Happy New Year!

Hey everyone, Happy New Year! It's just after 2 and the fireworks are still going off everywhere.

It was an awesome night tonight. We held a worship service at a different local church, which meets on the 3rd floor of their building. Yep - we hauled all of our gear up 3 flights of ramp (thankfully not steps). They hooked us up with some awesome local fruits afterward. Papaya, mangopequeno (just a small mango), grapes, apples, melon, and some soda.

The service was great - God showed up in a BIG way. I'm so glad we weren't on the beach. He clearly wanted us there tonight. The theme we seem to be finding as we go is "God has a dream for you", where Henry talks about the dreams instilled in us by God that He wants us to fulfill in and through Him. So many people here have crushed dreams - our own friend here who serves as translator for Henry, Al, was told repeatedly by his father as a child that he would never amount to anything. Al is one of the most kind, strong, beautiful men I have ever met and I told him so today. He still struggles with the lie that he's nothing and undeserving of the call he's received. He and I have a lot in common. He considers translating in front of a large church to be a great honor, and it is, but he still sees it as something he can't imagine himself doing.

So many people there tonight were changed visibly as we moved through worship. The Spirit was manifest in that place with us. Once again so many people were driven to the floor, myself included once again, so much so that faces were being pressed against the carpeting. God's clear message tonight was to enter the new year and leave all the old baggage and pain behind in the past.

My personal breakthrough occurred in our prayer meeting earlier in the day where I found that 2 days ago a wound had been opened again after a long time, about a relationship with family that I need to repair. As a result of that damaged relationship and many other lies from my past, I often felt I do not deserve gifts from God, and that something I enjoy and love is clearly something I should not have. Those barriers were ripped and torn down last night and today. Other members of the group said they saw me struggling with it last night at the youth rally. They saw me hesitate while singing, nearly avoiding really committing myself wholeheartedly to the song. One of the guys told me that when I went after it and hit that note that he wanted to jump out of his skin. I've been complimented before, but it was such a great honor to hear it about something that I've been struggling with so greatly.

Tonight I had no problem and I worshiped God without fear or shame and it was magnificent. I have been envious of people I see for so long who can throw themselves into their worship while I remain reserved and silent. Not any more. My heart was opened completely in worship tonight and I never want to hide it again. Ever. I'm sitting here crying while I type that's how amazing this feeling is. My heart aches that I was so restrained, ashamed, and fearful before.

I really wish you could all be sharing this experience with me, and hope that this blog is serving as some pale copy of the experience so that you can feel something of what I do at this moment. One of my dreams has been fulfilled in this place, this beautiful country where the people are without hope. It's just incredible to see the difference that restored hope can make in the eyes of these men and women.

This may be my last post for about 3-4 days. The area we are heading to may not have internet access, and I'm fairly certain that the island off the coast doesn't have it either. I may be wrong, but only the next day knows what it will bring.

May the peace, love, hope, and truth of God be with all of you this week and sustain you in times when hope is waning and when your dreams seem unachievable. I love you all, and God bless.

Some bad news

Hey everyone - New Years Eve and nowhere to go...

Apparently the government has seen fit to block our ability to play on the beach. Last year, as Henry told me, it was a great struggle to get them to allow us to play anywhere. So we won't be playing on the beach this year, although it sounded like we were getting close last night. While we were preparing for the youth service, Henry told us that we needed a band name, as producers of the beach show nearest our hotel heard there was an American band from PA in the area, and they were interested in us coming to play - apparently unaware of our purpose for being here. From everything I've heard today however, it sounds as though that has also fallen through.

We're about to eat dinner as the hotel is holding a NYE buffet for the guests at a cost of about $18 US. After that we are supposed to be going to another local church to hold worship for NYE at around 10PM local time.

On a side note. The cross dressing crazies have already taken to the streets as of about 3pm local. A couple of the guys and I went to get a light lunch at a local grocery and were nearly run down by a rabid mob of drunk trannies. If that's already happening at 3, I can only imagine what it must be like on the beach at midnight!

I'm working on getting more pictures posted as well as the video from the 2 previous worship services at the other church.

The last couple days have also revealed some spiritual wounds I was unaware that I had. The group has been an amazing support as they have been laid open so God could meet me in that place. I am once again even more thankful for this opportunity to serve in such a capacity.

