saw that praying was so important that he was willing to spend 9 hours praying when he could have been with his friends or sleeping. And it is critically important that we understand that, but that isn't where I would like to focus our attention this afternoon.

You see, Jesus had climbed a mountain, and was praying, while his disciples were in a storm on the lake. The Sea of Galilee, where they were, is a big lake, maybe 30 kilometers across, with a ring of mountains all around it. When Jesus was up the mountain, he would have known what the weather was like on the lake. He would have known that the disciples were in a storm, and he was praying. Quite possibly, there was a storm up on the mountain too – mountains tend to get very stormy, and yet he kept praying.

Jesus sent his disciples into a storm, and they did not know where he was. And yet he knew where they were, and he remained where he was, praying.

Is this what we feel like sometimes? Do we sometimes feel as if Jesus has sent us into a situation, and things have turned difficult, and we do not know where he is. Because that is what we see here.

It is like me as a boy riding the bike, if the first time I had been riding the bike, I turned round and suddenly could not see my father, I would have been terrified. But my father did not let go to start with, and when he did let go he kept running behind the bike so that if I looked round he would be there. He only let me ride off on my own once I felt more confident doing it.

And this is not the first time the disciples had been in a storm on the lake. In chapter 8, Jesus was with the disciples in a storm like this, but he was asleep in the boat. They woke Jesus up, he told the storm to calm down, and it was calm. They already knew that Jesus could defeat storms on the lake. But this time Jesus pushes them a bit further – it is a storm when they cannot see Jesus with them. And that is often how Jesus deals with us. He teaches us to trust him through difficult situations, then when we learn to trust him there, he teaches us to trust him in situations that are a bit more difficult. He is gentle with us – he does not give us more than we can bear.

But there is a big difference between Jesus and my father as well. When I was learning to ride a bike, the aim was that eventually I would be able to ride my bike without my father around – good earthly fathers teach us to be more and more independent from them.

But that is not what God is like, because God is not an earthly father. With earthly fathers, eventually we need to learn to be totally independent of them, and though we might still love them and respect them, we do not rely on them for everything. But with God, it is the opposite. As we grow up as Christians, we need to learn more and more to trust him in everything. We need to learn to become like little children in the way we rely on God.

So what the disciples need to learn here is that even when they cannot see Jesus with them, even when they cannot feel him with them, he is still in control and they can still trust him.

And the same is true for us. Even when it feels as if Jesus is not there, he is still in control, he still loves us, he does not abandon us, he is still praying for us – yes, Jesus, the one who made the universe by his powerful word is now praying for us with his words. He has promised always to be with us by his Spirit.

The second moment in this passage is when Jesus walks on the water. Jesus walks on the water. In the Bible, seas and lakes always represent chaos and uncertainty, especially when there is a storm. And this time, Jesus shows his complete control over the sea by just walking over it. It's far better than what the Israelites did when they came out of Egypt, when God sent a wind to make a path through the sea. Here, the wind is making the sea worse, and Jesus just walks on over it. He shows that he is totally in control. Whatever the situation is, however chaotic it is, Jesus is Lord over it.

But the disciples' first reaction is fear. They don't know what's going on, they don't understand it. And so they are afraid. And Jesus speaks to them immediately. He tells them not to be afraid, but the reason that they shouldn't be afraid isn't anything to do with his power. Jesus isn't safe. He is terrifyingly powerful, but the reason that the disciples should not be afraid is that “It is I”. The reason we should not be afraid of God is that we know what he is like. We know that he loves us. But more than that, the words Jesus uses to say “It is I” are the same words God used when he appeared to Moses in the burning bush. Jesus is saying that the disciples should not be afraid because he is the God of Israel – he is the God who has shown for centuries his love for his people and the way that he keeps his promises. We can trust God because we know what he is like, and we know that he loves us, and that he always sticks with his people.

