Let’s Start Talking

A group from Canada arrived a few weeks ago to start our first North American campaign here for LST – a program which teaches conversation English using the gospel of Luke. The Canadian team consists of 6 teachers who study one-on-one with Brazilians signed up for the class. They are teaching an average now of 60 sessions per week (some are students who come twice a week) and there are still new students signing up for the classes every day. There has been so much interest in a beginner class (since many who have come were not yet advanced enough in their language) that one of the teachers began one on Sunday and had over 30 students! This is a great opportunity for the community to become familiar with us and to teach the Good News to many who tipically would not volunteer to listen. Please be in prayer for this work. There are still more spaces open for students, so pray that those are filled soon and that God will touch the hearts of those who are coming!

Brazilian / American Youth Camp

Matt, Mary, Jennifer Porter, our intern Paul and our visitor (hopefully next year’s children’s ministry intern) Heather all went to the south of Brazil for a week of Brazilian/ American youth camp. We offered ourselves as odds and ends laborers: helping with the directory, filling up water balloons, decorating for the dinners, etc. There was a campaign group from Abilene, Texas of about 40 who came to put on this camp for 60 Brazilian campers, 25 of whom were non-Christians. The draw for the non-Christian kids to come to Bible camp was a chance to practice their English and have cross-cultural interaction with American teenagers – a pretty good evangelistic tool. For Jennifer, Mary and Matt who work with the youth in our city, there were some short term and long term goals reached on this trip.
The short term was to bring back some Brazilian games, songs, devo ideas, ect. to use with the kids here. Also, to receive some translation practice, strengthen the bonds between one of the teams’ sponsoring churches, and talk to some of the older Brazilian Christians in the South about possible internships in Salvador in the near future - We have 2 really good possibilities for this coming year: Jefferson (Paul’s – this year’s intern’s - cousin) and a guy named Gusto, both whom everyone loved at camp and work well with youth and teaching English using the Bible! Another short term goal was talking with the speaker of the camp about his evangelistic / teaching ideas for a coffee house night at the church. Coffee houses are just starting to become a new attraction here in Salvador and it would be a great and informal way to reach the 20 somethings that live in our buildings.
The long term goals were more observation oriented. We wanted to see what an American youth campaign that size looked like as well as get an idea for future (way future) youth camp / retreat ideas. Also, we wanted show our support for the Southern churches since their leaders (Paul and his parents especially) have already contributed to our settling in here and beginning the work.
We received a little from the camp along the way that we did not anticipate… new friendships. Mary and Matt got to spend much time in prayer with the American adults who came. Since there are no older Christians from our own culture at our church, we have not had much opportunity to be mentored to ourselves. It was a wonderful time to share and grow and receive spiritual food which we had been craving.

Our First Baptism!

Words cannot describe it! We had our first baptism! Gicilene was baptized tonight at our apartment pool. Believe it or not, it was very cold. It is winter here (not quite the same as winter there but cold water non-the-less). Despite being cold on the outside, Gicilene was just glowing afterwards. Mary and Sonia were too along with the rest of the team. We are so thankful that God brought Gicilene our way and that He has begun to add to our number. After the hugs and songs died down some, Randy said, “I think we (the team) may be as (if not more) excited than Gicilene and Sonia. We have all been waiting for this day for so long.”

We had many non-Christians present as well including several of our teenage boys that we have been studying the Bible with for a long time. Please pray that this will be an incentive for them now that they have seen first hand what baptism is and means. Please also pray that we can give Gicilene the support and new Christian care that she needs during this busy LST campaign that begins next week. May God give our team enough time and energy to kick off a great campaign, bring new people in, and still take care of the many people that we already have coming each Sunday and Friday night.

