Fowlers in the Field

Harvesting Acai

2011-11-18T12:54:00.001-06:00

After a week of trying to upload the first acai video to my blog, I gave up. I posted it on facebook. You can try the link below to see if it works. You should definitely be able to watch it if you are my Facebook friend. If not, I'm not sure if it will work. Let's try it!

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150403016659604

If you didn't see my first acai post, check it out. It explains the whole process with photos. Look for a link to a post with the title "Acai" on the left side bar. <---

Açaí

2011-11-06T12:50:00.000-06:00

Açaí...the "power fruit"...have you ever had it? I remember going to a MonaVie party just a few short years ago and hearing of the amazing benefits of this fruit. Little did I know that just a few years later I would be living in Açaí Capital! Our state is the largest producer of açaí in the world. It has been said that it produces about 85% of the world's açaí.

Since we get it fresh here, we don't eat it like most of the world consumes it (in a bottle, in a juice, frozen, etc.). And typically here, you need to consume it the same day it is "liquidated". Last Sunday we spent the day with the church in Nova Marituba and we got to watch the açaí process from start to finish. I took all of these pictures that day for the purpose of sharing this unique experience with you!

The little farm where the church meets once a month for a fellowship day has many açaí trees growing on it. This young man harvested them for us so we could enjoy some fresh açaí with our lunch. This is the typical way it is harvested. First he used twisted cloth of some sort and tied it around his ankles so he could climb up the tree.

Then he worked his way up the tree. All the way to the top where the berries were! There were a few trees in which he was unable to make it all the way up because the açaí was so high up that the tree started to bend and we were afraid it would not support him.

He dropped these bunches of açaí down and then he slid down. While he continued to gather more berries from other trees, others began taking the berries off of the "branches" and collecting them in the wheel barrow.

It was a LOT of berries!! They are about the size of blueberries...maybe a little bigger, but definitely smaller than grapes. BUT they have very little "meat" on them, as in 1mm or less. The seed is nearly the same size as the entire berry and many people in our area recycle the seeds to make jewelry and other crafty things out of it. (My mom and sister both have bracelets out of açaí seeds.)

Next they wash the berries to get all the insects off. They wash them in cold water and then they also use boiling water to make sure all the bad stuff dies. We are often warned to be careful where we buy açaí as many locations do not properly clean it before selling it and you can get sick.

Meanwhile, some of the men pulled out the ol' açaí machine and gave it a good cleaning so we could could process the berries. They scooped a bunch...

...and poured them into the machine...and added a little water...

and voila! Açaí ready to eat! (Well, almost...I have to doctor it up quite a bit first.)

The berry is actually not sweet AT ALL! You can eat it right off the tree, but, well...blech! Many people eat it just like it comes out of the machine, but most people like to at least add sugar to it. We like to add...um...well...a WHOLE LOT of sugar to it. I actually prefer it with just sugar. Many people in our region also add tapioca bits to it or another type of flour (which I don't really know how to explain in English). They also like to eat it with fried fish and fried charque (again, don't know how to explain that in English).

Other regions of Brazil only get it frozen because it does not grow there. These regions eat it frozen with granola, nuts, bananas, pineapple, guarana extract, honey, etc. But eating it like that is a disgrace to people from Para (our state). :) They seriously get disturbed when seeing it eaten like that. Açaí is one of the most common foods here. In fact, it has been stated that people in our state eat twice as much açaí as they drink milk. Thankfully, we all 3 like it. Especially Jonah. As far as the health benefits, I *think* recent studies may have indicated that there is little proof that it has that many benefits, but I'm not sure. I AM sure, however, that whatever benefits it DOES have are cancelled out with as much sugar as I put in mine! :-/

This was a special day for us, to see it from being harvested from the trees to eating it within a few hours. But how does it normally come to us? Well, you can buy it in the supermarket or at the open air market by the river. There are also several little stores that only sell açaí. And, as with most things here, you can buy it from someone selling it in the street. Several times a week a guy goes down a street near our house and we can hear him yelling "A C A I!!! A C A I!!!" The açaí man actually has a very distinct call and Jonah likes to mimic him. Here is a video of Jonah telling Aunt 'Rie and Uncle G how it goes when they were here. Maybe this will help you pronounce this "power fruit" correctly. :)

I took some videos of the process as well. Perhaps in the next few days I will upload those videos so you can see the process in action.

VBS 2011

2011-10-13T12:50:00.003-05:00

We had a wonderful opportunity last week to give the boys their own little VBS. Josiah's Aunt Terra sent us some materials left from their VBS so that we could do a VBS with Jonah and Josiah. It was the perfect week for it for me since Nick was in Sao Paulo. It was a nice distraction for Jonah and me. :)

The theme: The Australian Outback

I wasn't able to decorate it like an Australian Outback, but thanks to Doni Doni, Jonah has a little tent. We pretended to hike around the Outback each day looking for Australian animals, and then we'd settle at our "campsite" for our daily Bible Story.

The boys were able to make several crafts of Australian animals and Melissa taught them a litle about each animal as well.

Terra sent all kinds of extra activities to do with them. Here they are making a little book that retells the story of Jesus walking on the water.

Melissa is read them a story about a kangaroo after they made cute little kangaroo crafts.

They even got T-shirts! Jonah thought that was soooo cool! Which is a good thing, because he'll be able to wear it for several years! ;)

All ready for VBS! The hat and sunglasses are because we walked the few blocks to Josiah's house and we ALWAYS wear sunglasses in Belem! The backpack...well, I think Jonah just thought he should bring it because we were going to Vacation Bible SCHOOL. All it had in it was his tiny little New Testament. :)

First time we have ever ridden an elevator to VBS.

And you certainly can't have VBS without singing "I'm in the Lord's Army".

(The matching shirts that day were a total coincidence.)

Jonah was all about his duckbill platypus he made!

You can't have VBS without fun snacks! A snack of Goldfish is quite a special treat here! The boys had to cast their "nets" to the otherside to get their Goldfish after reading the story about Jesus and the fisherman.

We even had fun workbook pages to do to review the stories. (This one is of Zacchaeus.)

Wednesday night was a special occasion and Tio Brian joined us for VBS and told the boys the Bible Story.

Games are a must at VBS too, right?