The third moment is when Peter walks on the water. Peter walks on the water. And this is wonderful.

verse 28 “Lord, if it is you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” Peter sees Jesus' power. Peter knows that God is the sort of God who wants us to rely on him, who wants to get us out of places where we are comfortable so that we rely on him only. But at the same time, he is not mad. He does not just think that all that matters is trusting that God will help us – he knows that what matters is trusting that God will help us when we obey him. He does not just step out of the boat – he asks Jesus to tell him to step out of the boat, because when God commands us to do something, God's word is powerful and he enables us to do what he has commanded.

When I see pictures of this, or imagine it, it is almost always a lovely calm day, with still water. But this is in the middle of a storm. Peter trusts Jesus, he trusts the power of his words, that if Jesus tells him to walk on water in a storm, he can do it. What wonderful faith! What wonderful longing to be with Jesus, to lose everything that makes him comfortable!

Where are we comfortable? What is it that makes us feel that we are safe, that everything is ok? Because Jesus wants us to learn to trust him without any of that. We have to be willing to let go of it and step out on the water, trusting only Jesus.

Of course, it may well be that God sends us back to where we are comfortable, but the key is learning to trust him.

I do not know you. I don't know what you trust apart from Jesus. But I can tell you about what God has done for me over these last few weeks in Brazil.

In England, I used to be a science teacher in high school. I gave that up to go to seminary, and moved from a house to one room. But I was still comfortable there, with a lot of books and a car and a wonderful girlfriend. When I came here, I had to leave all of that behind. Normally, I love speaking in English and listening to people speak. I like to sit down and talk for a long time. But now I am in Brazil, where not many people speak much English. Almost all the things I brought with me from England have either broken or been lost for a while while I am in Brazil. There have been times when I have not been able to speak to my girlfriend, or have not been able to eat food. I am here in Brazil for 40 days, which is the length of time that Jesus spent in the desert before his ministry, and I have been learning, like Israel learnt in their 40 years in the desert, that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, and that that word is Jesus – that the bread I need to eat and the water I need to drink, that is Jesus. Jesus is what I need to survive, and nothing else.

Jesus calls us to step out, like Peter did, from where we are comfortable, and to rely on him only. But more than that, Jesus wants us to ask to step out of the boat.

Peter asks Jesus to tell him to come out of the boat. Jesus says “come”, and Peter comes out. He leaves where he felt safe, where he felt secure, where he felt comfortable, and goes to Jesus on the water. That is what the Christian faith is. That is what it means to follow Jesus.

For Peter, it is impossible. But Jesus calls him to do it and he does it, because Jesus gives us power to do the impossible.

For many of you, it will be much easier than it is for me. One of the many dangers of living somewhere like England, where people have so much, is that we have so much that we must leave and let go of before turning to Jesus.

What might we have to leave? Maybe it will be how we are comfortable in our friendships – that people think we are just like everyone else, and we need to talk about our relationship with Jesus. Maybe it will be the language we use, or the way we think about other people, or the way we treat others. Maybe what we must leave behind will be the way we think about Jesus – the way that we imagine him to be, or that we think he only loves people like us, or that he does not love people like us. I cannot tell you which area of life it is where Jesus is telling you to leave where you are comfortable and come to him – to him as he really is, as we see him in the Bible.

But the story does not end there. Peter is looking to Jesus, he is trusting Jesus, and he walks on the sea. But then he looks at the waves and the wind and he gets afraid, and he begins to sink. And in the same way, it is so easy sometimes to be distracted by how difficult it is to follow Jesus, that we stop looking at him, and we start failing. Maybe that is where some of us are today. We have been trying to follow Jesus, but we have taken our eyes off him and are sinking.

If that is us, then do as Peter did. Cry out to Jesus “save me”, and fix our eyes on Jesus, as it says in Hebrews 12:1-2
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Fourth moment – the disciples worship Jesus. The disciples worship Jesus. This is the first time in Matthew that they call Jesus the “Son of God”. Jesus has led them out of where they were comfortable, by the storm and for Peter, by walking on the water. And as a result, they see Jesus better, they know him better, they see his power more clearly, they understand more about who he is. And when it is all over, when he is in the boat, the storm dies down, they know that Jesus is with them, when it is all over, they worship Jesus.

