The Race to the Finish Line

It is a busy time for us as we head toward furlough and try to get into our new church building. We have a three story building set on a 600 square meter lot. We will be using the first two stories and leaving the third story to finish later. Here's the latest picture. We are frantically doing everything possible to have it useable for the 27th of May when Pastor Gene Lasley will preach our inauguration service. The date was set months ago and I decided we'd have an inauguration no matter what the state of the building was!

Right now, São Paulo is in the midst of a big panic due to the actions of the PCC, a large criminal gang which began in the prisons. There have been dozens of police killed in the last four days and over 40 prison revolts and today, the city shut down due to fear. Mostly exaggerated, the gang is not that big, but rumors fly and soon everyone was closing up shop. Once that started, even the people who didn't believe the rumors had to shut down. There were no customers!

It is calm around here. Most of the violence is directed at policemen. The number of attacks has diminished drastically since Sunday and the only number going up is the number of criminal killed. It seems obvious that a lot of the ones they catch will be killed "resisting arrest". A lot of police were buried over the weekend.

Lord bless,

Graham, René and Katie Foran