Getting Lost, Among Other Things

I wish I just meant we got LOST, the TV show, but unfortunately I mean lost lost. Last Wednesday we took the wrong van on our way to help out with the evening church service in Rio das Pedras. The van actually said "Rio das Pedras" on it, we just didn't realize it was going to be their final stop after traveling all over kingdom come. When we were all the way across town and everyone else had gotten out already, they asked us where our destination was and chuckled at our reply (cold). We tried to go from the yellow house to the green church, but instead the van took us all the way to Gavea, so we got off and walked back home when it drove back by our house going to Rio das Pedras because we were already 30 minutes late. Just to give you a visual, check out the map below-

Visualizar Rota para Favela Rio das Pedras, Rio de Janeiro em um mapa maior

On a brighter note though, Antonio Carlos Costa, the Director of Rio de Paz and the Lead Pastor of IP Barra, the church we attend, spoke today at the Q Conference in Chicago. Jay, Director of RB, and Pastor Paulo, also from IP Barra, flew with him there on Monday night. This is extremely exciting as there are some brilliant thinkers sharing the spotlight including Tim Keller, Allister McGrath, and Soledad O'Brien with CNN. It is so important for the world to hear this message and give ear to what's going on in Brazil through Rio de Paz, so we're ECSTATIC to see the outcome of this. We have not heard anything yet from Jay about how his talk went, but here are a couple of Twitter quotes that give us a good picture-

@brybuck #qideas: Antonio Carlos Costa: "Human rights is a full expression of saving faith".

@guynumber1 "Living among injustice without any sign of opposition is a serious question of true conversion." -Antonio Carlos Costa #Qideas

@SparkHouseDavid Antonio Carlos Costa of Rio de Paz (www.riodepaz.org) just got a tearful standing ovation at "Q." Brazil's powerful peacemakers! #qideas

Recently the media group that followed us through Manguinhos slum when we went to distribute aid with Rio de Paz posted their footage of the day. Check it out-

Still trying to fight off this lingering head cold, so I appreciate your prayers. We're returning to Sitio- City of God for the church service at 10 am tomorrow. Hope to see a lot of people in attendance since we went today to visit and pray with some community members there. It was rough.

Hugs to you all,

Christy

PS: In case you didn't notice we changed up the blog layout. What do you think?