My father let go of the bike because he knew that even though it would be difficult for me, I would need to be able to ride the bike in the future, that I would enjoy life more and could travel around more easily if I could ride a bike.

In the same way, Jesus does not just call us out of where we are comfortable and to trust him because he can. He calls us to trust him more because that way we can see him better and worship him more, and that is what we were made for. That is where we can find true joy, that is where we can live life as it was meant to be lived. knowing and worshipping the one true God through his son Jesus Christ.

So what are we going to have to let go of? What areas of comfort is God going to lead us out of? How are we going to have to ask Jesus to lead us away from where we feel comfortable, away from where we feel like we know how to live and what to do, and how to trust in him and him only?

Brazil 13 - Days of the Week

A really really random one this, but something I like about Brazil.

Many years ago, I had a brief qualm of conscience about the days of the week, because in English they are mostly named after pagan gods (e.g. Thor's Day = Thursday). I much prefer the Brazillian way - the days are as follows:

• Sunday = Domingo - the Lord's Day
• Monday = segunda-feira
• Tuesday = terca-feira
• ...
• Saturday = Sabado - Sabbath

On the other hand, "feira" is also apparently Portuguese for holiday, and it's with reference to week-long Catholic feasts.

Brazillian work patterns seem to be split into two basic types - the lazy and the complete workaholic. Among the middle classes, it isn't at all uncommon to find people who only sleep 4 or 5 hours a night and who work over 70 hours a week. Days off are almost unheard-of among the workaholics. I really wasn't expecting that, but I find it sad all the same - it seems to be tied into the whole cultural all-out capitalism thing.

Brazil 12 - Random Facts

1. In Brazil, it is almost impossible to buy gummed envelopes. This includes the kind with the peel-off strip.
2. The normal title for ministers of Protestant churches in Brazil, including the Anglican ones is "Pastor", short form "Pr". I vastly prefer that to any of the forms used in England. I don't want to be revered, I am not a father, my role as a pastor is not vicarious and it is Jesus who cures people's souls. Maybe I'll try to persuade people to use the Brazillian form...
3. Most cars in Brazil have tinted windows, which among other things means that the law on seatbelts in the back is almost totally unenforced, to the point where many car manufacturers only install fixed-length seatbelts in the back.
4. Brazillians tend to think of the beach as the main attraction in any destination. Well, most cities in Brazil were built along the beach, and many of the beaches are amazing. The national sport is, of course, football. One of the biggest Protestant denominations here allegedly bans both visiting the beach and playing football.
5. It is quite normal to see bikes with huge loudspeakers on the front and back, adding to the noise pollution.
6. Many of the oldest buildings in this area of Brazil were built originally by the Dutch

Brazil 11 - All the Way Down

Brazil is a country with virtually no social security and where politicians are famous for being corrupt. As a result, society genuinely seems to go all the way down. If human existence is possible at a given level, there will be people there, it seems, from the luxury beachside flats to scavenging with the vultures on a rubbish dump.

I used to wonder why there was no household recycling here. Now I realise that it is a mercy that there is not - recyclable material is a major source of income for those at the rubbish dump.

Here there is capitalism in a way that doesn't seem to exist in either the UK or the US. Politicians are widely viewed as corrupt, and voting is compulsory. That means that votes in the poorest areas can be essentially bought for as little as a T-shirt or $1 a day to stand by the side of a road in the hot sun waving a flag. And the politicians have very little incentive to do anything about it. Free schools in the poorest areas are apparently next to useless, and free hospitals are described by Brazillians as abattoirs. And even if the poorest children did go to school, they would still need money to survive and so have to work.

The poverty here is shocking. And without the poorest children having access to good schools, there seems to be little to keep them from following in the same poverty as their parents. Brazil is the country with the biggest financial difference between rich and poor in the world, and it doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. Keeping the poor poor keeps their votes cheap.

Now I think I understand something of the oppression of the poor, and a tiny bit of God's anger against it.

