Brazil: A Buffet of Religion

Hey friends-

Just a quick entry today. I have updates that you could be praying for..

Yesterday I went to a ´`Centennial Origami`` ceremony honoring the important Nikkei characters in Brasilia (like politicians and professors). It was an unbelievably long ordeal of 3 hours. But the idea was cool... I´ll post some shots later, I´m not on my laptop right now where I can access my pics.

ANYWAY, on the bus going to the event, I had an interesting encounter. The second stop for the bus was the group from the Seicho-no-ie temple. Here´s where I need your prayers. A 3rd generation lady sat next to me by the name of Elizabeth. We had a long conversation about her beliefs and practices. Seicho-no-ie is a new Japanese religion, brought to Brazil in 1930 and has exploded in popularity since. 80% of the followers are Brazilians, while the rest are Japanese. I sitll have yet to do my research on it, but from the looks of it and with my previous knowledge, I know that it is very New Age. They believe that God created all things to be good and man made it evil (good so far..). But I think it is very Deistic in the sense that God has no involvement in salvation, but man saves themselves through practice and reading of their many scriptures. All sickness is healed and pain is relieved when one can fix their heart and soul, or from the inside out.

I invited Elizabeth to come to our speech contest at the end of the month, and she was extremely interested. But, she can´t go becasue of previous appointments with her temple... so please pray that maybe she would cancel those plans to come to this event so I can continue our conversation. Seicho-no-ie is one of many, many religions that Brazilians practice. Even worse, the Brazilian mindset is that it is acceptable to mix and match. So the Brazilian will be Catholic by name, and practice spiritism, Seicho-no-ie, Buddhism, Hinudism, Mormanism, you name it. The pattern I´ve seen is that they take our the ´good stuff´that benefits them (like healing sickness and adding wealth), and there is never any love for God or a realization of his soverignty. You may have heard stuff like, ´oh... Brazil´s already so evangelized...´eh... not so much. The Prtoestant church has gained a terrible repuation in Brazil becasue the Prosperity Gospel and Neo-Pentecostalism (money suckers) has been so heavily taught, that church is seen as hypocrites that say you´ll be rich, but people obviously aren´t so rich in Brazil... continue to pray for the really messed up spiritual state of Brazil.

One more for you. Today Pastor Toshi, Hiroko, and I went around the farmlands to do some home visits with the 1st generation Japanese (OLD people). They do this on a regular basis. The first lady, Koyama-san had been reading a Bible that Toshi and Hiroko had given her. I believe she has been Buddhist up until this point, but I was amazed to see her deep thought and interest in the Word. She has been reading the Bible in order, being at the point of I and II Kings and was intrigued as to why humanity was always in wars and having bad Kings. We were able to explain to her that that portion of the Bible, although is redundant and ``boring,`` is there to prove humanity´s depravity. It was when Isreal was disobendient to the law and went their own way, creating their own god´s and making their own riches that they were conquered and defeated. Man can do nothing without God was the message we gave to her.

Koyama-san came to Brazil in 1959, and moved to Brasilia in 1960 when the city was first established to work the farmland. The Japanse were specifically asked to come farm the dry, unfertile ground of Brasilia because they had gained the reputation of being excellent farmers. So, she has been on the same land, in the same house ever since. She expressed her frustration with the current generation on the world being spoiled, having everything handed to them, and she took this frustration to a realization that all is God´s and all is given to us by Him, so we should be so much more thankful for all that we have. I was inspired by her deep thought, and I can´t wait until she gets to the part about God loving us depsite our selfish ways and therefore sending a cool guy named Jesus to save us from our depravity. Please pray that her very straight path to salvation would not be hindered or blocked.

So Obama and Hilary are teamin´ up huh? God Bless America...

Eu te amo!
Hannah