Today has been a long day for me (Dave). I was up at 6.30am to clean the swimming pool and this can take up to 2 hours. Then, after a quick breakfast, Beckie, Josiah, Gideon and I went out to church. Most of the churches here only have evening services so finding a morning service has been really difficult for us but we did manage to find one! The church is called Igreja Batista Da Lagoinha and has one of the largest congregations in Brazil. At last count, it has a membership in excess of 37,000 people. Anyway, it has 5 services every Sunday and is famous in Brazil. And yeah...it was BIG...like a stadium (see picture). We were a little unsure of exactly how to get there, thankfully the bus driver was helpful and stopped the bus at the right stop for us. We expected to see it when we got off, but couldn't so we asked a man with a Bible where it was, sadly he was deaf and didn't understand, but it turned out it was the church he was going to, so we followed. Beckie really liked the service, it really reminded her of the Portuguese service in Dereham, lots of enthusiasm.
After the service we had a rather long wait at a bus stop, then a very bumpy ride across the city, a winding walk up the hill and were back in time for a late left-over lunch at 1:45.
Afternoon work began at 2pm - cleaning the kitchen and dining area and preparing for our 'Parents service'.
At 3pm the service started with prayer and worship and then I preached on "How to be a Good Parent"...what a huge subject...for about 50 mins. It seemed to go well as I have now been invited to speak at a church in the city about missions. Thankyou all for your prayers about that. In case you were wondering, I preached in English. Everyone was really pleased with the turn-out of parents, because it was more than double the previous numbers. Oh, and no rain!!!