Tenth Posting
Autor: Buster Hale | Publicado: 2011-06-09T17:16:00-04:00

Construction in Brazil. With the construction of the missionary residence on the farm, I have been learning a lot about construction in Brazil along with new Portuguese words. Of course, the first phase is to build the foundation of the house. Whereas houses in Oxford are built on a slab of concrete, the construction here uses less concrete as the following diagram shows.


Gravel and dirt are added to form the first layers, which are then compacted. Concrete is added on top to form the contra piso or camada de regularização; tile is laid on top to create the beautiful floors here. While all of this is a pretty straight forward process, the concrete needs at least 10 - 15 days to dry or cure completely. Heavy scaffolding needed to lay the blocks for the external and internal walls can damage the floor if the concrete is not dry. So Roberto and the workers have been racing to get the floor in before the team arrives. It's amazing how fast things can be done here when an invasion of Americans is coming.


Roberto took this picture late on Saturday afternoon of the finished product.

My maid Delí. Here is a photo of Delí in my apartment. She is a wife and a new mother and dropped out of pharmacy school in Santa Cruz, Bolivia when she became pregnant. She is working until she can raise enough money to go back to school. On the frontier many Brazilians go to medical and pharmacy school in Bolivia because it is cheaper. The fact that they do not speak Spanish does not deter them at all and they say within 6 months they are fluent. When they return to Brazil, they have to take the national exams in Brazil to practice. (Delí told me a very funny story about hiding from the Bolivian police in Santa Cruz because she did not have a Brazilian passport, but just an entry card valid for 30 days.) 


My bank card. My combination debit/Master credit card finally arrived. I was astonished to see that the name of card is "Emmette F H III." Brazilians have the hardest time with the "III" on my name, which really doesn't exist in Brazil. So I told Junior and Renata that I was going to the bank and ask them to change it. They assured me it was normal and everyone would accept it here. Junior told me that I was a Brazilian gentleman. So I went to the bank and unblocked the card using one of the cash machines. That very afternoon I used it in the grocery store and, indeed, felt Brazilian.

More experiences in church. On a recent Sunday I went to Sunday School and discovered that the church was going to have the Lord’s Supper (Holy Communion). The pastor had surgery on his thyroid during the week (nothing serious) and was not supposed to talk a lot; he invited an associate pastor from First Baptist Church to come to speak. There a very nice communion table in the front with a little wine set in the middle and two covered dishes. After first I thought that we were going to drink from the same cup, but the little glasses were for the servers, a man and a woman. (In FBC Oxford the deacons--men-- serve communion.) The visiting pastor gave a nice devotion from 1 Corinthians about the significance of the Lord’s Supper and then the man and woman started distributing the grape juice and little pieces of bread as is traditional in the Baptist church.

But, the man and women refused to serve the little Forrest Gump character (see Sixth Posting), who was sitting in front of me. The little guy was not to be deterred and went up to the communion table to ask the visiting pastor to be served. The visiting pastor did not know what to do and looked to the pastor for guidance; the pastor of the church shook his head. One of the servers lead the guy back to his seat and the guy complained loudly that he wanted to participate. I almost gave him my little cup of grape juice and piece of bread, but decided against it to avoid a scene. When communion was over and the pastor was making announcements, the little guy went back up and stood in front asking the pastor to let him participate (He kept saying "quero participar"--I want to participate). When the service ended, the pastor was explaining to him that he was not a baptized member of the church and could not receive communion. This is a first for me in almost 60 years of attending the Baptist church: refusal to serve someone communion. But, as a good Baptist, I respect the authority of the pastor to decide these matters.