When people ask me, “What’s your favorite country that you’ve been in?” I’ve often said “Brazil”. I was here 20 years ago and now I’m back to do recordings for the video series I do. It’s a funny feeling, almost like meeting a girlfriend from your past that you actually really liked and hit it off with but somehow it just didn’t work out. Still, you parted as good friends.

Twenty years ago Brazil virtually amazed me as one of the happiest, friendliest, most sincerely Christian places I’d ever been in. It was almost like, “What can I do here? I think almost everyone is saved, filled with the Holy Ghost and rejoicing in the Lord.” Of course I knew it wasn’t really, totally like that. But it was striking how many people in Brazil had a real peace and joy in the Lord.

So, like meeting that girlfriend after 20 years, you wonder how it will be and how she will be. And of course, Brazil, like the hypothetical girlfriend, has changed. The country had years of what can be called Leftist leadership which ended up not turning out very well. Recently they’ve followed the pattern in countries around the world in electing a Conservative, pro-business president.

Still, I definitely can feel that tingle and aura I felt here before. Meeting old friends from earlier times, seeing how they’re doing, how they’re keeping the faith and dealing with the vicissitudes of life, it impresses me how their spiritual roots remain deep in the Lord. There’s like a depth and stability about the people here that I don’t often find other places.

But there are still big problems. One of the main ones is simply armed crime. “Stick-ups”. There’s a large class of very poor people and often crime seems to them to be the only solution. So you pull up to the stop light with your window down and the guy comes up to you with a gun. He’s say something like, “Sir, I’m sorry. Give me your money or I will shoot you.” Some folks even have $50 or so they keep in their car for these emergencies. You give it to the guy, he thanks you, apologies again and you drive off. And then sometimes it doesn’t work out as nicely and simply as that.

This is not a panegyric for Brazil. The heart of man is the same the world over and people have sin in their lives and heart, everywhere. And yet, as the Bible says, some peoples and nations stay closer to the Lord. There is “an evil and adulterous generation” (Matthew 12:39) as Jesus said of those who were in His times. But then David said “God is in the generation of the righteous” (Psalm 14:5).

My impression is that Brazilians in many ways are still holding on to the faith and truth that they have in the Lord perhaps better and more faithfully than some of the other modern nations of the world. And so the Lord can and does bless them for this.

There’s just something about genuine faith in God, or the lack of it. It even says in the Bible, amazingly, about Jesus, “He could do no might works there because of their unbelief.” (Matthew 13:58) The Son of God Himself was hindered by the unbelief He encountered. But equally and conversely, He often eliminated all but only His most believing disciples from some place before He raised the dead or did other miracles. And this works on a larger scale. “Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people.” (Proverbs 14:34)

Here in Brazil there’s just a lot of faith in God and love for the Lord. Yes, there is stark poverty, crime, and violence as well as endemic illiteracy. And yet…, and yet there are these other more ethereal intangibles in the way of faith, joy and warmth that are so often noticed and appreciated by people like me who come from afar and who sense that these rather heavenly essences are strong here.

Well, the recording I came to do has been going well and I’ll soon be on my way again. I don’t really have any great lesson or teaching to share in this post. I just try to keep friends aware of what’s going on with me from time to time and that’s what this post is.

I guess we all know things about ourselves to some degree, our strengths as well as weaknesses. And I think the thing is, the people of Brazil are perhaps strong in areas that I don’t feel are my strong points. So often things come down to the heart and soul, not the mind. I find people here to have a pretty good mix of those three, heart, soul and mind. They seem to be relaxed but at the same time not really lazy.

Therefore it’s almost a little like going to a kind of school of life here for me , while also being idyllic in climate and geography. Forgive me if I’m just being too positive. There definitely are problems here but also it’s got a touch and taste of heaven that I don’t often find in other places.