Baptists -- Missions -- Brazil; Brazil -- Description and travel
Soon we were seated at the breakfast table, which was placed in the
church room with benches around it for seats. I was honored by being
placed at one end of the table. What a meal it was! Not only had Mrs.
Manoela taxed her own larder, but the other members, who by this time
had arrived in large numbers, had brought in many good things. I cannot
tell what the dishes were, for the reason that I do not know. It is
sufficient to say that every one was good--perhaps our appetite helped
out our appreciation of some of them. There were as many as eight
dishes the like of which I had never tasted before. How do you suppose
I managed it when they served some delicious cane molasses, and,
instead of bread to go with it, they served cream cheese? I asked
Maddox how I should work this combination. He replied by cutting up his
cheese into his plate of molasses and eating the mixture. I did the
same thing, and I bear testimony that it was fine. By the time the
breakfast was concluded, I had scored a point with our good friends,
for they thought that a stranger who could render such a good account
of himself at a Brazilian breakfast must be very much like themselves.
(Let us explain about Brazilian meals: They take coffee in the early
morning. Bread and butter is served with the coffee. Breakfast, which
is a very substantial meal, is served about eleven o'clock. Dinner,
which is the chief meal of the day, is served about five o'clock in the
afternoon. At bedtime light refreshments are served, which are often
substantial enough to make another meal).
After breakfast was over, and it was some time before it was over, for
the crowd had to be fed, we assembled for worship. The congregation was
too large for the little room, so the men built a beautiful arbor out
of bamboo cane. When Maddox told me we were to hold services under an
arbor I was dissappointed, for somehow there had come over me a great
desire to speak from that large pulpit in the little room. My
dissappointment was short-lived, however, for when we reached the arbor
there were the pulpit and the lace-covered chairs! It was a gracious
service. The Spirit of the Lord was upon us. The sermon lost none of
its effect from the fact that it had to be interpreted, because Maddox
interpreted it with sympathy and power.
After preaching, four were received for baptism. They were not
converted at this service, but had been expecting to come for some
time. Maddox baptized them in the spring branch, which had been
deepened by a temporary dam being thrown across it. One of those
baptized was a woman ninety years of age.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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