Learning How To Love Others

Gicilene and Sonia are two of our most faithful attenders. They have come ever since the second Sunday. Gicilene, a struggling single parent, has been hurt by a church before. She has not been to a church in two years and is not a Christian. Gicilene was brought to our worship service by her friend and neighbor, Sonia. Sonia went to the Assembly of God church down the street but found out about our church when someone she met at a bus stop gave her the visitor packet they had from our inaugural service. Recently, Sonia has come to a crossroads decision. She has continued to come to Igreja de Cristo O Salvador because Gicilene will not go to any other church and Sonia loves her enough to want her to come to Christ. However, after 2 months now she misses her old church family. “Should I go back or should I stay?” is the question Sonia has been asking herself and praying about.
We have been in prayer as well and this past Thursday we got an answer. We have been showing the Brazil world cup soccer games at the church as a way to bring people in and build community in our church. Sonia and Gicilene are big soccer fans (everyone here is). During half time Sonia told Mary that she has made a decision. She said that she has been praying about how to grow in her relationship with God and she realized that she needs to learn how to love better. After much prayer she decided that our church is the best place to learn that. What a compliment! If there is one thing that we want to portray as a church, it’s how to love. She and Gicilene have now accepted a Bible study. Please be in prayer for these two sweet women.

New Car, Brothers Visit, Youth Nights, Birthday Party, Winter Intern

What a month this past one has been. We had a visitor Thomas Phillips (Bethany Forester’s brother) at the beginning of May. We bought a car – a green Toyota Corolla! One of the few automatics we found here. It’s 6 years old but it has been well taken care of. We got the car just in time to pick up Mary’s brothers Spencer and Brannon from the airport. Spencer’s birthday and Mary’s are a week apart so we celebrated them together after our youth event last Friday. We had 19 at the devotional. It was a good turnout for us and we made 2 trips taking everyone home in the new cars (Randy and Jennifer Porter just bought one too). Our first intern arrived yesterday, Paul Goncalves. His dad is a well-known Brazilian Church of Christ preacher in the South of Brazil and his mom is Amercian. So, it’s really good that our first intern is fluent in English and Portuguese. We’re not sure how much we have to teach him at this point in the work (since he grew up on the mission field); but I’m sure God has a few things in store to teach us all these next few months.

Happy Mothers' Day

Thank you Mom and Miss Cindy for all of the love that you give us, for all the caring, all the hugs, all the things that mothers are for their kids. You are two of our most favorite people in the world. Today is the day that we honor you, not just for what you do, but also (and more importantly) for who you are. Motherhood is not necissarily the penacle of womanhood, but we are glad that we were both blessed with women who are so good at being everying you are, teachers, people who are willing to do what is right, and people who helped to raise us to be the children of God we are today.
In honor of the two of you, I did something quite spontanious that will always remind Mary and I of the two of you. We love you.













Ok, it isn't real. It was part of an advertisement we did for our church on mothers' day here drawn on by Keith with washable marker.

Routine?

Is work in God's kingdom ever routine? I am trying to make it so, at least for me. It seems to be working, but I have been through this before. Weeks begin to look alike. Before it was a schedule of Portuguese classes. Now it happens to be a weekly schedule of meetings and activities. I can look forward to Tuesday beginning with morning classes with my language teacher, Jaci, then to head off to a meeting with the men of our mission team to guide our spiritual focus for our church. Tuesday nights leads us into our small group meeting at our apartment. Wednesday, I wake up to get ready and then head to our staff meeting, a time when we can look at what we are doing and ask, how can we help that to go better, after a time of worshipping God together as a church staff. Thursday is again Portuguese class in the morning. Friday mornings comes our rehearsal for Sunday morning worship and then a meeting of the sermon writing team. Friday nights are always youth activities. And of course Sunday mornings at 8:30, we all meet at the building to pray and then lead the worship service.

Actually, it is my humanity that is calling out, "make my week something I can get used to!" Really, it would be best not to be routine, but to always keep things fresh. I know that whatever routine we are in now won't last. That is fine. I look forward being more invovled in people's lives, and I think that is what leads to chaos rather than the order of a routine. It is always good to have something to look forward to grounding me in relation to the clock part of the space time continuum, but it is also a blessing to be able to say that if we get to the point where every day really is the same, then we may need to look at shaking things up a bit so that we do not stagnate. So, while my nature yearns for things to be steady, my nurture tells me that they can not become overy so to the exclusion of progression. Still, the urge is pretty strong.