God bless and keep you all my friends and family - I miss you all terribly and look forward to seeing you again soon!

More thumbnails

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Click on the thumbnails to see a larger version

Just got back from the slums, etc...

Hey everybody,

Long day. We set out for the slums at around 8:30AM local time and got there around 11. It's weird though - I was looking out the bus window the whole time wondering if this place I was looking at would be where we'd stop. I was wrong, but so much of this area looks like what we'd consider slums in the US, but the folks here think of them as regular residential areas. Pictures to come.

The "slums" was actually a hill village way, way, way up in the hills. There was a recovery mission where we were supposed to play, witnessing to recovering drug addicts, etc... Right up my alley for sure! However, we instead ended up being the honored guests (God only knows) at a local baptism happening at this place. Awesome to see people receiving the Lord here. Got some nice pictures of the area. We took up a collection for the mission among the group to help them out.

Cool note about this place - it's a converted brothel that is now being used for a "salvation center". They gave us DVD's of what they do to save people from death in prisons or in gang related violence in neighborhoods. It's rather graphic - but I'd love to show it to prisoners in the US who cry about prison conditions. The most troubling scene for me was a prisoner who had been shot repeatedly through both hands by the guards and the police. He ended up having gaping wounds through both palms - completely untreated.

Overall, the slum was a beautiful experience. We gave all the kids toys, which I have some really cool pictures of that event.

Once we were done there, we drove for about 1-2 hours back to the church where we were the other night for the youth concert. That place was packed.

Here's the coolest thing. The whole time I'm wishing we'd have some way to show everyone back home what we did there - turns out they were filming and recording the entire event, as well as the worship service we did the other night. So, hopefully tomorrow, since it's NYE I'll have some time to sit down with the DVD's from the last couple days and post them on YouTube and then on here.

Tonight was incredible. God showed UP. At one point, with no warning, we all just hit the deck and prayed for about 20 minutes. The whole worship time was intense. We made sure to have some powerpoint presentations with the words in both English and Portuguese, and once those hit the screens the sound of 1000 people singing along filled the room better than we ever could. Man they got into it.

God, I am tired. It was such a wonderful day, and I am emotionally and physically just wiped out. I've got Spaceballs playing on the TV, so I'm gonna go lay down and relax until tomorrow.

God Bless you all and thank you again for helping to give me, and others, the opportunity to do what we are doing. It's been so amazing for just the last few days, and I can only imagine that it will get better.

Pictures to come tomorrow - but now, SLEEP.

Pray for us today

We're going out to one of the slum areas for most of the day today to minister. We'll then be heading to the same church we were at the other night to hold a youth service for something like 1,000 kids. It's gonna be a good day tater...

God Bless!

Something cool...

BTW, short post here - the water goes the same way. The Coriolis Effect is neat-o, but it has no effect on toilets.

Took a walk today

Here are some pictures from a walk a few of us took today. The one to the left is a view from near our hotel of Sugarloaf.








Rio as seen from our beach, the mountain in the background is the location of the Christ the Redeemer statue. We won't be going there until next weekend.








Some interesting electrical work I found while walking along the beach. All of the trees had lights on them, and the lights were all spliced directly in from the power line. The power line itself was also zip tied to the tree as a means of support.






This is the walkway along the beach where I took these pictures. There are little stands located every 100 feet or so where locals sell coconuts which they will chop open and give you a straw for 1 real. A real is the Brazilian unit of money. At the current exchange rate it means the coconuts cost just under 50 cents.

The mosaic works on the sidewalk can be found on just about every sidewalk in Rio, more specifically the districts closer to the beaches.





Here's me and the gang while out on our walk - all with our lovely bunch of coconuts. Dedeledeedee.

We're heeeeeeaaaaaaar........

Top of the mornin' everyone! Well, it's at least the top of the morning THERE. It's 20 after 9 here. That's right - I'm now 3 hours ahead. Wheee!

Got some good stories about our travels from yesterday. We got here pretty much without a hitch.

