First Week

Hey Everybody,
I am approaching the end of my first week and it has flown by. I am slowly learning Portuguese, knowing Spanish hurts just as much as it helps. I have received significantly less crazy stares recently and even a few answers. *Obvious statement/understatement, It is a different world down here.
Sunday we went to church, which was interesting. They had a baby dedication. A baby dedication down here consists of 1) A picture slideshow of the baby's birth (exactly what you're thinking). 2) A song sung by the grandmother to accompany the slideshow. 3) The entire family, including the great-grandma, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and anyone else go up on stage and they sing a song. It really adds to any service. We were also introduced as single American students and we would all be willing to go to anyone's house for dinner (Thankfully, no one has taken up the offer, at least to my knowledge).
After church we went to the Pao de Acucar or Sugar loaf mountain. It was pretty sweet. It's two separate mountains that you ride cable cars too. It is situated right at the mouth of the bay and you can see a lot of the city. Let me say this, Rio is a huge city and at no time can you see all of it. It has the largest urban forest in the world and it separates a lot of the city because it is on a chain mountains. You can drive for 2 hrs in any direction and not leave Rio.
Since Monday, I have been working at church in the northern part of the city where a team of around 40 from Knoxville is doing a medical clinic. The team has 3 brothers, one is general practice, one is a dentist and the other is an opthalmalogist. It has been neat working with them because it a serious clinic. I work in the pharmacy counting pills and passing out drugs. I have learned a lot, including reading prescriptions. One guy came to the clinic yesterday with a bullet on the side of his head that the skin had grown back over. He wanted a tooth pulled.
Tuesday night we went to a singles/young professionals bible study/service. A group of young people started in response to challenge for the young people of Rio to go out and DO something for God. It was neat because the Brazillians were very passionate about praising God. It was not uncomfortable, it was kind of like, why don't I praise God like that. On a similar note, we were instructed to do group devotions in Proverbs. Yesterday, I read chapter 28. I had thought that the rich man was someone who was very wealthy and that I would never be like that. Even as a poor jobless college student, I am a rich man, I have so much and I do not want for anything. Verses that I always ignored have come back up and it is pretty cool. Please keep praying that details continue to be worked out and that are budget holds up, because the falling dollar is not helping. Thanks for your encouragement and prayers, I really appreciate it. We've been getting up at 6 and going to bed at 11 or 12. So I'm staying busy.

Ate mais tarde

-Mark

P.S. This will probably be the last note I import on facebook, so you'll have to go straight to the blog page www.summerinrio.blogspot.com There are somethings that everyone on facebook does not need to read.