Old Days, Old Times, Old Friends

Last Friday we flew over to São Paulo for the weekend, as the seminary where I taught and served as academic dean during the '90s was having the dedication service of the new building.

We stayed in a hotel beside one of the huge shopping malls there, not too far from our old home.
Several "old" missionary colleagues had come for the building dedication. Friday evening we all went out to a restaurant for churrasco - Brazilian barbecue - where the waiters just keep coming around with more and more meat!
Many of these folks were veteran missionaries when we arrived on the field. From back in the 1970s, Romilda and Mel Cuthbert sang and spoke at our commissioning service before we went to Brazil. Dick and Betty Sterkenburg helped us get a visa into the country when the government was not issuing visas to foreign missionaries. I had some of Norm Nicklas's kids in school when we first arrived in the country. Bob and Lois Walsh studied Portuguese with us in language school. We hadn't seen Art and Joyce Cavey since they visited us in the Amazon in the 1980s. Ken and Renny Snare, Joe and Meta Arthur, Sharon Payne and Cal and Carol Clark were more recent colleagues when we returned from the Amazon to serve in São Paulo during the 1990s. What a night of reminiscing!

Saturday evening was the dedication service for the seminary. There was so much to praise God for during the service. The building is in an excellent location and has beautiful classroom facilities. I thought back to the small chapel area from the last building we were in while sitting in the new chapel that is about ten times that size. I also received five invitations to come back and teach at the school during the evening. Through testimonies, it was tremendous to hear of how many have graduated from the school and are now serving throughout Brazil and the world. Two of my former students now serve as the director and the academic dean of the school. I praise God for the small part I had in this ministry during eleven years.

It was a long, hot three hour service with no fans or air-conditioning, and close to four hundred people in the room. But it was a blessing to participate in this dedication.

We flew back home on Sunday morning.

Sue had a lot to do to finish up with food for the fellowship time after the presentation of the Christmas cantata at church. The six tables in the reception hall were beautifully decorated and loaded with goodies (that disappeared in no time after the service).

All I had to do was sing and do the closing prayer.

165 people came out for the cantata. The performance went very well, and people went away blessed.

It all sounded and looked very nice, but I have to admit that wearing long sleeved black shirts with bowties is hot when it's still ninety degrees at eight o'clock in the evening!

At the fellowship time afterward, I gave my tie to Giovana, who didn't mind wearing it at all.

Now the countdown is on for Aaron and Rachel's arrival (they get in Thursday night), and then our cruise down to Buenos Aires over Christmas!