After Inaugural and the 1st Youth Event

We have had two good worship services since inaugural. The first service (after inaugural) we had 24 in attendance. This was a little disappointing after filling our auditorium the week before but expected. I asked one visitor, Ida, how she found out about the church. Ida replied that she had been praying for a church near her home to be able to attend but she didn't know that God would open one for her!!! For Easter Sunday, our second service after inaugural, we had 47 people. Ida came back with a poem about our church and all of our kids from Amaralina came with their families.

The second youth event went well too. There were 10 of us hunting Easter eggs and putting the parts of the verses together that were hidden inside the plastic eggs. Matt played the main role in Randy's drama skit about being stuck in the box of sin and that only Jesus can pull us out, making us new creations and giving us new life in him. We are still praying that they will take these messages to heart and want to be baptized soon.

3 Things In Common

Our first youth event went better than expected! We had 35 people total. Some of the kids from other churches here in Salvador were there and about 8 of our own teens (the ones we have been studying the Bible with), plus 2 more unchurched visitors. Anderson (one of our kids) was so excited by the end that he started going around trying to figure out which of the others would be at church Sunday morning. We ate pizza, played get to know you games, sang, and learned about the 3 most important things we have in common: God made us in His image, God loves us, and God is constantly seeking after us. We also made bracelets that coincided with the colors of the points in the lesson. When we told Claudio as he was leaving that he could bring friends the next week, his face lit up. Please pray that at this next event we’ll still have some kids in town (as many families here travel on Easter) and that the teens will have open hearts when it comes to learning about a NEW LIFE in Christ.

A Much Anticipated Beginning

After our inaugural service yesterday, a visitor from Tulsa stated, “You must be very happy. I know you have been anticipating this day for a long time.” I am not sure if that was an intentional understatement or a blatant statement of observation, but it is altogether true. It was a very emotional morning for our family, beginning with a gift of beautiful flowers to the church from Mary Virginia’s family (Rick, Cindy, Spencer, and Brannon) in the name of her great grandmother, Little Momma. With a capacity crowd of around 350, the auditorium, which has no AC and no windows was steamy, but we are working on that problem. We expect that we had about 100 unchurched visitors; people with whom we have begun to build relationships and lead to the most important relationship with Christ. The worship service was dynamic with a great time of singing praises, wonderful blessings and messages both from guest and team speakers and prayers. Matt’s emotion heightened during the children’s worship time when the little ones were singing in Portuguese, “Can you whisper in God’s ear, something sweet he wants to hear? I love you...” God’s love for us has been so apparent in the last couple of weeks of preparation for this event, as has the love of God’s people, in all of the sponsoring and supporting churches of the Salvador mission team. And in a very public way, we were allowed to show our love for God and for the people of Salvador, finally. The reception following the service was a great time to converse with our visitors, including our realtor, Helena, and her family, our usual taxi driver, Roberto, and his family, and Jaci, our Portuguese teacher, and 25 members of her family. Now, it is just the beginning, and we have much more learning to do as we are also beginning the process of teaching others of the goodness of God’s grace and the life He calls us to in His son, Jesus Christ. We are thankful to everyone who has helped make this beginning a reality. Thank you for your prayers, and please remember to continue praying for us.

Two Weddings and Two Funerals

Never again will I wonder why there are so many nice dress shops here. We went to our first Brazilian wedding (a few weeks ago now) for our friends from the Bonoco church. Mary wore a pink and black dress that she had worn at her Bridesmaid’s luncheon before our wedding. Matt wore kaki’s and a button up long sleeve shirt (no tie). We arrived like any good American couple would – half an hour before the invitation time – and were the only ones there. When people started showing up about 15 minutes after the invitation time, the men were dressed like Matt (like they were going to church in the States) and the women were dressed in sequins and chiffon (like they were going to prom). The wedding actually started about an hour and 15 minutes after the invitation time and we sat at the same tables and chairs during the wedding that we were in for the reception. Everything was decorated in peach – no sorry – salmon (a very popular color here).

