We went out there as I had managed to arrange through a friend here at Ridley to go and work with David, who is chaplain of Christ Church the English speaking Anglican Church in Rio, for 4 weeks as my college summer placement. We stayed with David, Sue and their 6 year old daughter Rachel who were fantastic hosts in their beautiful vicarage:
Even had a family of very cute, little monkeys (basically the size of squirrels) to keep us company, living in the garden:
David was a great supervisor for my placement, easy to talk to, always ready to listen to me, very organised and planned a really good and varied programme for my time there. He and Sue (who is also ordained) were very open and honest with me, sharing so much of their experience of ministry, both very humble, wise and prayerful - and Lisa and I both learned so much from both of them.
Over our time there we were really welcomed by Christ Church and I had the chance to experience and get involved in a wide range of the the church's ministry and life. I preached (including a talk that was translated into Portuguese as I gave it), led services, went to the weekly bible studies and wrote and led 1 of them on spiritual warfare, helped a bit with a weekly children's club, went to a PCC meeting, visited various people - at their homes, in hospital and also went with a member of the church to visit international prisoners in one of the big prisons near Rio and in a nearby prison psychiatric hospital (interesting and challenging experience to say the least!).
What particularly stood out to me was how different the church was in a culture and place like that compared to here in the UK. Christ Church ministers to the international community of Rio rather than a geographical area, as it is the only English speaking Anglican church (so if you want an Anglican style service not in Brazilian Portuguese its the only place to go). That means that people will travel from all around the greater Rio area to get there - you don't often hear of people here travelling for well over an hour to get to a church service! Also, though in some ways there was a bit of a colonial / expat feel to the church it wasn't too pronouced, and the church has grown into a real international community - lots of different nationalities represented, including a good number of Brazilians who seem to like the style of the church and its services (as well as for some of them a chance to learn and practice their English). This all contributed to a really diverse and varied congregation, diverse and varied in terms of faith experience and theological viewpoints as well as nationality / language etc. What really impressed me was the unity I witnessed despite the diversity - the way they accepted each other, worked and worshipped with each other, seeked to understand each other etc. It really made me think about the way we 'do' church over here in terms of choosing the particular churches that suit us best and that we're comfortable with etc - they just had that 1 and got on with it.
Anyway, enough of my preaching! Rio itself was a fascinating city, often rightly described as a city of contrasts: contrasts between outanding natural beauty and human architectural mess and pollution, between very 'in your face' wealth and abject poverty (favela's side by side with plush hotels and apartments etc), between the welcome and friendliness of the people and the huge problems of violence and corruption in the society there, I could go on. What did impress me particularly though was the statue of Christ the Redeemer (see pic below) of which we had a great view from the vicarage, on top of the Corcovado mountain looking out over the whole city with arms outstretched - a very vivid image of Christ reaching out to a world in desparate need of him.
In terms of leisure time we did get to see pretty much everything worth seeing of Rio itself, though didn't get the chance to go further afield. As the famous song lyrics in the title of this post indicate we did get to Copacabana beach a couple of times - that and Ipanema beach were both stunning, though I don't know about music and passion!! The beach football and volleyball was amazing to see, and I really enjoyed a few swims in the Atlantic. Got to go to a Brazilian premier league football match at the Maracana stadium which was a great experience - non stop drums etc., great atmosphere! Eating out was great too - steaks like you've never seen before at unbeliveably good prices! Anyway that's more than enough waffle about it. Here's a few picture highlights:
1 comment:
Simon, your contribution here was hugely appreciated ! Rev. David
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