Easter morning we have a Sunrise Service at church, which usually starts a few hours after the sun actually rises in Marabá. It’s a new tradition for our community of believers, and one they look forward to. Later, during the main service, the kids did a skit, Monica preached, and almost the whole church came forward for prayer at the end. Our church seems to have turned a corner, some time back, and now there are often new people present who we never invited, and who we don’t know. I love it when people feel safe enough at church to bring their friends.

Paulo here, in the first picture, is drunk most of the time. He also knows Christian hymns, and quite a few Bible stories. He got “disciplined” one time, from some church somewhere, and never got back on the right track again. These drunks often have a strong aura radiating off of them. I think it has to do with the residue of the drugs and alcohol coming out through their skin. It leaks out into the air around them. I don’t think they realize it. It takes a decision to sit beside them. I am think we also leak out whatever is in us. If we are getting filled up with God every morning, we are leaking out the Kingdom of God wherever we are. This is feels good to some people around us, and not so good to others. And if we have bitterness of envy in our hearts, that leaks out too, which really feels wrong to people around us, kind of like how salty water and fresh water cannot flow out of the same source. So we have to be careful. Fill up with the good stuff every morning. Confess and lose the bad stuff, whenever it surfaces in our thoughts. And hang out with people so we can influence them for good, just by quietly sitting beside them.