August 2013 - Brazil

AUGUST.

Where do we start! August has been full of events including Kingdom Hall construction, convention campaign, convention in Boa Vista, confirmation of approval to build a new assembly hall in Boa Vista, a trip to Venezuela to buy food provisions for the construction team, progressive bible studies and other things.

Kingdom Hall Construction

There are several projects planned in the circuit of Roraima. The groundwork started in July for the new Kingdom Hall at Centenario, Boa Vista. I helped at an early stage with some of the preparation and unloading a large 40 Ton lorry of materials as shown in the picture below. However due to hurting my back I was advised by the coordinator not to carry on with heavy works at the construction site. Therefore I continued with Sandra with supporting the campaign with the convention invites during this time.

The pictures above are at the early stages when the site was being prepared and the first delivery of materials arrived. The lorry was absolutely full and everything had to be off loaded by hand. 6 of us took it in turns to spend time in the truck. Due to the extreme heat, we could only survive for 10 minutes in the metal container before we swapped with 6 other brothers.

Rather than putting all the pictures of the construction on this page, we will create a separate page or posts dedicated to things related to the Kingdom Hall construction projects.

However one interesting difference in the construction here is that there is a fulltime team of 18 brothers in North and Northeast Brazil that travel on a permanent program of Kingdom Hall construction. They are all married couples. They are assigned by the branch office and supported in a similar way to special pioneers. They each have certain skills and are provided with transport and tools etc. Each Kingdom Hall project in their region is coordinated by them and they are helped by each local congregation with labour, food and accommodation.

The length of each construction project is long compared with UK and other areas, typically between 35 and 60 days.

They are a great team and our hosts and us invited them to a meal at our house at the beginning of August (see picture) and enjoyed an evening of experiences together.

Convention Campaign

Due to the campaign coinciding with the construction at Centenario, it was agreed to start it earlier than 3 weeks before the convention. The campaign went really well and was a good witness for the territory.

There are 2 or 3 small churches on every street here, some evangelical, catholic, pentecostal, and others. These are well attended as most people here have strong faith. However there is a growing unhappiness with the people because of the amount that they have to contribute towards the church. Wages here are not very good and when the church insists on taking part of it, this creates a burden on the people.

Imagine there response when they had FREE invites and FREE entry to a 3 day public event that had dramas – the convention! Many were surprised that there was no charge. We ended up being short of invites for our territory as there is still an unknown quantity of houses and shacks. Many houses have added additional wooden shacks behind them where people rent and so what might appear to be one house from the road maybe actually 2 or 3.

Convention

The convention in Boa Vista, Roraima was on 16 – 18^th August 2013. It was held at a gymnasium in Boa Vista. It was our first experience at a convention in Brazil and so we did not know what to expect as regards seating, temperature etc. The Friday morning arrived and we were ready to leave with our hosts Jorge and Dores.

Without warning, the rain came down. It was the heaviest we had experienced in Brazil. It was so dense that within 5 minutes the roads were flooded. It is only a 15 minute drive from our house to the convention site but it seemed to take forever. We could not see in front except red tail lights from cars and trucks in front. The roads here have many large pot holes and they are impossible to avoid at the best of times. When the road is flooded, it makes this worse. All of a sudden the car went down a giant pot hole and a massive amount of water entered the car! It seemed to find every possible crack around the door seals and windows.

We all got wet but continued on. A couple of minutes later when we were on the dual carriageway in the city, the water was so deep that it was up to the door seal by our feet. It was unbelievable that within about 10 minutes of rain, the main roads were about 20cm deep in water! Some cars found it difficult to steer as they seemed to be at the point of floating! We finally arrived at the gymnasium and were able to park near an entrance and get inside without too much additional water.

The gymnasium had sweeping concrete stands and a flat centre section where brothers had put some plastic chairs.

The concrete sections did not have chairs and so everyone in those sections used blankets to sit on.

There were no reports of any accidents with the poor travelling conditions and the Friday morning sessions started on time. There were quite a few leaks in the roof and unfortunately I had a visit from a pigeon that timed his flight perfectly so that I was bombarded with, you know what! It is great fun trying to remove that during the talk with everyone behind watching. (NO we do not have a picture!) The rains gradually stopped during Friday and all was calm.

As you will all know by now, the convention program was another gem from Jehovah. With 2 visual and 1 audio dramas the program helped all of us to stay spiritually awake. Although the temperature was excessive at times, as the sun beat down on the opaque plastic roof with no internal ventilation, everyone enjoyed the 3 days.