Brazil 10 - How to Preach to Internationals

I'm currently a foreigner, or as we tend to say in England (for no apparent reason except that it takes the word away from the Communists) an international. And I've been listening to a lot of sermons. With that in mind, I thought I'd give some tips for how to preach to people who don't speak the language very well.

1. Give important Bible references (like the main passage being preached on) slowly and clearly, and repeat it.
2. Don't mumble.
3. Make your main points clear, and in simple language.
4. Ideally, have something written with points on, whether a handout or a powerpoint or something. This means that in language with either bizarre accents and complex rules (like Brazillian Portuguese) or with only limited correlation between spelling and pronunciation (like English) people can look the words up in a dictionary. I tend to carry one everywhere here.
5. If you get into a phase of shouting very fast, don't expect people to follow you.
6. Slow down in important bits.
7. Use language similar to the Bible passage.
8. Have clear sentences of application or main teaching points, and preach so that a good proportion of people there could tell you what the sentence was 5 minutes after the talk.

Brazil 9 - Football / Futebol / Idolatry

My host (and some of his family) very kindly took me to see a football game the other day. It was Santa Cruz v Campinese in the Brazillian 3rd division. Tickets, by the way, cost about £10 for a good seat, or about £2 for a standing place.

Santa Cruz seem to be a lot like Manchester United, except without the money and Sir Alec. In other words, they used to be successful, but have dropped two divisions in the last two years and are most notable for having the largest stadium in this bit of Brazil (though some of it is being refurbished, and other bits are closed due to having been trashed) and for being very nasty to opponents, often using Hell-type imagery.

This is the so-called "Inferno Coral", where the hardest-core fans stand. Note that in Portuguese, "Inferno" means "Hell". Lots of songs about doing nasty things to their opponents... Lots of drums, jumping, and waving big flags too. At times the whole area looked like a living organism, because everyone was jumping to the beat of the drums.

This is the top worn by many in the Inferno Coral. Note the loving attitude it displays to his fellow man. The snake, by the way, is the emblem of the club, but it doesnt't usually carry guns. Note how incongruous the state flag (at the top, with the cross and the rainbow) looks, just like Christians wearing a Man Utd shirt...

Lots of food and drink was available, some of the more conventional kind (crisps, popcorn, etc.) and some of the less conventional kind. This, for example, is raw sugar cane, which is meant to be sucked on, then spat out. Given the local industries, maybe eating so much sugar is simply a patriotic thing...

At half time, the score being 0-0, the players and officials went off. Please note the following security features:

• There are very few (if any) stewards in the crowd
• There is a deep moat between the crowd and the pitch
• On the other side of the moat, there are policemen with big dogs
• The referree has police with riot shields guarding him while he goes down his tunnel

After the break, Campinese scored with a free-kick.

But shortly afterwards, Santa Cruz were awarded a penalty. Full marks to the penalty taker for being cheeky. He stopped most of the way into his run-up, pointed something out to the goalie, then kicked the ball into the net while the goalie was distracted. The crowd went wild.

One of the good things about being in a different culture is that it gives me a good opportunity to reflect on my own. This was a regular Brazillian third division match, and they treated it like a cup final. Here, football often seems so clearly to be a matter of worship. And that got me thinking about England...

Is the reason that there are so many more women than men in church in England (and in Brazil) linked to the fact that so many men worship sports?

What does it mean to support a football team? If Liverpool and Man Utd swapped 60% of their players over a period of a few years, why would I still support Liverpool? Is it because what is actually happening is worship (however half-hearted) for something underlying what actually goes on on the pitch?

Has sport provided us with a new pantheon of gods to worship, except where there is continually more information to process so that people don't get bored?

I can see that it can be right and good to enjoy watching people use the skills God has given them. But if supporting a football team is fundamentally about worshipping a non-physical entity, can a Christian consistently do it?

I know there's various reasons why people support the teams they do - attachment to roots, glory seeking, and so on. But they all seem like bad reasons to me.

