Abide Retreat in English

We have just completed our very first english Abide Retreat in Brazil. It was wonderful and very strange. Teaching here in English seemed so out of place for me.

Brazilians love to learn. When you offer a great spiritual retreat about abiding and add the opportunity to perfect a second language, Brazilians get interested very fast.

I never cease to be amazed at how open Brazilians are to spiritual things. They make significant sacrifices to add to their spiritual lives by learning new things. I am am spoiled by how easy they are to teach.

I am praying that my dear american brothers and sisters in Christ will begin to invest more seriously in spiritual formation, too. It seems at times that my friends in the USA are too busy to make the investment in a two day retreat. That is sad and I am praying the day will come when taking two days to focus on Jesus as our true Vine will be seen a a great investment.

Consider this example. We had four people attend this retreat that came from southern Brazil. They took a ten hour all night bus ride and then another 1 and 1/2 hour bus ride just to get to the retreat. As I am writing this blog they are on a bus for another all night ride back. They have to work tomorrow when they get back to the city of Londrina. One of them was 73 years old! She has a class to teach tomorrow morning at 9:30 A.M. (This lady is near the center of the group photo on the front row)

This kind of effort is humbling and inspiring. I believe God is at work here in people's hearts in a very deep way. Pam and I are so thankful to see this moment in Brazil. We are also burdened for our dear USA. So much pain and so much anger. Our prayer is that we will all abide.

(Click on photos to enlarge.)