Within the same two weeks our brother in Christ, Otavio, lost his mother (who lived beside them) and his brother (who had lived above them). His mother died of cancer and there were many at her funeral. It was a sad time for Otavio and his family but she had been sick for a while and it was not unexpected. Otavio’s brother on the other hand died just 2 weeks after his mother in a tragic public accident. Otavio and 2 of his brothers are lifeguards on the beaches here. His brother Odivaldo was swimming out to help someone and a boat ran him over and drove off. (This happened the day after Fat Tuesday and it is assumed that the driver of the boat was drunk.) It was all over the radio and the funeral was televised. It was a beautiful Catholic service with the pall bearers all wearing life guard shirts and there was enormous turn out. Funerals here are always the day after because there is no embalming. They do everything at once and at the same place: the visitation, the service, and the burial are all in different parts of the cemetery. This makes for a very intense and somber day. Otavio especially was heart broken because he is the only one of his family who is a Christian, the rest of his family are non-practicing Catholics who dabble in spiritism. Because we and the Porters wanted to show our support of our brother and his wife and daughter, we decided to cook for them… for more details on this interesting culture story see the Porter’s most recent blog.

The second wedding we went to was for Jaci’s son, Douglas. Mary wore the same dress to this wedding and this time she was a little over-dressed. Not sure how we’re supposed to tell the difference yet in the wedding invitations. This wedding was less formal and a little more animated. The reception this time was not at the same place but was at the family’s house (where we hold our Bible studies). It was, interestingly enough, a pot-luck reception. We brought American brownies for them to try (Mary’s Grandmother sends us mixes). We left early because Matt’s allergies were acting up and the bride fixed us a plate to take with us. Gotta love Brazilian hospitality!

The Building of Excitement

Stacey Parker, one of the members on our team, recently said, “I have never known until now what it felt like to have my heart break and overflowing with joy at the same time.” She was talking about what happened at one of our Bible studies. Stacey and Mary Virginia are studying with a group of six of Jaci’s, our language teacher’s, nieces (all in their teens and early twenties) and their friends (Mariluse, Marilene, Taimires, Larissa, Jamile, and Daiane). There is also a guys evangelistic Bible study begun by Travis and Matt with Jaci’s nephews, her son, and their friends (George, Anderson, Douglas, Elder, Jackson, Andreus). At one of the recent studies the question at the end was, “If you were to ask God which path your life was on, would he say you were following His path or another?” Daiane, the youngest and the quietest said, “I don’t think that I can answer that question yet because I do not know which is the path of God or what He wants for my life.” Stacey later put to words what I was feeling as well, heartbroken that no one has ever told Daiane the way of God and overflowing with joy that she is earnestly seeking to know God and what He wants for her life. Since that lesson we have had two more about the life of Jesus and the teachings of Jesus again with Daiane and others (including some of the guys as well) asking some very searching questions. Next week’s Bible study is lesson six on baptism – Participating in the Greatest Story of All Time. Please be praying that God will protect the hearts of these young people from Satan’s attacks during this hopeful turning point in their lives. Also pray that God will open up doors for us to study with Daiane’s parents and the families of the other friends that have come to Jaci’s family’s house to hear the good news.

Not only are we getting to study the Bible with this huge family but they have also been helping us get the building ready for the inauguration. On Saturday we held a work day and had all three of the other churches in the city represented. Mary was in charge of the food which was a challenge with no stove, refrigerator, or microwave yet; but luckily the
American families on our team had crock pots (a thing the Brazilians had never seen). It was great to work together painting and cleaning alongside other Brazilian brothers and sisters and hopefully 10 future members of our church too. The city is pretty well shut down right now for Carnaval (which is why we had a huge push to get as much done as possible before hand). Renovations on the front of the building start next week and the sign on the front should be finished by then as well. Invitations are already ordered for all of our new friends and neighbors, plane tickets bought, and most importantly prayers are underway as the excitement builds. We are so glad that you are a part of this with us!

