Wow, I’ve been here in Curitiba studying at the YWAM base for one month and a half already!! I am really enjoying it and I am learning a LOT! We have a very busy schedule here with classes, drama practices, evangelism, community work, book projects and home work.
We usually work or study from Tuesday through Sunday and on Monday we have our day off (much needed)! We usually have breakfast at 7am, from 7:30am to 8:30am we meditate (quiet hour). From 8:30 to 9:30am we have either a worship or intercession time together (the whole base, which is about 50 people or so...) and then from 9:40 to 12:30 we have classes. From 12:30pm to 1:30pm we eat lunch and then we do maintenance work untill 3:30pm (this first month I worked outside doing construction work, tearing down fences, and moving heavy stuff around – I really liked it. This next month I’ll be working inside, cleaning the kitchen and stuff). From 4pm to 6pm we have either study hall or drama practice. At 6:30pm we eat dinner and at night we either have classes, drama practice, community work, evangelism or free time. Also on every Wednesday afternoon we have community work.
Last week we went to Paranagua to do evangelism there on the week of carnaval. There were thousands of people on the streets celebrating carnaval and we were able to reach up to many of them. I bet over 100 people got saved through the evangelism that we did on the streets. We were there for five days doing evangelism at night and recuperating/interceding during the day. We stayed in a public shool and we slept on our sleeping bags on the floor. There were two YWAM bases there along with some of the local church, making a group of about 100+ people. We evangelised from 6 to 9pm, then we had dinner and a quick rest and we came back and evangelised from 11pm to 4am or 5am. Sleep until 10am, then breakfast... lunch... prayer and worship and at 6pm back to the streets. It was a very intense schedule, but we were all glad to follow it up. We had amazing results and many stories to tell.
While we were there we slipt into 3 groups. One worship team that stayed in one corner and played music and worshiped in public, another group that did shows, drama skits, and “altar callings” (I was on this group), and a third group that did spiritual reading. That’s right, they sat around a table with a big sign (in the middle of a town square) that said, FREE SPIRITUAL READING. Once a person would come up they would explain to them that they would pray to God and if He wanted to tell that person anything He would reveal that to us (the people praying) and we would pass that on to the person. This was very exciting, God revealed tons of stuff about the past of these people and what they were going through and what not. The people would be amazed on how we knew about their most intimate secrets! But it was all God revealing it to us and we would just say it, not knowing what reaction to expect, but every person that sat there was impacted. Many of them accepted Jesus right then.
For the most part I presented drama skits and did some jugling exibition along with other clowns and juglers. We had a blast!!! I never thought I would do jugling for Jesus : ) It was carnaval and things are crazy at this time of year and we had to do lots of improvs due to certain city laws, crazy people, and the rain. By the end of the week I did just about everything from first aid (on a guy that got on bad fight), to cleanning dirty bathrooms, to juggling, to altar calling. And it was great, I loved it, I think Jesus loved it, and loads of people were saved in Paranaguá.
Em Portugues
Ola'!!!! Que saudades de todos! As coisas aqui andam tao corridas que nao tenho tempo nem de entrar na internet. Essa semana eu completei um mes e meio de escola! Faltam mais mes e meio de periodo teórioco e depois mais dois meses de prático. Tudo muito bom ate' agora. Muita oportunidade de praticar o que estamos aprendendo. Viver em comunidade com crente esta' sendo mais dificil que eu esperava, mas estou tocando bem.
Todos os dias aqui temos trabalho de manutenção. No primeiro mes o meu grupo trabalhou fora do prédio (carregando toco, construindo bancos, derrubando cercas, etc.) Agora meu grupo passou pra dentro e agora trabalhamos na cosinha limpando panelas, o chao, refeitorio, lixos e etc... Gosto dos dois ambientes. Dentro e' legal pq tem musica e agua e e' divertido, mas fora e' mais legal pq e' trabalho pesado e ja' da' pra dar uma malhada enquanto faz o servico.
A comida essa semana deu uma caida de novo. Ja' perdi 2 Kilos desde que cheguei aqui e pareco estar mais magro mesmo. Tem semanas que a comida e' muito boa, mas 60% das vezes a comida e' mais ou menos... mas sempre e' comestivel . Fico por aqui. Desculpa ai, mas a versao em ingles tem mais detalhes, quem puder da' uma lida na parte de cima : ) Abraços... - JP