Wrapping up the last day of VBS...and still all smiles! :D

It was a great week and a week I'm sure Jonah will remember. They learned some cool things about the Australian Outback, but most importantly they learned more stories about Jesus and how he helped so many people.

Thank you, Aunt Terra, for giving us this great week!

A Week to Remember

2011-10-03T21:35:00.000-05:00

One of the greatest blessings of the year for our family occurred in the middle of September. My amazing sister, her wonderful husband, and her sweet sweet baby came to see us! When we boarded the plane for Brazil in June of 2010, Marie was 6 months pregnant with Caroline. We are very close, so it has been very difficult to be separated from each other for the past 15 months...especially with the new addition to their family. We are sooooo thankful to have Skype which has allowed Jonah to maintain a close relationship with Aunt 'Rie and Uncle G and has allowed all of us to watch Caroline grow.

It was so cool to see Caroline and Jonah recognize each other when they finally offically met in the Belem airport!

Although pictures don't fully express the wonderful feelings we experienced in the one week we were together, they seem to tell the story better than I can with words.

Here are just a few of the moments we shared together.

Their first morning in Belem we went to the park that hosts an Arts and Crafts fair every weekend. There was also a number of other culutral things to experience as well...music, martial arts, food, and the Brazilian people.

Jonah enjoyed showing Caroline his room and toys.

For Sunday dinner, we ate "Frango no Tucupi"...a regional dish...with Edson, Juscileni, and Emerson.

On Monday we took them to one of our favorite places to go. "The Creek" (as we call it) is a tidal creek about 1 1/2 hours from our home in a rural area of the state. The water is ice cold and has low tide/high tide. One of the wonderful things about "The Creek" is that it is almost all in the shade! Caroline scouted it out for us. ;)

We put our lawn chairs in the ice cold water and read and talked while Jonah and Caroline has a blast. Another great thing about the creek is hanging a hammock in the trees by the water and taking a little afternoon snooze in the cool of the shade. One of the highlights of my week was taking a nap with Caroline in the hammock...that is not a blog-worthy picture. :) But this one is...

Oh, and don't forget the food! They bring lunch for you to enjoy right there by the creek...we had fried fish and shrimp with rice and french fries.

We took a quick little canoe ride to explore...saw some pretty butterflies and birds and heard some interesting sounds.

Marie and Jeremy are quite the "go-getters" so I tried to take them to as much "touristy" places as possible in Belem.

Caroline enjoying the bird sanctuary...

Caroline was really fascinated with all the colorful butterflies in the butterfly garden. Jeremy took this shot and several other amazing shots.

So sweet...

Of course we had to hit a churrascaria (Brazilian steakhouse)

Jonah loved spending time with Aunt 'Rie and Uncle G.

And I had a blast reading to both Caroline and Jonah!

We also went to the Ver-o-Peso...North Brazil's largest open air market. Jeremy experimented fresh acai.

Another sweet picture (those don't get old)...

We caught a beautiful sunset over the river at the Docks one night.

We took them to one of our other favorie "out of the city breather" spots...a secluded, shaded beach on the river. They even swam in the river and didn't see any piranhas. :)

Jonah was very busy making sand pies and sand tunnels that day.

Jeremy also tried another regional indian dish...tacaca. A soup that has shrimp (with the skin) and a few other ingredients that you wouldn't recognize. :)

This was cool: Marie got to be a part of my very first Children's Bible Class (in Portuguese). :) A very special night for her last night in Belem.

Jonah gave Caroline a "ride" on the ice cream truck before we told them bye at the airport.

We miss them so much! Just last night during Jonah's goodnight prayer he said, "God, we miss Caroline so much!" Yes, we do! BUT we are so incredibly thankful for the sacrifice they made to come visit us for a week in September. A week that we will never forget!

Team Retreat

2011-09-22T08:31:00.005-05:00

At the end of August, our team took a 3 day retreat with the purpose of reflecting on our first year on the field as well as planning for the years to come. We went to Mosqueiro Island (1.5 hours from the city) and each family stayed in a small cabin. There was plenty of space for the boys to run and play in the grass and dirt.

We battled the afternoon downpours...

..and juggled the kids...

...but we were still able to get a lot of work done! We focused on the mission statement, vision, and plans we made during training. We were able to evaluate how we are doing in various areas and then refocus and adjust our efforts and expectations for the future. We are excited to see what God has planned for this city in the upcoming years!

Nick treated us both nights to a delicious meal on the grill! It was great to spend some extended time with our teammates!

These boys had a blast!

Training with Nilton

2011-09-04T14:17:00.004-05:00

The last full week of August was an incredible blessing for our team. We had Nilton Barreto come from Salvador, Brazil to train Nick and Brian in teaching the "Let the Bible Speak" course. Nick and I met Nilton and his sweet family on our survey trip in 2009. Nilton is especially close with Melissa as he knew her as a child when her family worked in Salvador. He is the director of the School of the Bible in Salvador. A few years ago he rewrote the course, "Let the Bible Speak," that was originally written by American missionaries, so that it would be culturally appropriate to Brazlians. Our team benefited greatly by having him train us in teaching this course since it is a course we plan to use when we open a outreach center in Belem.

Nick, Brian, and Nilton spent the mornings working through the lessons in a rented office space.

After lunch each day, Nick, Brian, and Nilton headed out to Nova Marituba (a nearby city) to meet with Valdir (a leader in the church there) and include him in the training.

Brazil is such an incredibly large country with such diverse culture that many things in Belem were new to Nilton. We tried to help him experience the culture here as much as possible in the few hours of free time we had during the week. One night our team took him to eat "tacaca"...an indian dish that is very popular in our city.

Jonah LOVES Nilton! A child can certainly tell when someone has genuine love for them. Jonah immediately fell in love with Nilton and wanted to do everything with him. Since Nilton stayed with us, Jonah had the opportunity to see him a little bit each day. Jonah woke up 1 - 1.5 hours earlier each day out of excitement of seeing "Sr. Nilton" before they left for work. Jonah even talked Sr. Nilton into playing a board game, Camp, with him.

It was a very encouraging week to be edified by this brother in Christ. The guys learned so much during this training, and they are very excited about starting this course next year. We are very grateful for Nilton taking the time to do this and his wonderful family for sacrificing him for the week!

What do Soccer, Live Poultry, Mud Pies, Monkeys, Grilled Fish, and Acai all have in common?

