Um Despertar Espiritual...sort of?

Rachel and I decided to explore Lins a bit more today in an attempt to find a park that we discovered pictures of when researching Lins. It is tough asking locals for advice since we do not speak much Portuguese, so we have resorted to looking things up on the internet, drawing out our own maps, putting on shorts, loading up on deodorant and wandering the streets.

After getting lost and exploring a new area of Lins once again, we found ourselves walking past a building that appeared to be a theater. There were teenagers hanging around the building chatting, as we glanced inside and continued to walk past. But something about us must have caught their attention. Perhaps it was our blonde hair, or maybe it was the fact that we were wearing shorts and t-shirts in the middle of winter; something made a few of the teenagers chase after us, yelling out words in Portuguese that we didn't understand. We stopped and tried our best to translate what they were trying to say. "Nao folo portugues," we explained as they smiled and giggled. They ran back to the building and came back with a young boy.



"Speak English?" the boy said as the girls looked on in awe.

"Yes," we replied.

"Come with us."

"Onde?" (Where?) we asked, still trying to make use of the few Portuguese words we knew.

"Youth group. Come play," he stated in broken English.

"Are you acting? Do you want us to watch? Ver?" we pointed at our eyes.

"Starts at four hours," he tried his best to explain.

Rachel looked at her watch. It was 4:00pm right now, it must be starting.

"O.K.," we said and followed the teenagers back to the building.

We entered a room filled with chairs and a podium in the front. We took a seat towards the front and the teenagers gathered around us, choosing the seats directly next to and in front of us.

"The preacher," the one boy who spoke some English pointed at a man in the corner.

It was then that we came to the realization that we were not about to watch a play, but instead we were gathering for some sort of mass.

The preacher approached the podium and begin reading from a book that we later learned was the "Universal Bible." The teenagers placed their hands over their hearts and we followed, not sure what to expect. They repeated after the preacher and then closed their eyes and proceeded to partake in some form of prayer. The passionate expressions on their faces made it seem as if they were having a controversial debate with an imaginary figure standing right in front of them. They repeated after the pastor in prayer, and then in song...

Suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, the music began to quicken and the teenagers led us to the front of the room and began dancing. They stared at us out of the corner of their eyes as they watched two American girls trying their best to keep up with their Latin rhythm. I apologized in English for lack of rhythm, but knowing they didn't understand, nor really care, I joined in on the dancing anyway. After about a minute of dancing, we took our seats and continued with the service. The pastor stepped out from behind the podium and began giving a very animated lecture, that I honestly wish I understood. "Sim ou nao?" he repeatedly asked the teenagers to which the answer was always, "Sim."

Then it once again was time to sing. "Pode haver milagres quando voce acredita..." they sang, as I came to the realization that I had in fact heard this song before, but not in Portuguese. "There can be miracles, when you believe..." it was Whitney Houston.

The service continued and ended with an organized dance that was a mix between runway style walking and the electric slide, with some hopping thrown in between.

Once it was over, the Portuguese pastor, piano player and teenagers surrounded us on all sides and began asking questions. We came to the realization that we best understood each other by communicating in broken Spanish, since that was a second language to both of us. I felt as if I was a gorilla confined to a cage at the zoo, as the teenagers laughed at our terrible accents and stared at us.

"One, you're like a dream come true. Two, just want to be with you..." the piano player began to sing and then paused, "Three, hmm. Three..." and I catch on to the song. "girl it's plain to see, that you're the only one for me," I continued in a half-singing, half-talking voice.

"Brian McKnight!" he exclaimed, ecstatic that I knew the words to the song.

We spent the next half hour talking about music and singing the American songs that we both knew. Before we knew it, it was 6pm and another mass was about to begin. We promised to come back again on August 15th, but the town is so small, I have a feeling that we might run into each other again before then...