Painting walls, toenails and playing with orphans in Niteroi, Brazil

Our team from the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma has returned from a mission trip to the Brazilian cities of Vitoria and Niteroi. (See my earlier blog post about our time in Vitoria.)
On Sunday we worshiped with the Niteroi Church of Christ in its newly-painted meeting place. Members of our team spent a day painting the walls of the facility (off-white, including a dark blue, highly-touted “accent wall”) and cleaning the building. We also walked the neighborhood and handed out invitations to church and to a Bible study course offered by the congregation.
We traveled to Niteroi in support of the Niteroi Mission team, a group of U.S. Christians who came to this sister city of Rio de Janeiro two years ago to plant a church.  The team includes Zane and April McGee, Brent and Jill Nichols, Ben and Juliana Roberts and Nathan and Sara Zinck. The church has a core group of about 30 members and draws a lot of visitors, the missionaries tell us.

Jill Nichols challenged our group to a sort of “supermarket scavenger hunt.” Our team broke into small groups with shopping lists and had to navigate the aisles of a nearby grocery store to find the items. Of course, all of the labels were in Portuguese, and Jill threw in a couple of items that you just can’t find in Brazil to make the experience more challenging. (They don’t sell sour cream in Niteroi, we discovered.)
We took the groceries we purchased, along with toys and T-shirts we brought from the U.S., to a nearby orphanage and played with the kids. While some of the boys and girls played a fast-paced game of soccer, a few of the girls broke out the nail polish and gave each other manicures. (Somehow, my 3-year-old daughter convinced one of the kids to paint her toenails.)
The orphanage is home to about 25 children, the director told us. Although it is surrounded by church buildings — Catholic and evangelical — few church groups visit the kids, we were told. One of the girls pulled out a guitar and started singing in Portuguese. The others kids joined in on the choruses as they skipped rope with the bright pink jump ropes we brought for them.
Then our group sang “Days of Elijah” as the kids clapped and danced around us. The experience was uplifting.

• Feedback
  Hi i am wondering the contact details for this orphanage i have to go somewhere for my stage 2 ( i am currently studying at bible colelge) and i am looking at niteroi brazil 🙂 if you still have the contact details please let me know 🙂

  Braden

  December, 19 2012