2011-08-22T09:02:00.011-05:00

We experience all of these things AND more when we spend a day in fellowship with the Christians in Nova Marituba!

Nova Marituba is a small city outside of Belem. When we surveyed Belem in 2009, we met a Christian man and his family that live in this city. At the time his family was worshipping by themselves as there was no church in the area. When we arrived in 2010, it was still just his family. However, in the past year, there have been some new Christians added to this body of believers in Nova Marituba. It is now a small, but growing congregation of the Lord's people. Praise God!

Our family has worshipped with them a few times in the past few months. It has been a great encouragement to us! Right now they are meeting in the man's home, but once a month they meet at a little farm. When they do this, they meet in the morning for worship. After the worship service, the men fire up the grill to cook some meat to go with the rice and other dishes the ladies bring. They enjoy a few hours of fellowship together.

We were able to join them for this occasion in June and then again yesterday. It was a wonderful day! Nick preached his first full length sermon in Portuguese to probably about 25 people.

One of the wonderful things about going to this place is the space there is for the boys to run around, play, get dirty, and just be boys! One of the first things they did was find these HUGE dead palm branches and they drug them all over the lot as if they were "bringing in their kill." :)

Jonah drug his "kill" all over the land...through a soccer game...between trees...to a tire swing...through the flocks of ducks and chickens...

Isn't this precious? Our teammates' baby chillin' in the hammock while we waited on lunch.

We also tried this fruit. I have seen it several places growing wild since we moved here, but I've never tried it. It's called "jaca"...it kind of has a banana-ish texture and the flavor isn't bad. I don't think I'll be going looking for any, but I've definitely had fruits that taste worse here. ;)

There's not much dirt or grass where we live in the city. Everything is concrete! :(So when the kids see the dirt, they are drawn to it! And I'm glad Jonah can actually experiencing playing in it.

Jonah has several books that mention "mud pies" and he was so excited to finally be able to make his own mud pies!

Did I mention there was also a monkey swinging through the trees? A new experience for me at a fellowship meal. :)

Jonah's friend also got to help feed the chickens and ducks.

A wonderful day of worship, sweet fellowship, and delicious food with our brothers and sisters in Christ in Nova Marituba!

Marajo Island - Day 5

2011-08-09T20:27:00.006-05:00

I'm finally going to wrap up these vacation posts!

Our fifth and final day of vacation (back in June) on Marajo Island:

I savored my last peaceful morning of a good breakfast and delicious coffee by the river.

We watched these guys at breakfast every morning. Jonah "shared" his breakfast with them several times too. They are anableps - four eyed fish of the Amazon. They technically have just two eyes, but each eye as two irises and two pupils. One set can see above the water while the other set can see below the water at the same time.

We spent the morning packing up, relaxing, and letting Jonah run and play. At one point, I heard him say, "Look, Mommy! A caterpillar!" I was amazed when I saw what he had found. It was beautiful and HUGE!

There was a little raised cabana that Jonah liked to play in...he called it "the treehouse"...it had some old drums and a few other things he found interesting. We ate a picnic lunch in the "treehouse" before checking out around noon.

We explored the island by car again that afternoon before boarding our ferry boat that took us back to the mainland. The sunset on the way back across the river was incredible.

We saw several fishing boats on the way back as well.

As we arrived back at the port, there was another passenger boat headed into the sunset...

We are grateful for the wonderful memories we created during this vacation in the amazing beauty of God's Creation in this incredible part of the world.

Marajo Island - Day 4

2011-08-02T07:37:00.008-05:00

It may take a while, but I am going to finish these vacation blog posts! Things have been very busy here and it seems like every time I make time to write a blog post, for some reason it doesn’t work. :-/ I have had many unsuccessful attempts lately. Hopefully this one will work.

Day 4 of our Vacation was our beach day! Before moving to Brazil, I was totally not a beach person! I would choose the mountains any day over the beach. Even now, I would still prefer the mountains, but I have a growing appreciation of the beach since it is the only non-urban thing we can do here. Brazilians are all about the beach. Most of their cities are along the coastline. Belém is not one of those cities, but we are located along the Amazon River basin so there are freshwater beaches all along the rivers here. But the rivers are so big, it almost feels like you’re at the ocean! The best part is that they are often shaded, AND we know when to go so they are empty and we have the beach all to ourselves! ;)

So I was actually pretty excited about our beach day during vacation. Unfortunately when we arrived, this storm was building.

The first thing Jonah wanted to do when we got there was fly his kite that Granny brought him in May. He is all about some kite flying!

The storm threatened enough that we finally took cover in a little cabana of a restaurant. Nick and I got a game of Bananagrams in...as you can tell, I really had him sweating. ;)

Amazingly, it never did rain! So we ventured back out. I even got to read some while Nick and Jonah played on the beach.

See...that's totally a river. Crazy, huh?

Jonah loves to play in the waves.

Oops! One time Jonah decided he would stop flying his kite and play in the waves instead. He just didn't give Nick a fair warning. Nick chased the kite down 70 yards and then spent quite a while untangling it! :)

King of the Beach

This was Jonah's happy medium of playing in the waves AND flying his kite at the same time.

Now a few photos we took:

Marajo Island - Day 3

2011-07-22T08:11:00.006-05:00

Our third day on the island was more relaxed. After breakfast that morning, we went for a drive to explore as much of the island as we could by car. The majority of the island cannot even be accessed, especially during the rainier season...it is just jungle and swamp.

One of the first things we saw on our ride was this little girl riding this HUGE bike. It was actually quite common to see this on the island. I don't know how they do it!

We also saw a lot of these signs...water buffalo crossings.

There were tons of horses wandering in the roads too.

Most of the water buffalos we saw were being used for transportation, hauling materials, etc. But as we got further away from civilization, we saw a few actually in the water chillin'.

Some of the roads we explored...

There were so many beautiful flowers and plants on the island! I also saw more exotic butterflies flying around our hotel than I have ever seen in a butterfly sanctuary! But those guys are hard to capture on camera. :(

Still wanting to hike more, that evening we set out to hike from our hotel to wherever the road led us! First it took us to a little village. Houses like this

formed little neighborhoods.

We found the river behind the village.

Nick's pretty good with the camera and took these cool shots while we were exploring by foot.