So often we wrongly interpret the first commandment to say "You shall have no other gods before me" - i.e. "Make God number 1". But that isn't what it actually says. It actually says "You shall have no other gods before my face." It's commanding a complete absence of other gods, not just them being taken down to numbers 2, 3 and 4.

Why do people not see (a la Isaiah 44) that football is something people invented, and therefore it cannot be worthy of our devotion?

Why is it that the people at the top of the game (players, managers, etc) don't seem to show anywhere near the level of support or loyalty that the fans do? Answer - because they know it isn't worth it. For them it's a business - a way of making money.

Hopefully, it's kind of obvious I'm still wrestling with this question. Just to show how inconsistent I am, here's a photo of me with the European Champions' League Trophy...

And here's a good cartoon from Dave Walker on the subject.

Brazil 8 - Some Things I Like

I've been asked to say some things I like about Brazil. Here goes...

Fruit

There is lots of fruit, and it's readily available. Quarter of a watermelon, for example, costs about 20p. The bananas taste very different to in the UK (much better here) and don't bruise anywhere near as easily. And there's a good few fruits which don't seem to have an equivalent in England.

There's one called Acerola (or something like that), for example, which has wonderful juice when sweetened. Caju is great as well - both the juice and as an additive to chocolate...

Hospitality

By and large, the hospitality I have received has been excellent. My host, for example, has really gone out of his way to help me feel as much at home as is possble.

Male Apathy

Men here aren't afraid to appear excited or show affection (in the UK, this seems to be restricted to sports, of which more later). A handshake on greeting and bidding farewell to someone is considered the minimum, even a little cold.

Random tangent - in the UK the reason this doesn't happen is, I think, often down to a kind of teenage homophobia - people don't want to be thought of as gay. There might be various reasons underlying that; personally I suspect it's a twisting of the conscience into something nastier. That exists here too, of course - it was amazing seeing how reluctant teenage lads were to sit on each other's knees during a silly game we played at English camp (far more so than they would have been in the UK) - but it takes a diffeent form.

So Brazil just doesn't seem to be anywhere near as afflicted by the culture of male apathy for everything except sex and sport as the UK is.

Relationality

Linked to this is the fact that Brazillians seem to be much more innately relational than British men. I hardly ever see people saying they are too busy to talk. Far more normal to just stop for 30 mins or so and chat to people. I rather imagine this is linked to the Brazillian concept of time...

Weather

Of course. I think the temperature has occasionally dropped below 20C here, but it is the middle of winter. The rain also reminds me far more of Manchester than Oxford, except that it's much quicker to dry off here...

Getting on with it

Brazillians really don't seem to stop and get annoyed about how inadequate whatever facilities are or anything. Or maybe they just don't show it. What they do seem to do is try to get on with life, whatever the conditions.

Brazil 7 - Eating Out No Brasil

These are things they don't say in any of the stuff I'd read on Brazil...

In Brazil, the portions specified on the menu usually serve far more than one person (but the menus don't tell you this or indeed how many they serve), and it is quite normal for a table to receive only one or two dishes of main course, and for the plates to already be on the table when the diners sit down.

They say in Italy that it is very hard to be a vegetarian and eat out. In Brazil, it is very hard to get vegetables at all when you eat out. I was at an upmarket Italian restaurant yesterday, and of 100 or so dishes on the menu, only one that I noticed came with vegetables. And because of the contraints hinted at above, none of the four main courses that were delivered to our table of 9 or so had vegetables. Potatoes of various varieties and rice are common, and some dishes contain beans and/or olives. But I mentioned to a Brazillian that in England we are supposed to eat 5 helpings of fruit or veg per day. He laughed and guessed that he ate 1. And that seems to be the expected norm.

Because of that (and because it is easy to order), I tend to drink fruit juice when eating out. Now fruit juice comes in two major varieties. Normal fruit juice is sweetened, but occasionally you find somewhere that does very very nice unsweetened fruit juice, at which point it seems normal in Brazil to request extra sweetener.

