We have just had a most amazing weekend called 'Culture Weekend'. We spent time living and experiencing what it is like in different cultures. We sampled Muslim, Hindu, Chinese and Central African cultures (from specific countries) by watching films about them and having seminars as well as eating the food, wearing the clothes and behaving like they do.

For example, on Saturday we were woken up at 4am to pray and had to face East in a kneeling position - although we prayed to Our Heavenly Father and not Allah! Then, after some sleep, we learnt about the culture before having to act like it - the men bossed the women about, ate first and the women ate afterwards and were generally nasty to the women. We then explored what it was like for both groups afterwards.

To put things right though, the men decorated a room and spent time washing the feet of the women and praying for them...it was a really deep and emotional time as God ministered to the women through the men after they had been so nasty to them.

Today is a much needed day off and we have been doing very little...although the boys have done some school work, writing up their weekend experiences. The Lighthouse opened up its doors to the community today too as it began its programms for the kids and lessons fr the adults from the favela. We'll write more about this stuff in the future though. At the moment we are not involved in any of it, it just goes on around us.

The avacados on the tree near our house are nearly ripe for the picking. We've never had fresh avacados before.

Recently we invested in a blender as there is soooo much fresh fruit here and it is all so cheap. Great for fresh fruit smoothies. The weather is HOT. The people are LOVELY and God is AWESOME