Blazing our own trail...

Back to the road to take us to our hotel.

It was a very peaceful and relaxing day as we explored the island by car and by foot. What a beautiful place!

Marajo Island - Day 2

2011-07-15T14:57:00.009-05:00

Hiking, camping, backpacking, fishing, rafting, canoeing…these are the activities Nick and I filled our leisure time with in Tennessee. But to the average Brazilian, these things are just weird. One Brazilian friend even thinks we are adrenaline junkies because of our hobbies. ;) But to the average Tennessean, there’s nothing unusual at all about those things! We just enjoy exploring the amazing creation of God in fun and exciting ways.

Perhaps one of THE most difficult things for us this past year of living in Belém has been to give those hobbies up. We didn’t expect this at all, which made it worse. In fact, one of our boxes we shipped here when we moved was full of hiking, camping, and backpacking gear. Yet a full year passed without being able to even use any of it. It seems ironic to us that we are in one of the most amazing parts of God’s world…the Amazon…and yet can’t participate in these outdoor hobbies we enjoy so much.

So….when trying to decide where we wanted to go for vacation, we searched the internet hoping to find SOMEWHERE we could enjoy these hobbies. It looked like Marajó Island was the closest thing to us that would offer hiking and similar nature type activities. We even booked a hotel that we thought helped coordinate these things. We were very disappointed when we arrived at the hotel only to realize that their website had misled us into believing we could hike on their land or at least that they could arrange something for us. They were clueless. Thankfully the first night we were there, our paths crossed with a guy that did different tours on the island. We were able to set up something with him the next day.

We set up an afternoon tour with him, so we spent the morning relaxing at the hotel. Jonah was able to run and play all over the few acres of natural land around the hotel. The hut behind him in the picture below was quickly named his “tree house.” It had some old drums up there he liked to play along with some other random things. He had a blast running wild and enjoying the outdoors.

So, here goes the ONE day we had to really live up the adventure side of ourselves! We took a lot of pictures that day, but I tried to narrow it down to just a few to give you a summary of our day.

After a lunch of PB&J in the room, we followed our guide in his dune buggy to this farm to spend the next several hours exploring it in various ways. :)

We started off with a short hike through the woods to get to a tidal creek.

This boat was waiting for us when we got to the creek.

We canoed down the creek...right through the middle of the jungle. This same creek had been completely dry only 4 hours earlier.

This (below) was called the Mouth of Glory. It is where the creek met the bay. They said about 40km that direction was the Atlantic Ocean. The waves actually got a little rough in this part. I don't know how the guides kept our boat from tipping over, but I sure am glad they did! No telling what creatures were in those waters!

The next part of our boat ride was through a mangrove forest. It was pretty incredible, but the pictures just don't quite capture it. We saw all kinds of interesting plants and bird nests.

When we got off the boat, this guy climbed up a tree and got us fresh coconuts to drink.

He cut them open with his machete, and everyone drank away. Well, I only had one sip...I'm not a huge fan.

Next, we hiked a good way through the mangrove forest. Most of it was on this little bridge you see below. They specifically told us not to put our weight on the hand railings AND to distribute our weight among all 4 of the little planks at our feet. :) (I guess that was their disclaimer in case the bridge collapsed.) Thankfully, we had no problems. We were able to enjoy the incredible nature in the mangrove forest...well, I did. It was Jonah's naptime, so he was pretty tired. The guide talked Nick out of taking the hiking backpack (that Jonah could have ridden in), so Nick ended up carrying him on his shoulders the whole time. :-/

Sitting in the mangrove trees.

The hiking trail came out at this beautiful deserted beach!

After hiking across the beach for a while, we found the herd of water buffalo waiting for us. For me this was the most exciting part of the tour, because it was my first time to ever ride a water buffalo!

Jonah got a kick out of it!

Nick and Jonah had to share a tiny little saddle...so that only lasted about 1/3 of the trip. At one point, Nick had gotten pushed out of the saddle and was falling off the water buffalo! I could just see Jonah riding that water buffalo all by himself! Yikes! Thankfully he was able to get back on soon. When we came to a clearning, I took Jonah and we rode in this wagon pulled by the water buffalo the rest of the way.

Jonah liked this because he was finally able to squeeze a little nap in. :)

After we finished our tour, we went back to the farmhouse for some homemade cupuacu juice. It's not mine and Nick's favorite juice, but Jonah likes ALL of the juices here. ;)

After that we went back to the hotel to get cleaned up to go get a bite to eat. Everyone in town told us to go to this restaurant...and it was delicious! It was outdoors and surrounded by tons of Amazonian plants...but it had a roof on it to protect us from the sudden rainforest rains!

An appropriate ending to our day...eating buffalo meat topped with buffalo cheese. :)

Marajo Island - Day 1

2011-07-14T11:27:00.006-05:00

Tuesday, June 21, we left our house before 6am. We drove about 45 minutes to a nearby city where we caught the ferry boat that left at 7:30am across the ginormous river to the island of Marajo.

The actual ferry boat ride lasted about 3 hours, but from the time we boarded the boat until the time we got off was 4 hours...quite a long haul on a boat! Jonah used his binoculars to see wayyyy across the river! :)

Words (and pictures) just can't even begin to describe how HUGE the rivers are in the Amazon basin region. You just have to see it for yourself!

Jonah is all about "things that go." Riding the ferry boat while playing with his airplanes and cars. :) (Thankfully I talked him into leaving his trains at home.)

The ferry dropped us off on the island here. Then we drove about an hour across the island...a few tiny towns, but mostly wild...to another town where we took a 7 minute ferry boat ride across a smaller river to get to the city where our hotel was.

We grabbed some lunch in town, and finally made it to our hotel around 2 or 3pm. This was the place where we stayed. It had GRASS and lots of room for Jonah to run and play! He really enjoyed being able run freely and explore. There was only one other couple there while we were...so it was very peaceful.

The hotel also had a pool. I'm not sure if this one was supposed to be a kiddie pool or a hot tub...but we used it as a kiddie pool. :)

We ended our day watching the beautiful sunset over the Paracauary River at our hotel.

God is good.

FYI...Stay tuned

2011-07-02T19:36:00.003-05:00

I am still trying to do blog updates from our vacation to share with you the fun we had together as a family while exploring this part of God's amazing world.