And that brings me neatly onto puddings. I'm normally a big fan of puddings, and I often like them quite sweet, so one might think I'd be on to a winner here. What I wasn't prepared for was the sheer quantity of sugar...

For example, in a fairly upmarket restaurant, I ordered apple pie and ice cream. was glad that I had when I tried a friend's chocolate mousse, which seemed to consist almost entirely of sugar. But then this came...

Points to note:

• The "apple pie" consists mostly of confectioners' custard (sweeter than in the UK), with a small quantity of apple on top, matched by a roughly equal quantity of brown sugar on top of that
• The ice cream appears to be coloured by some bizarre synthetic chemical, and does not actually display evidence of having made contact with strawberries
• The glace cherry fragment was only added for aesthetic reasons - the whole ice cream was roughly as sweet as glace cherries usually are
• I did not manage to finish this pudding - the ice cream was too sweet
• There is a bottle of artificial sweetner liquid in the background.

It's also worth another comment on the phenomenon of sweet pizzas...

• Brigadeiro is roughly what was pictured in the previous discussion of this, except with condensed milk as well
• The bottom entry on that menu is caramelised apple and confectioners' custard pizza. Now, I know I'm a big fan of custard, but no. Just no.

If I had to make a choice now between being vegetarian for life and eating normal Brazillian food for life, I'd pick vegetarianism at the drop of a hat. It doesn't surprise me at all that there is an epidemic of diabetes among the middle classes here. It only surprises me that no-one seems to be trying to do anything about it except the manufacturers of artificial sweetener.

Brazil 6 - Competitiveness and Excellence

Brazillians are of course very competitive, especially when it comes to sports such as football and volleyball. Even teenage girls often seem to be keen and good players, though there are still a fair number of adults of both genders who aren't especially interested. I'd guess a higher proportion of Brazillian men aren't into football than of Mancunain men!

This competitiveness extends to all sorts of things - silly games, English competitions, etc, and doesn't seem to give up easily. For example, on English camp, one of the main afternoon activities was a kind of team competition at English, with spelling, anagrams, etc. The teams were all keen, even the ones with no realistic chance of winning three days in, which I don't think would happen in England.

In church, there seems to be competition for size of churches - it's one of the most common questions, and large churches are generally better regarded than small ones. (I'm reporting this, not agreeing with it.)

There's a lot of that sort of thing going on with status and money too (of which more later).

But there are some areas it doesn't seem to affect - food, for example (more on experiences of eating out in Brazil later), or cleanliness (or maybe that's just the people who were meant to be doing the cleaning on the English camp - we'd not have taken them as leaders on the camp I do in the UK...) I guess what I'm trying to say is that there doesn't really seem to be a conception of excellence apart from a conception of competition. People aren't driven to excel for the sake of excelling. Or that is how it seems to me, anyway.

Brazil 5 - Recommendations

I've been away from the computer at English camp for a few days. Maybe more on that later. But for the time being, here are a few recommendations.

One of the notable differences about the cities in Brazil from England is the noise levels. Although the legislation about noise pollution in England often doesn't work very well, at least it exists. In Brazil, it doesn't, and you can often find loudspeaker vans going round the streets blaring out advertising messages or music or whatever.

Anyway, the other day one of these was blaring music out only about a block away, so I could hear it clearly, and it seemed to be stationary. So I went to take a photo - the one above in fact, and found that it was part of some kind of political advertising thing - there were people waving big flags in the yellow and green of this candidate by the side of the road, and the above van was soon joined by another, of more modern design, which was basically just a set of loudspeakers on wheels.

Shortly after taking the above photos, I was threatened by a couple of heavies (but this being Brazil, I was quite a bit taller than them) wearing T-shirts of the candidate in question. They seemed very unhappy with me taking photos. Unable to take recourse to the obvious solution of asking them about their candidate's views on whether or not it should be a free country (due to the fact that although I can understand a fair bit of Portuguese, I cannot speak much at all), I pretended to understand even less, said something like "delete, delete", and carried on walking as if I wasn't threatened by them (same principle as works for dogs).

