St. John’s festival, or Festa de São João, is celebrated with bonfires, corn on the cob, quadrilha, and costumes right out of the Beverly Hillbillies. It’s a primarily Catholic holiday here that officially falls on the 24th of June, but ends up being celebrated all month. I call it St. Elmo’s Fire because just about every house has a huge, smoke-producing bonfire in front of it, at night, all month long.This is the third year that Mark and I will be joining in the festivities in Aningas.
The first year that we started having get-togethers on Sunday nights in Aningas, we were approached by a few young people, who asked if we would come to the festa de São João. “Certainly!” we answered. “São João was very dear to The Lord Jesus; of course we will come! We’ll even bring Gospels of John, so people can read what São João says about Jesus.” And so we shocked the community of Aningas by setting up a barraca and staying until the last bus drove away.
We were shocked, too, by the huge, gorgeous buses that rolled down the dirt road into the tiny community of Aningas. Nine enormous buses pulled in one at a time, competed in the quadrilha, and left. The quadrilha is kind of like square dancing crossed with the Sicilian tarantella, set to polka music, which blares at 10,000 decibels and deafens us all.
But it’s the crowds of people I love. Mark fashions a kind of “tent” out of PVC pipe and canvas. I make cachorro quente, a hot dog/sloppy Joe mixture that the girls help us serve on hot dog rolls. Mark works the crowd, handing out Gospels of John and tracts. And the crowd goes wild! They love getting the scripture and they tell us that the cachorro quente is delicious, but the Word is the best! What could be better than this?
So, tomorrow night, pray for us, giving out the best news about the heart of God, smack dab in the heart of this much-loved community.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29 NKJV)
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