September 25, 2006

Weekend in Lavras

I spent Saturday and Sunday with Washington Luís and Francisca Maria at their ministry internship location--the nearby city of Lavras da Mangabeira. They were hosting an evangelistic conference, and I was the speaker. This was one of the most eventful trips I can remember. Below are some pictures:

The first event in the "adventure" department happened as we were out inviting people to come to the conference. We came upon this bridge, which looked rather precarious to me.

I decided that if anything exciting happened as we crossed, it should definitely be caught on film--for posterity's sake, if nothing else. So I sent Daniel, another seminary student who was with us, to the other side with the camera. Then we started out.

Going across the area where the water was running over the top was by far the most nerve-wracking part.

From that point on it was pretty smooth riding.

Notice how little "wiggle room" there is on this bridge. One false move and you go in the "drink".

Another exciting part of the trip was our excursion to this isolated lake, surrounded by rock cliffs. I had to use the four-wheel-drive to get there, but the view was worth it. Some of my friends in the US would drool at the rock-climbing potential here. I was content to take pictures.

Before the evening service, we had an uninvited guest in the little hotel room were we were staying. This is not the biggest scorpion I have seen here,. but I was assured he packs a wallop. I found him on my shirt as I was packing my bags. Needless to say, I went through all my other clothes very carefully.

As we were leaving, I stopped to take some pictures of the very ornate Catholic church in Lavras. I was accosted by this gentleman--who was in a somewhat inebriated state--and asked to take some pictures of him. He wanted them taken on the steps of the church. Afterwards, he urged me to put them on the internet. I told him I would, and then gave him a tract and told him to read it when he was sober. As to the pictures on the internet--I am a man of my word!

We had one final adventure on the way home, for which I have no picture. It was close to midnight, and as we rounded a curve on the road, we saw a man stretched out on the pavement, a bicycle on its side close by. I was able to swerve and miss him fairly easily. At this point I gunned the engine, since having people lying in the road pretending to be hurt is one of the most common tricks used by highway robbers here. As soon as we were in cell-phone reach, we called the police.

All in all, a pretty adventuresome weekend.

Posted by Andrew on September 25, 2006 12:19 PM.

Comments

Posted by: Connie at October 3, 2006 3:32 PM