So if perchance any readers of this blog get the chance to vote for someone with the antiseptic-sounding name of Nilton Carneiro, with yellow and green colours, don't, because his campaign seems to consist of impolite thugs, which suggests that he might well be one too. [Edited to add this next bit]. On the other hand, the person who seems to be his main opponent, Andrei Campos, also seems to use all three main methods of campaigning - logos painted on walls, flag wavers and very very loud music. But Campos appears to be a communist and Carneiro at least vaguely Christian. I therefore suspect if I had a vote, I might actually vote for Carneiro, but if I could speak Portuguese, I'd urge him to campaign in a more loving fashion.

On the positive side of recommending, if anyone is travelling to Brazil, I thoroughly recommend the insect repellant known as Off. Some people I was with got bitten a lot - one poor guy got 42 mosquito bites and started getting allergic reactions to them. The person running the camp recommended Off. People who used it didn't get bitten. People who used other insect repellants seemed to. But I don't know if it works on British midges.

Brazil 4 - Brazillian Time

One of the big differences between Brazil and the UK is in the conception of time. I'd been warned about it, but I didn't quite expect this...

In England, there normally seems to be a margin of error of 5 minutes or so for business events and 15 minutes for social activities. In Brazil, 1 hour is closer to the mark. And even then, sometimes it's days.

In my time here, I've been told to meet someone at 8:30. They arrived at 9:15, which was "slightly late". It seems to be taught as well (of course) - in conversation with someone I've seen them look at the clock and say "Ah, it's 10 o'clock". The clock read 10:10. I don't think I've seen that in England.

This also seems to run to matters of organisation - I found out yesterday afternoon that I'm probably going to be away from the internet for a few days, starting today. So apologies for any lack of posts - it isn't for lack of things to say.

On the other hand, Brazillians can be very punctual when they really need to be. There was a long queue for the film last night, which started pretty much on time. It's more just a normally relaxed attitude to time-keeping, which just means that people whose natural inclination is to be more punctual (like me) need to learn to take a book along, or to spend the extra time praying, or something.

Brazil 3 - How to Drive Like a Brazilian

Continuing on the banal, painting a picture theme, here are some tips on how to drive like a Brazilian in Brazil:

1. Most major roads are one-way. This is for a very good reason.
2. This does not of course apply to cyclists. Weaving in and out of traffic going at 60 km/h in the opposite direction to you at night with a girl on the handlebars and no reflective clothing or lights is perfectly normal.
3. The reason that the accelerator and brake pedals go all the way down is that they were meant to be used all the way down.
4. If you haven't hit a pot-hole for a good few minutes, it's because you've broken down.
5. You see those dotted white lines on the road? Don't worry - they don't mean anything.
6. If someone phones you, it must be very important. Please answer it, talk, text, etc. while driving. Hands-free sets - what are they?
7. 20's plenty - cm from the car in front, that is. In the picture above, either of both of the cars slightly ahead could cut in without warning. It's only too close if the cars actually hit each other.
8. At night, red lights are optional. (Actually, the people who ignore them do it allegedly because they don't want to get carjacked).
9. If traffic is driving approximately in lanes, don't worry - there isn't a "fast lane" or "slow lane". Just overtake / undertake when you can.
10. If you're near where you want to go, just stop in the road, on the side vaguely near where you are aiming for, and look for a parking space. Don't worry - traffic will swerve round you.

11. If you are getting out of your car, watch out for the wide open gutter down the side of most roads.
12. Do not crash. I am continually surprised by how few crashes and dented cars there are here, especially compared to somewhere like Naples. Some of it might be down to the fact that Brazillian cars seem to be tuned so that 50mph feels like 80mph does in the UK, and that a lot of the other stuff is actually done at 20mph.
13. It's also worth pointing out that one of the greatest racing drivers of all time was a Brazillian.

Brazil 2 - Food and Drink

I'm holding off the weightier matters of the trip for a bit - I want more time to reflect and get experience on some of them before writing much. Instead, I'd like to discuss a subject very close to my heart - food and drink.

