Harvest Party

Corn is a huge part of our diet here where I live in central Brazil: polenta, tamales, corn custard, corn bread. Street venders actually sell plastic cups of fresh corn, it’s that popular. Throughout June and early July, Brazilians celebrate Festa Junina (Catholic name) or Arraia (non-Catholic name); a party that might look to you like a harvest festival with farm-themed decorations and lots of plaid. Both John and Peter’s saint days are in June, and, since Brazilian schools run with the calendar year, June is also the end of first semester before winter break. Most schools close out the semester with this harvest party like we do with our Christmas parties.

Curau is corn custard served
with or without cinnamon on top

Our church harvest party was the first time we sold food at a church event instead of everything being free. Along with our rummage sale, this has been our first experiment with raising money for the church remodel. We have learned a lot and we're looking forward to trying the rummage sale in other locations.

Vilma, Bia, and me outside our temporary
rummage sale "store"

Me, Ericléia, Vilma, Isabela, Aline, and Nicinha 
getting things set up the day before

Before the harvest party, we were able to do some touch ups at the new building including painting the exterior and some of the interior and building new sinks for the bathrooms. We also built a booth for selling food and made all of the traditional decorations, like a bazillion multi-colored banners. 

Bia, Isabela, me, Aline, and Ericléia making decorations

Painting the front of the church

The church used to be an elementary school and had
cartoons painted on the front

Marcos cut and welded the base of the sinks and
built the top with mdf, contact paper, and plastic bowls

There were so many moving parts in this event and a lot of delegating to different people, but it went really well. People invited their family members from out of town and friends from other churches (which we've accepted is always going to happen). But we were also able to build more relationships with some of our evangelism contacts and build memories together as a church family. We handed out invitations in the neighborhood to get our name out there and maybe spark some curiosity in the neighbors for future events. 

These pots have hotdogs and mandioca soup.
The hotdogs were served with corn and potato slivers.
Mandioca is cassava or yuca root.

Nicinha and Aline made this fishing game
for the kids and they loved it

I made these party favors with
an invitation to Sunday service