Alright, here we go. So we got on the triple-7 at JFK and made it to Sao Paolo at 10:24 AM local time (7:24 EST). The flight was decent - I had the 'flight attendant' from hell. She was really snippy when I asked if she could help me make some room to eat the evening meal. The guy in front of my had his seat so far back that I had about 3 inches of space and no room to open my tray table. So, she drops my seat back and tells me to eat that way. Heh. Later, after the meal they closed all of the window covers on the plane, but when I wanted to keep mine open (I like looking out even if it's dark) she yells "NO!" and reached past me and slammed it shut again. Yeah. She almost pressed my jackass button as Bill Ingvall would say. I was going to ask if we had to worry about Germans bombing our airplane since we apparently needed to maintain blackout conditions...then I decided that I'd just leave her alone since she could have me arrested on the other end.

I got almost no sleep on the flight. Every time I would start to nod off, the Brazilian guy next to me would find it a convenient time to elbow me somewhere. Not only that, but the two guys in front of me that were from New Jersey decided that the captive audience they had in the girl across the isle meant that the stupid pickup lines and mundane conversation kept flowing for the better part of the flight as well. Not my best flight ever. That being said, I did get to see some really good movies: In-Vince-able, Little Miss Sunshine, Zoom (wasn't all that good), and this really [sarcasm] incredible [/sarcasm] 60-minutes presentation on the "King of Pot" which I watched twice for some reason.

Our flight path took us out over the ocean above St. George, then south to the east of Puerto Rico over St. John, Guyana, and then over Brazil by way of Brasilia to Sao Paolo. The AM views were spoiled by cloud cover (over a rain forest, duh Kevin....) so I couldn't see the Amazon from the air. The clouds started breaking up as we closed on Sao Paolo.

We got to Sao Paolo and as I posted before, needed to transfer to the other Sao Paolo airport. We thought it would be a bus, but we ended up taking 10 cabs to the other airport.

Now Iris - just in case you ever thought of complaining about my driving again...

Imagine this. A city (Sao Paolo) the size of Philadelphia with airports on opposite ends. Now imagine getting from one airport to the other through using highways and local streets to get from one of those airports to the other in less than 20 minutes. You got - crazy cabbies. It was AWESOME. These guys are hitting 120-140 kph (about 70-80mph) almost the whole time. Now, this isn't like US traffic at all where you keep a car length in front of you or whatever - these guys keep a car length though, yeah a matchbox car length... Cutting off trucks, other cars, motorbikes zipping all over the place dodging in between cars on the lines - it was the most insane traffic I've ever seen. Some of the most fun I never want to have again!

Our next flight was nice. An Airbus from an airport that reminded me of HIA in size and layout. The taxi way was so close to the street that the wing of our airplane actually was hanging over passing cars. The ride to Rio was about 30-40 minutes and our crack team of 4 flight attendants actually managed to serve a sandwich and drink (from 2 separate carts) in that short time. I actually got some sleep on that flight. The landing was awesome - very much like HIA in that if the plane doesn't get stopped fast enough you are going for a swim. This plane stopped, but they were using full airbrakes and everything they had that would stop the plane - I'd be surprised if there wasn't a chute and some anchors tossed out the back.

Once in Rio we got on a bus this time, and went to our hotel which is pretty nice. I'll be posting some pictures later of our view from the 13th floor. After a quick shower, shave, change of clothes and dinner we went to our first concert at a local church which I didn't get the name of since we were in such a hurry. We got off the bus, went in and played. They liked us so much that they asked us to come back on Saturday and play a special concert of their youth group of over 1,000 kids! Apparently the kids sing mostly in English so it's going to be really awesome.

Got back to the hotel around midnight local time (9PM there), greeted a surprise "guest" in our room (a GIANT ROACH), watched some Mencia that I had on my Zune connected to our TV, and went to sleep about 20 minutes later.

Now it's almost 10:30AM and it's time to start our day. Be back later with pictures and more cool stories. God Bless y'all and I'll talk to you later!

Well..we made it to the airport and that was just the beginning...

Hello everyone and greetings from JFK International Airport. We got here around 5:30 and finally got to Gate 9 of the AA terminal at around 8PM. Yes, it took almost 3 hours. Here's why...

We found out shortly after getting in line that our flight had been "adjusted". YAY. The second leg of our flight that would take us from Sao Paolo to Rio has been canceled. Our trip leader, Henry, spent what seemed like a VERY long time negotiating with the people at the counter to determine our way to our destination.

We'll now be catching a bus from the Sao Paolo airport to a 'different' Sao Paolo airport, and from there we'll be catching yet another plane which will take us from Sao Paolo to Rio's 'other' airport. I say other airport because Rio has two airports, one international and another that receives the smaller flights. However, that second airport is located in the bay on a small island. Yes, we'll be landing right where I hoped that we wouldn't - on a tiny island in the middle of a large body of water. At least, this is the plan until it changes again.

