Associação Evangélica Pentecostal de Nishi-Koizumi
I was able to attend a Saturday and a Sunday
night service. I found that services are strictly
geared towards Nikkei-Brazilians, although
there are two Peruvians and one Indian in the
congregation. All sermons are given in
Portuguese, and this could have created a
major problem for the Peruvians (who speak
Spanish) and the Indian (who speaks English
and Japanese), but it has not. They have
chosen to overlook this and enjoy the services
anyway. Since, Portuguese and Spanish are
so similar, there seems to be little problem in
communication for the Peruvians.
And as far as Ravi, the Indian, is concerned, he is in a place with fellow brothers and sisters in faith and therefore, it is of no consequence that he understands less than 25% of the service. In fact, he regularly attended all three churches we visited!
Instruments used during the praise hour included an acoustic or electric guitar, a bass, and a drum set. Because choruses are sung instead of classical hymns, no hymnals are used. The choruses are printed on transparency film and projected onto a screen. These choruses are all sung in Portuguese.