HOWEVER, I haven't been able to get blogger to upload any pictures all week...and the pictures just tell the story so much better than my words!!

So, keep checkin' in and I'll keep trying to post!

Have a great Independence Day Weekend!

Vacation!!!

2011-06-27T12:42:00.003-05:00

Our family had the opportunity to go on vacation last week. This was the first family vacation we have taken in 2 years. Thankfully we have been able to take a few "weekend getaways" to keep us sane over the past year, but never longer than 3 days. We wanted to take a good 7 - 10 day vacation this time, but due to various limitations we were only able to be gone 4 nights and 5 days. But what a wonderful 5 days it was!

We went to Marajó Island…the largest freshwater island in the world. This island is larger than the country of Switzerland and is located at the mouth of the Amazon River almost directly on the equator. There are only about 250,000 inhabitants on the entire island, and it has been said (although I’m not sure it’s fact) that there are more water buffalo than people on the island.

For us, it was wonderful to escape “city life” for a week and enjoy the calmness of rural life. We were able to enjoy the amazing world God has created…especially here in the Amazon. It was great to enjoy time as a family together as we relaxed and recharged our batteries.

It was such a diverse vacation that I’m going to do a post of each day we were there. So stay tuned for more pictures and more details.

Sara: Our Teacher, Our Friend

2011-06-03T13:56:00.007-05:00

One of the biggest challenges this first year on the mission field has been learning the language and culture. This was also one of our main objectives for the first year.

It took us longer than we had hoped, but we secured a language teacher in September of last year: Sara. (And it was worth our wait!) Sara has been trained in teaching Portuguese to foreigners and she does a wonderful job. She has also been great about teaching us Brazilian culture. Learning a foreign language is difficult…for this reason, we are thankful we had Sara to help us along the way. She was patient and kind as she taught us. She always kept her radar up to see what our needs were that day. Some days our brains just don’t function as well in Portuguese as other days, and she endured those days with us. As we spent 4 days a week with her, she quickly became a close friend.

We have spent 9 months with Sara. The last 5 months we have had class in her home which has allowed us to develop a special relationship with her family.

They love Jonah and spoil him rotten! ;) We are thankful for the love they have shown our family and the help they have given us in many ways.

Unfortunately for us, Sara is leaving. She has a wonderful opportunity to spend a few months in Canada on Vancouver Island working with a Christian camp. This has been a dream of hers and something she has been working toward for a few years. It is a selective process to be accepted, so it is quite an honor that this dream is becoming a reality for her. We are excited for this chance she has to explore another country, culture, and language through such a wonderful avenue like a camp. We will miss her, but hope to keep in contact with her as much as possible.

Sara, may God bless you on this wonderful adventure! We love you and will miss you!

Granny and Boppa Return

2011-05-28T06:35:00.006-05:00

We have been incredibly blessed that my parents have been able to visit us this first year on the mission field. They came in December for a nice Christmas surprise and then were able to return this month as well. What an awesome blessing!

We weren't able to take vacation time for this visit like we were able to in December, but we managed to squeeze in some BIG fun things on our Family Days each week they were here.

The first weekend they were here we took a 45 minute boat ride to a nearby island.

We were nearly the only ones on this secluded fresh water beach.

We spent the day relaxing in the shade and catching up on each other's lives.

The Young Ladies Serving Christ from Mt. Juliet Church of Christ sent us some children's Bible Class materials. We have already began using them with Jonah and Josiah and hopefully in the future will be able to use them with Brazilian children as well!

I was able to enjoy my first Mother's Day in Brazil with my own mother! That was a nice treat...and my amazing husband cooked us an incredible Mother's Day lunch.

One afternoon while Nick was working, I took Granny and Boppa to a tourist attraction here in Belem. There is a butterfly garden, bird sanctuary, Brazilian Navy museum, and a tower that you can go up and see a lot of the city.

There were also a lot of animals (such as the iguana pictured below) running around.

Perhaps the highlight of their time here (for me at least) was a weekend trip we took to Salinas. Salinas is about a 4 hour drive from Belem and is located on the Atlantic Ocean. The hotel we stayed in had this awesome little kiddie pool that Jonah really enjoyed.

Nick and Jonah really enjoyed flying a kite on the beach.

Jonah also liked exploring the waves with Boppa. The picture below was when he was first getting used to it. But in no time, he was tossing and tumbling in the waves and loving every minute of it!

Our friends, Edson and Juscileni, came over and cooked Sunday lunch one day...Chicken in Tucupi...a popular dish for this region of Brazil.

They were also able to meet another family that is very dear to our hearts here in Belem: The Almeidas. Sara has been our language teacher for 9 months. The last 5 months we have taken classes in her home which has allowed us to grow very close to her family. They have been so wonderful to us and helped us in so many different ways.

Also while Granny and Boppa were here, Jonah wanted them to read his bedtime stories to him and put him in bed each night.

He is still trying to get used to the fact that they aren't here anymore, but he is looking forward to Christmastime when we plan on going home for furlough. He is excited about not only seeing Granny and Boppa again, but also seeing Grandma and Grandpa, his aunts and uncles, and everyone else who loves him so much in Tennessee!

FYI

2011-04-24T20:33:00.001-05:00

Over the weekend my parents emailed me a picture they put in the slideshow for Pa's funeral. It fit in so well with the blog post I did last week that I had to add it. So if you've already read the previous post, you might want to scan down and see the OLD picture of me with Pa playing the dulcimer when I was a little girl. :)

A Tribute to Pa

2011-04-21T08:44:00.003-05:00

Today my family is gathering in Tennessee in memory and honor of the long life my grandfather lived. He passed away Monday at the age of 90. I will take a moment to share with you some of my favorite memories of Pa.

Until the last few years Pa led a very healthy and active life. He was a World War II veteran, retired manager of Kroger, and was well respected in the community. He and my grandmother both were great examples of leading an active life as senior citizens. They walked 2 miles every day until a few years ago and were avid campers until about 10 years or so ago. Pa also stayed busy working in his garden and always kept his yard immaculate. Pa was a wood worker and made countless pieces of furniture. He and Nana made a great pair as he would often build something and then she would paint a scene on it. Even though he had numerous pieces of furniture that he had made all through their house, he still made a special effort to build each of the grandchildren a unique piece of furniture as a wedding gift…even in his 80s. I will always cherish the bookshelf he made for our wedding gift 8 years ago.

