Yesterday we were able to catch up on some work in our hotel in Governador Valadales, Brazil. In the evening I had the privilege of preaching to a gathering of the Rio Doce (Doce River) Presbyterian Synod, to commemorate their 59th anniversary. I spoke on Job 22:21, stressing the need for ministers to grow in holiness through the use of the spiritual disciplines. The presidents of all the individual Presbyteries, and a few other ministers, sat on the pulpit platform behind me, with our friend Tiago serving as my translator (photo 1). A number of other ministers and elders and lay people were in attendance.
A group of friends and family of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary student Israel and Larissa Quaresma greeted us. Their brother-in-law is Ewerton Tokashiki (photo 2, 4th from the right), who has been translating significant works of John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli into Portuguese.
By 10:00 p.m. we returned to the Pires home for another two hours of wonderful fellowship and a special Brazilian fish soup called Moqueca. We celebrated their oldest daughter, Ana Louisa’s 20th birthday (photo 3, with her mother clapping beside her; Brazilians are very warm and expressive, so they all clap robustly when they sing “Happy Birthday”). She is studying to be a doctor and is engaged to Abraham, a seminary student who is interning in the church, and has also been serving frequently as our chauffeur. They make a lovely, God-fearing couple, and hope to be married in 108 days from now! As usual in Brazil, we made it back to our motel room shortly after midnight, grateful to God for another wonderful day of worship and spiritual fellowship.
