Evergreen Bough Sunday?

In a country full of Catholics, it's rather difficult to find a Lutheran church around here. However, after some pretty extensive searching, I've been able to locate two that are associated with the ELCA. I find it funny that my little hometown in Wisconsin has the same number of ELCA churches as a city as huge as Rio.

One of the churches is located in the Central neighborhood of the city, and I went there last Sunday to try it out, and it took about 45 minutes to get there by bus and walking. The church is in a rather sketchy neighborhood. To get to it, I have to pass through a run-down plaza filled with people sleeping on park benches. Needless to say, I didn't bring my camera. The plus side of this neighborhood is that it has very cheap food. I was delighted to find a deal for a salgado and a cup of juice for less than sixty cents. That's my kind of lunch!

In contrast to the rest of the neighborhood, the church itself is in very good condition. It's fairly plain on the outside and surrounded by gates that are locked most of the time. On the inside, it almost looked as though it could've been any ELCA church in the US. It came complete with the typical stained glass windows and pipe organ. The pastor wore the same white robe and purple sash-like thing (the official name escapes me) that pastors in the US wear. They even do services in German twice a month - it's hard to get much more Lutheran that that!

I accidentally had the time of the service wrong, so the service was already mostly over by the time I got there. However, I still had the chance to see the children do a presentation about Palm Sunday. At the end of it, they went around and passed out branches to the congregation, as is tradition on Palm Sunday. However, instead of the regular palm fronds that American parishoners receive, the children passed out evergreen boughs. I found that extremely ironic, considering the fact that all one would have to do to get palm fronds would be to shimmy up the nearest palm tree - there's always one within a block or two.

The congregation recited the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer, as do American Lutherans. However, I found it interesting that instead of calling it the Lord's Prayer, Brazilians refer to it as the Our Father. Perhaps this is because of the strong Catholic influence in the country, since I think that's what Catholics call it. Everyone knows these prayers by heart, as they do in the US, so I think I'm going to have to work on memorizing the Portuguese versions of them.

In other religious news, I received a pamphlet from a woman on the street the other day. She didn't even say anything to me, just handed me the pamphlet and kept walking. It was called something like "Steps to Peace with God" and authored by Billy Graham, an American preacher. That's some pretty far-reaching evangelizing he's doing. I also received a different pamphlet another time, which I think was also supported by an American church. American evangelical churches have only zeroed in on South America and Brazil fairly recently, but it seems to be a growing trend.

On the other end of the religious spectrum, I've been noticing lots of posters in Leblon for the Temple of Iamanjá. Iamanjá is one of the gods of Candomblé, a religion with African roots that was practiced by the slaves and is still fairly popular. Candomblé is a complex religion that I don't understand well, but I know that it is syncretized with Catholicism. For example, many of the gods are also matched up with Catholic saints. The posters advertising the temple had me confused for awhile - they were blue and white with Stars of David on them, so I originally thought that they were advertisements for a Jewish temple. Quite the opposite, in fact, but I still think visiting that temple could be an interesting experience.