(Pa with Jonah at 5 weeks old.)

Now some of my favorite memories of Pa:

Pa always wanted the News on the TV. For us as kids, this was torturous, so we were always trying to find cartoons when he wasn’t looking (or when he had fallen asleep). It seemed like we could only keep the “kid shows” on for a few seconds before the news flashed back on again. One time when he was at our house, my brother had the idea to take the batteries out of the remote control…that time the kid friendly show lasted a little longer. :)

Pa loved to work in his garden. I can remember walking through his garden with him many times gathering fresh fruits and vegetables that we would then take in for Nana to fix for lunch or dinner.

Nana and Pa loved to camp and it is a hobby they have passed on to their children and most of their grandchildren (including me). They both loved to fish when they camped too! I have countless and very vivid memories of camping with Nana and Pa as a child. Sometimes our whole family would camp with them which was always fun. But then there was a special time about once a year when Nana and Pa would take all of the girl grandchildren camping for a few days and then another time they’d take all the boy grandchildren camping for a few days. Those are some special memories.

Pa was also a good musician…he passed this down to my uncle and his boys but it unfortunately missed us. :( It was always fun to gather around Pa as he played his dulcimer and the rest of our musically inclined family chimed in with their instruments too. He would even occasionally let us “play” his dulcimer.

Pa loved to sleep…at least ever since I’ve known him! And every meal called for a nap afterwards. Holidays at Nana’s and Pa’s house always involved a big meal with the men quickly disappearing for naps all through the house after the meal. This is why I couldn’t help but include the picture below…classic Pa!

(March 2008)

I have a very vivid memory of walking with Pa on his two mile walk one morning and he taught us the chant: “Left…left…left, right, left. I had a good home, but I left…left, right, left.”

And now for the memory that probably happend the most often: Pa liked to stay perched in his recliner. And from this perch, he was really good at flicking rubber bands at us from behind. We would get nailed by a rubber band when we least expected it…we would turn around only to see a straight-faced Pa looking the other direction as if nothing had ever happened! He was soooo good at never cracking a smile and looking like he was totally clueless to what happened!

Those are the things I will remember most about Pa. Most importantly Pa was a Christian. It brings comfort to know that he is no longer in pain that this world brings. Praise God for the long and full life he was able to live.

His Obituary:

Owen Riley Smith, 90, of Springfield, died Monday April 18, 2011 at Alive Hospice Skyline Madison Campus. Funeral services will be conducted Thursday April 21st at 11:00 a.m. in the Oakhurst Chapel of the Robertson County Funeral Home with Bro. Marvin Crouch officiating. Interment will follow in Memorial Gardens. Mr. Smith was born November 9, 1920 in Gilbertsville, KY to the late Claude and Ruby Frizzell Smith. He was a veteran of WWII, having served in the U.S. Calvary. Mr. Smith was a retired manager for Kroger. He was a member of Hillcrest Church of Christ and a former member of the Springfield Kiwanis. In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his brother: Ethridge Smith, sisters: Claudene Vass, Grace Powell, and Ruth Brewer. Mr. Smith is survived by his Wife: Jean Smith of Springfield, Son: Rick (Nancy) Smith of Greenbrier, Daughter: Sarah (Buddy) Pickler of Mt. Juliet, Brother: James Smith of Dickson, Grandchildren: Ricky and Jason Smith, Angie Dawson, Brian Pickler, Amy Fowler, and Marie Keopf, Nine great grandchildren .

4th and Final Stop: Belo Horizonte

2011-04-15T17:49:00.003-05:00

It was an incredible site as we flew into Belo Horizonte for our fourth and final city. The climate and the landscape made us feel as if we were back in Tennessee for a few days! It was a breath of fresh air to be there. Although I saw some hills and mountains and enjoyed cooler weather in October on my trip to São Paulo, this was Nick’s and Jonah’s first time to experience these things since moving to Belém. While in Belo we were able to meet with two different missionary families as well as some of the Brazilian leaders in the church there. We gained a lot from their many years of experience on the field. Our family also went to a small group Bible Study on Tuesday evening at one home while the Kings went to one in another home.

Nick and I were blessed to spend the afternoon with one of the Brazilian Christian families our last day in Belo before flying home that night. We enjoyed a delicious meal in their home and were able to get a Brazilian’s perspective on some of the things we plan to do here in Belém.

We took the opportunity to go to Belo’s zoo (one of the largest in Latin America) on our Family Day that week. If you know Jonah, you know that he’s actually more interested in trains, planes, and automobiles than animals…in fact he was actually more excited about a tractor that drove by doing maintenance work than the giraffe that was standing only a few feet away from him! But for the most part, he really enjoyed the zoo and named the elephant as his favorite of the day!

Brazil Tour 2011: 3rd Stop, Recife

2011-04-12T13:20:00.003-05:00

There are many great works going on in Recife. Nick and Brian were able to talk with four different American missionaries and many of the Brazilian Christians during our time in Recife. Here are some pictures that capture a summary of the 8 days we spent in Recife:

We spent one afternoon with a missionary about our age. Jonah loved playing with their son who was also 3 and still talks about his new friend!

They have a school in Recife that is used like a seminary. Many young Christian men from other cities in Brazil come to go to school there. They even have a dormitory they can stay in. We were able to participate in a devotional and fellowship with these fine young men at Randy’s house was evening.

One night Nick and Brian participated in a small group that one of the students leads.

Ebnesr Teologia had a graduation while we were there.

One of the students invited us to stroll along the beachside road one evening. (Jonah was thrilled that we bought some popcorn for dinner!)

We attended worship services with two of the congregations in town. We went to worship with one and Bible Study with the other one. The first congregation did a Children’s Bible Hour during the sermon, so Jonah got TWO Bible classes in one day which he LOVED! He loved having "real" Bible Classes during this trip.

We shared a couple of meals with Randy and Kathy in their home allowing us more time to discuss their mission work and our mission plans. These times were very beneficial and of course enjoyable, too!

Also while in Recife, we took some family time one afternoon and took a boat tour around the city! It was really neat!

Our time in Recife was rich in many ways!