January Happenings

The first exciting thing that happened this month was the Sirmon’s visit! Rick’s first trip here and Cindy’s second. And although they were initiated to Brazil life in a negative way before they left– (our beach bag was stolen with Mr. Sirmon’s money and credit cards and our cell phones and apartment keys), on the whole their time in Salvador was a pretty wonderful occasion celebrating Christmas and New Years together. They brought many gifts for us and for the team and Mr. Sirmon even took time to plant things in our big planter on the balcony! It was truly a gift from God to have them with us for a short while. And while we miss them already, we know that they’ll be back soon – being as it’s now Rick’s business to travel and Cindy’s hobby of preference. It was also encouraging to hear Mr. Sirmon’s report to Riverchase on our life and work on the mission field.
While the Sirmons were here, WE GOT THE KEYS to the building!!! We closed on our rent contract the first week of January. There is much work to do in this area to get it ready for our inauguration but the plans are in progress and it’ll get done by inauguration with God’s help!
The South American missions conference was the second week in January and it was followed by a Brazilian youth seminar. Our entire team was able to go, thanks to God, and get to know other American missionaries working in Brazil and Paraguay.
Our first big evangelistic group Bible study was a success. The first lesson is on what the purpose of life is anyway and why study the Bible. The study concludes that the answers to the questions of life are found in the Bible, God’s Word, and that God says that the purpose for this life is found in glorifying Him, Our Creator and Father. The study began as a result of our language teacher, Jaci, wanting us to share what she helped us translate with her whole family (who brought their friends). There were 10 Brazilians at the study and we hope to have more next week as we tell of God’s overall relationship throughout the Old Testament with His people the Israelites. Please pray for Jaci’s family as they grow in the knowledge of their purpose in this world. Pray that they will seek to become the children of God that He longs for them to be – children who seek after their heavenly Father. Thank YOU for being examples to us in your giving and support and encouragement, on this every day journey to become more like Him.

December Events:

Matt’s Birthday was a lot of fun and was almost a full fledged Brazilian birthday party with catered sweet and salty mostly fried Brazilian “things,” a prayer in portuguese, about 5 different birthday songs and even live music (our neighbor brought his guitar). The birthday parties here are really big deals. Matt’s wasn’t quite up to par with some of the birthdays that we’ve been to here but it was still an event to remember. One memorable thing that happened was that our digital camera was stolen. Yeah, I know from his own party but it was in the shared room downstairs in our apartment building and anyone (from the complex) could have wandered in and taken it. – Just wanted to let you know why there are not as many pictures on our blogspot. Aside from that it was a successful evening and a good opportunity to build stronger relationships with the neighbors and new friends God has blessed us with here.
God brought us even more American visitors this month: Donna McMillan and Georgia Frietas stayed with the Parkers, the Terri’s (a missionary couple in Porto Alegre, Brazil) stayed with the Porters, and Russell’s parents, brother, and grandmother came for Christmas.
Our team Christmas was wonderful! We all spent the night at the Parkers (the only weekend in December without visitors) and played dirty Santa, read the Christmas story and sang carols. Then Saturday morning we opened our gifts to each other (we drew names) – the children went first of course! A memorable and blessed event!
Just after our “Christmas weekend” together we learned that Mary’s visa was invalid because of a previous visa in her passport that had never been canceled. Amazingly enough, even though she was illegal for a while (and still might be), we could see God working in that situation as well. We were told to go to Recife (a city about 12 hours by car north of here) to the Immigration Department. It just so happens that we have good Brazilian friends we knew from Abilene who are working with the church in Recife. God lead us to experience many different mature Brazilian works in that city, make bonds with the Christians there, and even get the proper “cancel” stamp in Mary’s passport.
God also guided us through another government problem with our taxes. We were being charged for taxes for the year before (when we weren’t even in the country yet). This was a major headache that gave us some good contacts in the end and helped us to pave the way for our teammates who are having the same trouble now.
We held our first small group meeting all in Portuguese. It was just our team but Travis is teaching all of us how to lead these and teach Brazilians to lead them as well. We hope small groups will be a major evangelistic tool, second only to our evangelistic studies. Please, keep praying that God will give us the gift of tongues as we spread His Word.
Negotiations for the building and planning renovations for it began in December. This is one of Matt’s roles on the team so needless to say it consumed what time was left after the above trips and events. God has truly been good in answering this prayer for a place to worship Him that is: in a our target area, on a main street, and big enough for at least 3 years of growth. And believe it or not, it’s located on Holy Spirit Street!
Each team member has different roles. Most ministries have 2 people working together but some just have 1 person. We began presenting our 5 year dreams in each ministry area and our 1st year goals to each other. We also began planning which things we could handle at first – what we were going to start off doing well. God has blessed us with good leadership and training for this preparation time.