There are 25 congregations in the circuit of Roraima and the convention accommodated this circuit. Some congregations travelled about 400 Km to get to the convention in all forms of transport. We also had about 20 Spanish brothers visiting from Venezuela. The indigenous congregation in Boa Vista that speak Macuxi were also there.

The Macuxi brothers (sorry for the poor quality of the photo)

The brothers from the English group in Boa Vista (all Brazilian) had the privilege of doing the drama on Sunday about Esther. They had already had their convention in Venezuela in July.

The attendance was nearly 2000 on Sunday which was a record for this district. Obviously the campaign efforts had been rewarded.

The bethel speaker was Brother Hamilton Vieira from the Brazilian branch who some in England will recognise. Paul Williamson from London Portuguese South (Battersea) congregation served with him when Paul was serving in Brazil many years ago. Hamilton had flown over 3000Km from the branch office near Sao Paulo to be at the convention.

                                           Brother Hamilton Vieira - Brazilian Bethel

Apart from all the new releases at the convention, he also had another piece of exciting news: the construction of a new assembly hall in Boa Vista had been approved by the governing body! This is sorely needed as there are very few suitable venues for assemblies and conventions in the city. It will be an expandable type construction. This means that it will serve as separate Kingdom Halls but can also be opened up as one large auditorium seating about 2000.

It is a privilege for Sandra and I to witness the international unity in Jehovah’s organization and we used this when doing the campaign. When we offered the invite to people, we explained that it is part of a worldwide campaign and that the program is exactly the same wherever the conventions are in the world. When we told them that we are from England and that we can vouch for this first-hand, it was a good witness for the householders. What other organization/religion can claim that!

Me, Sandra, Dores and Jorge

Pioneer couple from Manaus who helped at Caracarai for 2 months

There were 28 baptised, 4 from our congregation. At the end of the sessions on Sunday, nobody wanted to leave. Due to vast distances between congregations in the circuit, it is difficult for brothers to see each other regularly and so they made the most of their time together. It is difficult to explain the size of Brazil when we come from a small country like England, Portugal or other parts of Europe. Basically Brazil is the size of the WHOLE of Europe!

A trip to Venezuela - what could go wrong?

After the construction of the Kingdom Hall in Centenario is complete at beginning of September, another hall will be constructed in Alto Alegre. We visited this small congregation in June and I gave a public talk there (see the ‘June’ page).

Food is often quite a large expense for a construction project here. Some construction materials are relatively cheap but food is not. Therefore it was decided that some brothers would go to Venezuela to buy the food. Food is considerable cheaper there. For example a Kilo of white rice is about 25p. A litre of petrol is 45p. Sugar and beans are also many times cheaper and so it is worth travelling the 200Km (about 125 miles) to the border town of Santa Helena in Venezuela.

There are import limitations when bringing things back into Brazil and so we formed a 3 car convoy, each car with 4 people in so this allowed importing 12 times the individual allowance into Brazil. Each allowance is reasonable and so with these 12 people and 3 cars we were able to buy enough to last most of the proposed 40 day construction project. Sounds simple? Easier said than done!

The plan, I use that word loosely, was that we would travel as a convoy, cross the border together, go to the 3 main food shops to buy the food supplies (all run by Chinese businessmen) have a meal and drive back across the border.

Two of the cars came from Alto Alegre with some brothers from there. They met at our coordinators home. However, one had misjudged the distance and ran out of fuel so our original time to leave (0400) ended up being 0630. Sandra and I traveled with the 2 special pioneers from Alto Alegre (Eliab and Monica – mentioned in our ‘June’ page). The coordinator and his wife traveled with another car from Alto Alegre and the 3^rd car carried the other brothers.

When you leave the urban area of Boa Vista, the road to Venezuela is very rural and is full of trees, indigenous villages, some cattle ranches and also a distant view of the mountains that line the border of Brazil and Venezuela.

The mobile phone signal quickly disappeared and it is then that you realise that if we had any problems, it was a long way to walk for help! Obviously it is hot but when travelling with the window down, it formed a welcome breeze. Up-building conversation, sunny day, nice breeze, nice scenery, what possibly could go wrong? The non-maintained 25 year old Fiat Uno could, and did. This is when everyone appreciated travelling as a convoy! We were about 150Km out of Boa Vista when this happened.