2nd Stop: Joao Pessoa

2011-04-04T13:05:00.003-05:00

We arrived in João Pessoa after a long and exhausting overnight bus ride from Aracajú. An American missionary helped get us lodging in a hotel that one of the local Christians manages. It was in a perfect location…close to the church building and within walking distance to the beach and numerous places to eat. Our time in João Pessoa was short and sweet. We intended for this to be a more relaxing section of our trip since it was sandwiched in between two cities that we anticipated to have very jam packed schedules. But as it turned out, we were constantly on the go while in João Pessoa. Melissa spent 1 ½ years in João Pessoa with AIM as a young adult, so she has many relationships with the both the missionaries and the Brazilian Christians there. We were able to spend a lot of time with these great people Our first full day in João Pessoa we ate lunch with Diego (one of the local Brazilian Christians) who helped Nick and Brian set up an interview that afternoon with one of the American Missionaries in João Pessoa. After Nick and Brian spent a few hours interviewing this missionary we were able to enjoy dinner with Diego and David. David is another American Missionary in João Pessoa who has spent most of his life in Brazil. Over dinner we were able to soak up wisdom from the experience that David has had in Brazil as he shared with us many things.

Saturday night we were able to meet two more American Missionary families with which Melissa had close connections. We watched “the biggest full moon in 18 years” rise over the Atlantic Ocean with them. After that, we went to a local açai stand where nearly the whole congregation was gathered to enjoy an evening of fellowship and tasty açai. Nick and I spent most of that time with one of the missionaries interviewing him and again soaking up any bits of knowledge we could!

Sunday morning Nick and Brian headed to a house church with two of the missionaries. This house church is mainly composed of restaurant workers that need to be at work before the normal meeting time of the church. Nick and Brian were able to take part in that before joining the rest of us at the larger church assembly. This congregation also had Bible Classes for the children, which Jonah was really excited about! Jonah always LOVED Bible Class when we were in the States and it has been one of the things he has missed the most since moving. This was the first Bible Class he had been to in 9 months that had children other than JUST Josiah and wasn’t taught by one of us! He loved it!

After an afternoon rest after lunch, we wrapped up our time in João Pessoa by going to the home of one of the missionary families where we were able to spend time in fellowship with two missionary families. 8 adults and 7 kids gathered outside…adults talking and kids running wild outside for several hours! We enjoyed the encouragement of being with likeminded individuals who have done what we are doing now. The relationships we are building with other American Missionaries and Brazilian Christians on this trip are invaluable! Oh…and the boys thoroughly enjoyed being with other children and be able to run and play outside…in grass!

Monday morning, we found ourselves with all of our luggage back at the bus station to catch a bus to Recife…our next stop.

A Taste of Home

2011-04-02T12:19:00.006-05:00

I have done a post in ONE of the four cities we have been to on this trip. I'm behind because this is the first place we have actually had decent enough internet to post a blog. I will do posts on the other cities soon. But yesterday morning was such a great morning, I thought I'd go ahead share it with you.

Friday morning one of the missionary families here in Belo Horizonte invited us over for brunch. Immediately upon arriving in their home, all of five of my senses took me back to middle Tennessee. This couple has been in Belo since the early 80s, but their roots are also in middle TN. It felt like being at home!

As soon as we opened the van door in the driveway we immediately smelled a delcious southern country breakfast cooking. Next I heard a woman's voice in a nice southern draw welcome us into her home..."Y'all c'mon in!" As she welcomed us into her home I could feel the wonderful breeze blowing through their home that reminded of a spring breeze in Tennessee. Then I saw her living room walls lined with family photos and her kitchen decorated in cows...just like many homes I have been in Tennessee. :) Perhaps the best part was when I tasted the chocolate chip pancakes, biscuits, homemade jelly, grits, bacon and eggs. All five of my senses took me back to a comfortable country home in rural Tennessee which made for a wonderful morning.

Jonah also loved playing at their home and was even able to enjoy his first tire swing experience!

Brazil Tour 2011: 1st Stop, Aracaju

2011-04-01T13:25:00.005-05:00

Our tour had a GREAT start in Aracajú. We traveled by plane on an EARLY :-/ morning flight from Belém to Aracajú on Tuesday, March 8. Aracajú is a beautiful city located on the coast in the Northeast region of Brazil. We spent most of our time with Randy who has been a missionary there for 7 years. Nick and Brian were able to spend hours upon hours in intense conversation with Randy learning from him. The School of the Bible in that city is doing really well and we wanted to learn how and why it was having such great results. The guys were able to spend a few hours nearly every day while we were there talking with or interviewing someone who plays a major role in the school.

In addition to the research that Nick and Brian were conducting, we were also able to take part in many other valuable activities while we were in Aracajú.

Another American missionary and his wife hosted us for lunch one day and another day Nick and Brian were able to spend time with him learning about his work.

We were also able to share several meals with Randy and his wife Angela. Not only did this give all of us (wives included) more time to learn from these more experienced workers, but it also gave us a lot of good Portuguese practice! (Angela is Brazilian, so we spoke Portuguese when we were with her.)

We had the opportunity to attend a small group in Aracajú as well.

We were invited to join in on a fun night and devotional with the couples from the church in Aracajú. This again gave us a lot of great Portuguese practice as we played several games that forced us to interact in Portuguese in creative ways. It was great also to interact and have fun with the Christians in Aracajú and watch our kids play with theirs.

Sunday we were able to join in worship with one of the congregations in Aracajú. It was a great feeling to worship with such a large group of Christians.

Monday we took a day off to relax, recuperate, and recover! We promised ourselves we would take 1 day off each week while we were gone to give us the opportunity to spend time as a family and have fun in midst of all the working. This day off is vital to recharge us so we can push on through the next 6 days! We chose to spend the morning at the beach, the afternoon resting, and the evening at a playground (for the boys) and then to eat tapioca and ice cream for dinner. :) A GREAT day!

Tuesday the guys went back to work with Randy…interviewing, discussing, processing, digesting plans, etc.

Wednesday we had to check out of our hotel at noon, but our bus didn’t leave for João Pessoa until 11:30pm…so, Randy and Angela invited us to spend the afternoon at their house. After Angela fed us a delicious lunch, the men had more discussion time while Melissa, Angela, and I casually talked while taking care of the boys. Mrs. Angela’s house is currently Jonah’s favorite place as it had a really awesome playground for him to play on. His favorite parts about it: it had GRASS (something you don’t see often in a concreted city) and what he called a “blue bus” in which he was the driver (see photo below). That night he spent over two hours on that little playground wearing it out!