How God Has Blessed Us These Past Three Months

God has been blessing us tremendously lately and we want you to know how. We apologize for being so long without an update. We thought we should catch you up though on how God has been working in our lives and the lives of people around us since our last blog....

November News:
God brought Matt’s parents Dick and Glenda to Salvador. It was a hard decision for them to come because Dick had had a fever and been feeling under the weather for almost a month before the trip. Finally the week before they were supposed to come, Dick went before the church and said that, “Tomorrow, if I feel like I feel right now, we will not be going to Brazil to see our children.” Glenda said that the whole church was stunned and offered their prayers. The next day God healed Dick – no more symptoms! We had a wonderful week with Dick’s parents, Praise God! And thanks to the prayers of the Flat River Church. We celebrated Thanksgiving week and had our own early Christmas together. Dick went home to report to the church what God is doing in Salvador and all involved in planting a church in another culture with a Christian team.
However, during the joyous time we had with them, we also had quite a scare when we learned that Matt’s brother, Jeff had a heart attack two days before Thanksgiving. It was hard being here and learning that he would undergo a heart cauterization. But God blessed the Mabery family yet again with healing and Jeff got to go home on Thanksgiving day!
As for the work, there were many things going on before, during, and after the Mabery family visit. We had our Portuguese Evangelism training seminar with the team before Dick and Glenda arrived. Matt’s parents were able to meet our Portuguese language teachers (with whom we are studying the Bible) as well as witness one of them commit her entire family to go through an evangelistic Bible study with us that she helped to translate.
Through much prayer and discussion our team finally decided on a name for our church, Igreja de Cristo O Salvador, and an inauguration date, April 2, 2006. As a team we also began working harder to learn and memorize Brazilian Christian songs and music. This added more Portuguese to our Portuguese / English Sunday worship together.

Unpacking!!!

We got our stuff!!! Tell everyone that was praying for us to praise God for this. Although after 7 months of being without it we realized how much we could live without, it is really nice to have the stress of the situation over and done with. (and it is really nice to finally feel a little more settled and at home here) It feels like we really live here now!

Our Ship Came In But Still No Shipment

After many many months of waiting, our ship came in!!! Our shipment arrived in port 2 weeks ago today. During which time we have scrambled to get documents to our representative at customs. We would have had our documents to her sooner had we known that the company we contracted to bring our things would not hold up their end of the contract and hire their own representative. While we were trying to get one important document from the States and another important document from Sao Paolo, the postal service went on strike here (only for the week that we needed them). We did get those documents here another way with some stress about the situation because the only address that the others had was our P.O. Box. However, the courier service really came through (DHL) but it was hard to hand deliver our paperwork since the students are protesting the bus system right now (because they are raising bus prices).

The good thing was, we knew we could trust our representative, Ana, to get our stuff released as soon as possible once she had what she needed. Ana had worked with our other teammates on getting their belongings to them and did a great job. I talked to Ana earlier this week and she said that the Receita Federal should release our things by Thursday Sept. 29 (yesterday) and that they would finally be delivered to us by the next day, (today). So I waited at home all morning excited that after 7 months of waiting, our things would at last be in our new home. Well, after just hearing from someone in Ana’s office, I’m beginning to loose hope that that day will ever come. The latest news is that the Receita Federal did not release our shipment yet because THEY went on strike yesterday. We still have the consolation that God is in control and if we ever get our things, it has to be by His help!

