Brazil - Brasil

As mentioned in our last blog update, I (John) was in Brazil last week. Wow... frequent flyer miles are an amazing thing! I had a fantastic host family who allowed me to join their lives and ministry in Sao Paulo for a week. The ministry is called Slingshot: a community of creatives: photographers, designers, writers, actors, social entrepreneurs, and others. They carry out creative projects that promote social change and provoke paradigm shifts on how people perceive themselves, God, and others.... 

Here is a small glimpse of my trip...  

did you know Sao Paulo is the largest city in the southern hemisphere?  Brazilians (who don't live in the city) and others told me of the dangers to be careful of there.  It is true that cars don't stop for pedestrians (traffic is the actual biggest danger worldwide), and there is crime like other  large world cities, but we walked around both day and night took buses and enjoyed the clean and efficient subway (some lines come every 3 minutes) and found the city to be enjoyable and amazing in so many ways  

we ran out of days to eat all the food we wanted... (we did try our best)

Why is it that whenever I travel, the journey is long?  One day we took what was purported to be a 6 hour drive and due to an accident on the road ahead of us, we met a 4 hour delay... on our return the following day, the long delay on another route was blamed on construction.

There is some great public art

Mercado Municipal  

some fruits and flavors of Brazil found at the mercado

the museum park is fantastic and skateboarder friendly 

Christmas is tasty 

this coffee beat starbucks by far!

a small sample of the creativity of the group 

when your office walls are hand painted like this... creativity is sparked

since Luis traveled all the way from Rio state to visit us.... I broke a family rule to not drink here when overseas and bought him his 1st ever starbucks

Grandpa was in the hospital and 4 generations of the family gathered

Feijoada is like the national dish of Brazil... I called it "Pork&Pork&Pork&Pork&Beans" it is fantastic!

Pamela, me & Luis at the Independence Museum 

 

Bella, my language tutor:-)

The soccer museum is the way to learn Brazilian history in a fun and creative environment

Yes... we ate street food

I learned a lot about true family and creative ministry from my Brazilian friends!
and... summer in Brazil is lovely