An awful lot of the differences between food and drink in the UK and in Brazil are down to climate. For example, I've been here nearly a week, and I don't think the temperature has dropped below 20C, day or night.

So I haven't yet come across anywhere that has two taps for water. There isn't much point having an extra water heater if it's at 25C normally. And water at 25C stays fresh for only a very short time - bacteria breed like crazy. As a result, tap water in Brazil is pretty much undrinkable - in many areas it's dangerous, and in the big towns it's often chlorinated to nearly the level of swimming pools in the UK.

Milk, too, is off. And if it isn't, it goes off very quickly. I haven't yet seen anywhere that sells fresh milk here. Instead, milk comes in three main varieties - UHT, powdered and condensed. Because of that, cereal is unusual for breakfast, and not many people drink tea. It saddens me to think that people think the English drink vast quantities of a beverage which here is generally made with UHT milk.

Missing, too, are lots of standard English / European vegetables, which tend to prefer a somewhat cooler climate. But in their place are large quantities of all sorts of different fruits, some of which I've heard of and some of which I haven't. Passion fruit is popular, as are oranges, bananas, melons, pineapples, lots of sorts of berries, and so on. Some are really nice. Some are absolutely disgusting. I tried some tamarind juice today, and I'd feel guilty pouring something that horrible on my plants, in case it killed them.

The fruit doesn't seem to go off easily - I've had bananas which have looked really bruised, and in the UK would be a kind of mush, but which were absolutely fine on the inside and which taste much better than the usual ones we get in the UK. I dread to think what they do to bananas before they reach British shops...

Another huge difference is the sugar. Sugar is easy to grow in Brazil, and they eat vast quantities of it. Fruit juice, as bought in the supermarket, is usually pre-sweetened. Brazillian coffee is often served with shovelfuls of sugar and a small amount of coffee. It is quite normal to have bottles of artificial sweetener liquid on the table at meals. People look oddly at me for drinking unsweetened juice. Buffets seem to consist largely of fruit and cake, and it's quite normal to eat very sugary things for breakfast, even among adults. I've been brushing my teeth quite a lot...

This has knock-on effects even as far as pizza. Among favourite pizza toppings here (without tomato, of course) are banana & brown sugar, which was ok, and chocolate (yes, chocolate pizza), which was a little OTT even for my liking.

Lisbon 5 / Brazil 1 - Portuguese

I'm currently on placement in Brazil, and I think it's worth writing a few comments on Portuguese as a language. Brazilian Portuguese and Portuguese Portuguese are slightly different as languages, but they've obviously got a lot in common.

Both are descended largely from Latin (as are French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, some of English, etc.) Both are written using the Latin alphabet, and my French and Latin are still passable, so I find Portuguese fairly easy to read - I can understand a decent proportion of sentences, especially when they don't use more difficult grammatical constructions. It is of course much harder to speak them, and though French helps in understanding written Portuguese, speaking it doesn't help people understand.

The real problem in learning the language is the accent. I fully accept of course that Portugal and Brazil are as entitled to the Latin alphabet as England and the US, but they use it quite differently. It's quite unusual to find a word I can pronounce correctly the first time. Pretty much all of the vowels are different, and consonants such as l and r are used very differently. As far as I can tell, they mix up the English sounds r, l, h and w, together with some gutterals, and then two of the resulting sounds are r and l, but which you hear depends on its place in the word. There also seems to be a phantom pronounced "e" on the end of some words, which comes or goes depending on position in the sentence and emphasis.

Sometimes when I try to speak a foreign language, the person I am speaking to switches to English - this especially happens in countries where English is generally spoken well, like Holland, and is a bit annoying. But what I found in Portugal was that I would say something pretty much correctly according to the phrase book, and people sometimes just wouldn't understand. On the plane from Lisbon to Brazil, I found myself sitting next to a lady who only spoke Spanish and Portuguese. When she read aloud some of the English instructions for what to do in case of emergency, I couldn't even tell she was speaking English!