October Prayer Calendar

Prayer Calendars Oct 2005
Originally uploaded by Brazilian Tempo.

October's prayer calendar is ready for download, just click here. This time we have a picture of Salvador, pretty much the whole city is visible, for you to look at while you are praying for us and the people we are here to help. Thank you so much for your prayers. We have been receiving God's blessings because of the many requests that have been presented before His throne on our behalf.

What's New

In the past couple of weeks, we haven't had major entries to make, but there have been some things going on along with our daily Portuguese lessons, our three hour team meetings, and our other parts of daily routine. In other words, things are going on, but we haven't had the time to sit down and write a lot about it. So, I'll just take a few minutes to post some different pictures and write a few words about what is going on with us.

Ron and Georgia Freitas came for our six month checkup at the beginning of September. We spent some time with each of them one on one and as a couple. They spent a couple of days with our team as a whole and helped us stay on track and continue to keep the vision for what we are doing here.

I once complained that they were always playing dominoes across the street from our apartment. It can be a very loud game when played as they do on the street, slapping the dominoes down on the table at all hours of the night (been woken up at 2 am before from it). I now know it was all for a purpose. I don't know who the winner was, but I hope it was someone from our neighborhood. We met a nice guy from our building who seemed to have been sent home. I doubt he won.

Sorry, no picture for this one. One day I was traveling down one of the most used streets in Salvador on a bus. The Military Police here are known to set up "blitzes" here where they empty cars and busses and search everyone on board. It was my turn. We filed off (me with no form of identification and heart pounding) and proceded to assume the position to get patted down for contraband. The women stayed on the bus and handed over their purses and bags to a female officer. We were then allowed back on the bus to resume our ride. I guess it could have been a lot worse. Most of the guys seemed annoyed but were in good humor afterward.

We use quite a bit of microwave popcorn in a week, and Mary had the idea to save the unpopped kernals from all of our bags for a while. We recently ran out of microwave bags, so I improvised and popped all the unpopped kernals. They all popped up nicely on the stove in a little oil. A little salt and it was good eatin'.


We found a Brazilian Mexican restaurant that serves good burritos, as well as other good stuff. We'll be staying away from the taco salad though.






Mary took us out to a very nice park last Saturday and were blessed to be surrounded by God's creation. We decided to hike the bicycle trail thinking it would only be a couple of hour hike with lots of rest breaks to enjoy the scenery. It took us 4 hours to complete the entire thing, over 12 miles. We were pretty tired by the end, and hungry. We saw over 21 monkeys on the trail, one was no more than 3 feet from Mary's face. The park has a couple of lanchonetes and we sat down and had a quick lunch (well, it really wasn't quick, even by Brazilian standards) and sipped or guzzled a few bottles of water. It was a great day, despite the sunburn I got ON MY HEAD. The hair is a little short now.

Today we attended church with Russell and Valerie at Itinga, the church we painted. At the end of the service we were asked to sing a song for them in English. We sang "Listen to our Hearts." The preacher said it was a blessing to see us worshipping God. It didn't matter what language we were doing it in, they understood what we were doing. It was good to be able to minister to them in this way, and I know we will have many opportunities to minister to our brothers and sisters in Itinga while we are living here.

Hello Sportsfans!

Well, as we hear news of Fall aproaching back home, we're reminded of how much we miss American sports. Matt loves Cardinal's baseball and Mizzou football and most of you reading this know I'm a big Auburn Football fan. And I can be happy for Alabama's good start this season even though it makes me a little nervous about the Alabama Auburn game this year. Yeah, I got to listen to some of the first Auburn game over the internet before I fell asleep because it was after midnight here at half time. Wish I could've heard this past Saturday's game against Mississippi State. Anyone reading this have a favorite play? So, this is just a short blog to say that if you have any sports news or comments about this Fall season, we'd love to hear them. Who else is gonna talk about football with us? Here, if it's not soccer you want to talk about, it's not a very important subject. We're learning to appreciate soccer too but I don't think going to the stadium here will ever replace being at Jordan Hare with 85,611 of my closest friends!