Thursday Night God Moment

Twelve of our team walked to the Hippie Feita on Thursday night, our last night in Rio, to buy last minute gifts for friends (& maybe ourselves, too!!).

Our 3 Portuguese speaking team members went to a different shopping area, so we had no interpreting help.  We were on our own with our limited Portuguese vocabulary.  We did, however, have a secret weapon.  Raja O'Brien, speaks her own Raja Dialect of Portuguese!!

We shopped happily for two hours or so, then headed back to the hotel.  As we walked past a hair salon, we saw several women inside sitting around talking.  Someone noticed they had books in their laps & asked if they were Bibles.  We all stopped & looked & realized they were having a Bible Study!!  We waved at them, they saw & waved back.  We walked on a few steps, & Raja said, " let's go back & tell them why we're here !"

We turned back & walked up to their door!  We must have looked friendly, because one woman came to the door & cautiously opened it a little.  We said, " estamos aqui porque Jesus te ama!"  (Translation:  we are here because Jesus loves you!...we've said that all week to the people coming to clinic!)

Between that lady's limited English, our limited Portuguese, and Raja's special Dialect, we communicated!!  She came to understand that we came to Rio to work at a Baptist church!  She said they were Baptists!!

She asked if we would like to come inside & pray!!
We all piled inside the tiny salon, & we circled up to pray!  Al Alwahab was selected to pray in English & one of their ladies prayed in Portuguese at the same time.

Al finished in a few minutes, but their lady kept right on praying!  We decided that she was a Charismatic Baptist!!  She was filled with the Holy Spirit, & she prayed fervently.  The longer she prayed, the hotter that little salon got!

When we end prayers at our clinic, we say "in nome de Jesus, Amen."    She must have said "em nome de Jesus" a hundred times... But not "amen."   As we started to wonder about heat stroke, she said, "Em nome de Jesus, Amen!!"

Kevin & Al opened the door to escape the heat, as all the ladies began to hug each other.  There were lots of tears & laughter.

We left that salon with surety that we had just experienced a wonderful God moment.   There was no language barrier even though we didn't understand the Portugese.  We all understood the presence of God