Seems like the devil doesn't want us in Rio...

Either way, spirits are high! Here's the team resting in the lovely terminal. Another picture of the team members 'relaxing' is below.

So our 13 hour flight is now divided into a 10 hour flight, 1 hour bus ride, a 1 hour flight, and another 1 hour bus ride. So what. I'm looking forward to warm weather, sunny beaches, playing music, and worshiping God in a place that doesn't honor the one who made such a beautiful place.

I love you and miss all of you, but the warm sun and relaxing beaches are calling. Heh. Have fun in the cold while I'm flying, flying, riding, flying, and more riding. Wheee!

Well, it's time to go board the plane! See you in South America!

T-1:30 and I'm out the door...

Well, it's that time. I figured I'd get 1 more post in before I took off.

I had to stop home, mostly because I realized that I hadn't taken the Christmas stuff off of the church website. DOH! Last thing I need is an e-mail about it while I'm on the wrong continent. Heh. Anyway...

So now I'm off to save those naked Brazilian women from the devil... I'll just carry the inspiration given me by the wise words of my pastor, "Hey, they need Jesus, too!"

God willing I'll see you all again in a few weeks! Love ya!

Today's the day!

Well...much to my surprise I actually slept last night. Woke up early, but I at least slept pretty well.

If you didn't know, I'm flying off to Brazil today for a 10-day stint in and around Rio for a mission trip. Myself and a group of 21 other people will be holding worship services in different neighborhoods, churches, and even having a big concert on the beach on New Year's Eve. Turns out Brazil is a very spiritually oppressed country, with heavy influences of voodoo and other occult faiths holding a lot of sway, not to mention the social environment.

That being said, we're leaving from the Worship Center in Leola (just east of Lancaster) at about 12:30 today. Our flight takes off from JFK around 9:20pm (American Airlines flight #951). Any thoughts and prayers you give are greatly appreciated.

I'll be able to stay in touch by e-mail while there, and I have a blog set up for both myself and the rest of the group as well. Blogs are great because we can interact and have conversations about the trip and different posts I have made. Here's my contact info if you'd like to be in touch while I'm there:

Group Blog: http://concertsoflight.blogspot.com

AOL IM: RedFoamBrain (don't ask - it's a long story)

YahooIM: kkresge17603
MSN: kkresge17603 at hotmail dot com

Testing an E-mail post

Just trying out a test post by email to make sure that if I can't log in
and make a real post that I'll at least be able to post by e-mail.

edit: side note - it worked cause your reading this.

Instructions...

Just in case you aren't familiar with blogs, and someone asked...

If you want to leave comments or questions, just click on the word "comments" just below each post. It will take you to a page where you can write, and then finally post your message.

Just about a week left...

Hi everybody!

I want to thank Jody for the prayer, and especially for the opportunity to speak about the trip and to thank all of you who are supporting us either financially or through your continued prayers as we prepare to leave and while we are there.

LWC came through once again in an incredible way. I had a remainder left to pay on my trip balance and it was met and exceeded within 5 minutes. Fortunately, so much was given that some other people on the team will be completely caught up as well. LWC ROCKS!!!1one!eleven1!!

I've been somewhat nervous about the trip as the tension has been mounting prior to our departure. I have a love for flying - the views from 30,000 feet are great - it's the take-offs and landings that bother me. Someone joked about B.A. from the A-Team, to which I responded, "I look nothing like Mr.T!" But, it's of course not just the flight that has me a little tweaked.

Brazil is known for it's different false faiths and lascivious living (yep, I pulled out a 50 cent word), which also leads to spiritual warfare for missionaries. Hard to believe I fall into that category now.... I've been told a few stories by some who have gone before about the things they have seen and experienced, and while addressing the dark side of our spiritual lives is something I feel led to do it still disconcerts me since it's a path I've yet to walk. It seems that this trip will be a test: both my greatest fears and temptations will be tried while in country.

I'm going to try and get another post or two in before we board the plane, so please keep checking back, and like I mentioned at church if you have any questions or comments feel free to post them by using the provided links. In the meantime - God Bless, and I'll see you hopefully around Christmas before I 'fly away'.