Although the roads are quite straight and empty of traffic in these rural areas, there are the occasional LARGE triple long trucks that thunder along bringing materials and fuel across the border. They travel fast on the open roads as there is no one controlling the speed out there. If you break down, it is invaluable to have spotters: one for these large trucks and also for snakes and other wildlife in the area.

We positioned the second and third car about 100m either side of the Fiat, that had broken down, to give enough warning to other motorists. After a while, we established that the fuel was not getting through to the engine. There was no real explanation as everything seemed to work, except no fuel. The fuel guage indicated there was half a tank of fuel. However as the brother that owned the car pointed out, this could be wrong. We decided that the only way was for the other 2 cars to go on to Venezuela and for one to return with fuel. So our car and one other continued on our way and left the car with the coordinator and other brothers in next to the road.

So we just needed fuel. What could possibly go wrong with that? 

What went wrong with that is when we arrived at the border, we found out that there was no fuel at the petrol station there! We went through the Brazil border point easily and got in a queue of cars waiting to get through the Venezuela border point. There is about 300m of no-man’s-land between the 2 points. We quickly realized that there were no people in the cars in the queue. We got out our car and asked one of the money changers that hover around the cars, what was happening. To our dismay, all the cars in the queue had run out of fuel! 

There was no fuel in the whole of the town of Santa Helena! They were all stranded at the border waiting for the next fuel tanker to come. When was that? No one knew. They said: ‘It could be tomorrow or more likely the next day after that’.

What were we to do? Our brothers were stranded back in the open road and heat about 50Km away. They could not possibly survive there overnight. It was then that a lady approached our 2 cars. She said ‘Do you need fuel?’ ‘Yes’ we replied. She explained that she had several gallons in plastic tubs at her house. She had been storing it to sell in case of a situation like this. Was this an answer to prayer or should we be suspicious? Was it really proper fuel or was it dodgy? Why were the other stranded cars not using it? After a discussion amongst the brothers, we decided to send one car with her and buy some of her fuel. It then decided to rain torrentially. In the meantime, Sandra and I, Monica, another sister decided to do the only thing we could: eat ice cream in the rain.

About 20 minutes later the car returned with the fuel. At the same time, 2 of the brothers from the stranded car 50Km away turned up at the border. A passing truck had offered them a lift to the border. The truck offered to take them back all the way to their car along with the fuel! We were all relieved and our 2 cars went on into Venezuela.

We entered Santa Helena and parked near the main square to find something to eat as it was now already midday. We were all surprised when out of nowhere we met the 18 brothers and sisters who serve on the permanent construction team! They had the day off from the construction at Centenario and had decided to go to Venezuela to buy some food and other things.

We eventually found an eating place where we could ALL eat and as we were eating our meal, the brothers from the stranded car arrived safely and joined us. After enjoying a very good and very cheap meal together, we headed for the food suppliers to get our stock.

Our small car convoy

We are all aware that reliance on Jehovah and perseverance helps us to see things through. Although the things that happened on this trip to Venezuela were not major when compared with some of the trials our brothers face around the world, it still helps us to appreciate Jehovah’s direction.

Progressive bible studies

Sandra and I continue to be blessed with bible studies with Brazilian people. As mentioned in a previous post, many of the people here live in wooden huts and part built houses. The simple lifestyle and humble attitude of the people is a refreshing change from the materialistic life that worldly people pursued in our territory in England.

The picture above shows Sandra studying with one of her studies at her home.

Being used in the congregation

We both are being used a lot in the congregation. Although we are not yet fluent in Portuguese, the congregation has been patient with us and we are blessed to be used fully in giving talks, demonstrations, helping unbaptized publishers, working on Kingdom Hall maintenance and many other areas of spiritual activity.

Sandra giving a talk

Following our visits to Caracarai congregation in July, they have continued to request more visits from us to help with the ministry and congregation there. We intend to continue to help when we can. However as we have been assigned to the Bela Vista congregation we have to focus our time there. If we had more hours in the day we would visit many of the other congregations that have needs.

The congregation in Bela Vista continues to grow rapidly and there are many regular pioneers here now and more elders. Therefore, with Jehovah’s blessing, we may in the future be able to spend more time in other areas.

We hope that you enjoyed this month’s blog entry. Please feel free to use the contact form if you want to contact us, if you do not already have our email address.

Until next time.