Osasco

Well, Dave released my big news! We went to Osasco for the weekend. Osasco is a city near São Paulo, the third most populous city in the world. I cannot recall an American landscape where lights and buildings covered the land in every direction as far as I could see--for over 45 minutes on the road. The city looks this widespread in some parts of Rio, but the sprawl of Rio is still trapped by mountains. The bus trip from Osasco past São Paulo showed not one big downtown but what looked like many downtowns, many groups of Cleveland skyscrapers, poking up from the (relatively) flat terrain.

We went on this excursion to visit the Oliveiras, who were in ministry with Mom and Dad back in the 80s. Silas is now a pastor of a church that grew from 35 to over 2000 churchgoers from 1994 to today. The church is without a doubt impacting Osasco with lots of ministries--social, worship, seminary, etc.

We had a great time. It was Dave´s first time meeting the Oliveiras (in his memory, anyway). After dinner on Saturday, he went with Mateus and André to a young men´s care group and ended up staying until 3a.m.! Mateus and David said they had an especially meaningful time of fellowship.

Saturday we leave for Contagem, Minas Gerais, to work with Youth With A Mission.


Silas in his office


Marta, Rebekah, David, Mateus, Natália. Not pictured: André


A shot through the rear window of downtown São Paulo. Though we don´t have a picture of André, we have his operating system sentiments.


Natália, Éwerton (friend of the Oliveiras), David, and Mateus in front of the church