Of Rice and Men

On recent trips to Surubim, a jungle community where we are planting a church, I have begun to take more of a leadership role. It's been both exciting and challenging as I try to understand issues that arise and guide our Brazilian team in responses. I often feel a step or two behind in conversations but usually understand everything.

The work in Surubim is experiencing some growing pains, but there is also some very exciting things happening. Here are some highlights from my visit last weekend:

Walking through the jungle on our way to Zeca's rice field.

I asked Allison to plan a lesson for the meeting, he choose the Parable of the Sower in Mt. 13. It so happened that Zeca was planting rice on Saturday morning so we joined him. He taught us how to plant rice (quite different than the Asian rice paddy method) and Allison wisely used this to illustrate the parable he was taught later that day. He communicated the message well and the people were engaged and interested because they could relate to the teaching.

Zeca teaches me how to plant rice using a hand planter, often we would hit a rock or piece of wood that illustrated the difficulty of planting in "rocky soil".


Pausing to admire a large tree, notice the size of the vine growing above my head.

Allison teaching on the Parable of the Sower, using the rice planter we learned to operate earlier in the day.

On a side note, I've been doing some reading on using Bible storytelling as a method to communicate the gospel to oral learners. Since a majority of the people in the interior seem to be either illiterate or functionally illiterate, this method is quite appealing to what we are doing. As I watched Allison relating to the people through story, it reinforced this idea.
Carlinha, a local leader who I shared about in a previous post, continues to have weekly meetings and has seen 5 people accept Christ in recent weeks. She is excited about discipling these new believers.

Carlinha and her husband who is not yet a believer.  

Through a partnership with International Cooperating Ministries we received some solar powered audio devices called the MegaVoice. Each device has hundreds of hours of Bible teaching covering several topics. We were able to leave one of these devices with Carlinha to help in her development as a leader.

A MegaVoice unit made available by ICM.