Rev. Willard Bass participated in a fourteen day 'Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope to Brazil," in the middle of July. Duke Divinity School sponored this personal and experiential journey that focused on worship and journaling. Worship enabled us to locate each day's experience within the text of God's word and God's grace. We sought God's Spirit to interpret what we heard, saw, smellled, tasted and felt through the pilgrimage. We purposed to know spiritual deepening and transformation which moved us from a mission-minded mentality to a pilgrim-mentality. In other words, there were no feedings, no construction and evangelizing and most of the prayers were for the pilgrims, us, that we be transformed!

Two of the ministries we visited were our international partners: Rev. Raimundo Barreto in Salvado and Rev. Wellington in Mereico, both located in Bahia, Brazil. What a God send it was to find out we (I) would be in the churches of two of the Alliance's international partners. I leaned alot about how to do "outward" ministry to communities that are depressed due to causes beyond their control. But, regardless of the circumstances these ministers were right in the middle of the circumstances and worked to make things better...just as Jesus was found doing in the gospels: teaching__preaching__healing__feeding__and liberating the people!