After Angela fed us another delicious meal for dinner, we showered and then put a movie in trying to keep the kids calm until we had to leave for the bus station at 10:30pm. We had a long and exhausting night ahead of us, but the next morning we did safely arrive to our next stop in our “tour”…João Pessoa.

(Jonah sleeping on the overnight bus ride.)

Tour Details Coming

2011-03-25T08:01:00.002-05:00

I have written a few blog posts about the current trip we are taking, but so far our internet in the hotels has not been good enough to successfully post them. :( So hang in there, and maybe eventually I'll get them posted. If you're on Facebook you can check out the pictures I have posted on Facebook from our travels so far.

Stay tuned....

Brazil Tour

2011-03-18T14:54:00.003-05:00

One of our major objectives this first year on the field was to visit other successful mission works in Brazil that we are connected with in order to gain wisdom from these veteran missionaries. The time has come for this trip. We are excited about what we can gain from this trip and apply to our work in Belém. We are researching several things on this trip, but especially focusing on observing the Schools of the Bible in session and talking with the people associated with these schools since we are hoping to open a school like this in Belém within the next year.

Our “tour” began on March 8 and will go through April 6. We are starting in Aracajú, then heading to João Pessoa, then Recife, and we will wrap up in Belo Horizonte. The men will spend most of each day with the missionaries and the Christians in each of these cities. The wives and children will participate in what we can, but when dealing with 2 and 3 year olds, we’re a little limited (like a 3 hour interview with a missionary). We will strive to gain what we can (especially from the missionary wives), while still trying to squeeze in naps for the boys and allowing them some “run around” time, too.

I hope to do a post at least once a week as we go throughout the trip to keep you posted, but so far we have not had good enough internet to make this happen.

Please pray for our health and safety on this trip as well as that the trip will be productive and valuable.

Backyardigans Brazilian Birthday Bash

2011-02-26T11:26:00.005-06:00

Let me introduce you to the...Backyardigans! I had NO IDEA who these guys were until 6 months ago when we moved into our new Brazilian apartment and one of our neighborhood children loaned us a Backyardigan DVD for Jonah to watch. He immediately fell in love with them! So, meet "your backyard friends, the Backyardigans!": Tasha, Pablo, Uniqua, Tryone, and Austin.

This is a TV show that Nick Jr. does and I have to admit, it's pretty cool. It is very age appropriate for Jonah and centers around various music styles and the vivid imaginations of these 5 characters. Music and imagination...two things Jonah loves! Jonah's favorite character: Pablo:

In fact for MONTHS Jonah would say in his most serious voice, "I'm not Jonah, I'm Pablo." Furthermore, he called Nick Tyrone and me Uniqua...for MONTHS. He doesn't do it ALL the time anymore, but there are still days when I hear from the other room: "Where's Tyrone, Uniqua?"

He loves the Backyardigans, so we knew immediately that he would LOVE a Backyardigans birthday party. I have to admit, I was pretty nervous about this party because Brazilians do birthday parties MUCH bigger than what we're used to. But I had help from several that actually made it a very smooth party and very enjoyable. Sara guided me culturally, so I wouldn't make any HUGE cultural mistakes. Her mom offered to make the main course - a chicken and rice dish. (Just cake and ice cream doesn't cut it here! And ice cream is out of the question anyway because it's so expensive.) Nick said he would hang the decorations and take on the task of the balloons (as you can see below, not your typical birthday balloons in the USA). During the party, Brian took pictures so I didn't have to worry about that, and Melissa made sure that food and drink was constantly being served. The result...I really got to sit back and relax and enjoy the party and the guests! And it was a blast!

It was the most people we've had in our apartment so far. Outside of our family, we ended up with 13 adults and 6 children...but it sure seemed like a lot more!

I printed off some Backyardigan coloring pages from the Internet for the kids to color during the party. They really seemed to enjoy that!

Most of the time all 7 kids crammed in Jonah's room and played with his toys. All the kids looking at the camera here are our neighbors. The blond headed boy looking down is Josiah and the little dark headed baby looking down is one of Josiah's neighbors. (We could never get ALL of them to look and smile at the same time!)

We also played "Pin the Tie on Pablo."

This is when I first revealed Jonah's Pablo birthday cake to him. I made it, so it was far less than perfect, but my little boy thought it was awesome, and that's all that mattered! :)

Here's a picture of everyone gathering to sing "Happy Birthday" in both English and Portuguese. I have it on video, but couldn't get it to load on here. I'll try again later.

After we served the cake, guests stayed for a couple of more hours...just visiting with each other...which was really cool since most everyone didn't know each other.

Overall, it was a GREAT night with GREAT friends!

Oh, yeah, about 10pm that night, Pablo, I mean Jonah, finally got to open his gifts from us. A lifejacket and a flashlight...he's ready for some adventures!

For those of you that are not on Facebook, I'll try to insert a link here for you to view some more pictures from Jonah's birthday. This never seems to work, but I'll try... http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=287189&id=500614603&l=91821c1e99

Love You Forever

2011-02-18T18:17:00.007-06:00

Have you read that book? It’s one of my favorites. (A children’s book of course!) Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. I used to read it to my class when I taught, and it would give me goose bumps every time. Now I read it with my son, and I can’t get through it without crying…or at least choking up a little.

I guess anyone that has ever been a parent can identify with at least one page in the book, if not all of them. But here are the words to the pages that get me the most right now. (The picture next to the first set of words happens to be the same picture as the front cover you see above.)

“The baby grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was two years old, and he ran all around the house. He pulled all the books off the shelves. He pulled all the food out of the refrigerator and he took his mother’s watch and flushed it down the toilet. Sometimes his mother would say, ‘This kid is driving me CRAZY!’

But at night time, when that two-year-old was quiet, she opened the door to his room, crawled across the floor, looked up over the side of his bed; and if he was really asleep she picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. While she rocked him she sang:
‘I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
As long as I’m living
My baby you’ll be.’”

Reading this page has had a totally new meaning to me this past year. A two year old! Thankfully Jonah never did any of those things listed (except for ‘ran all around the house’ of course!), but he had his moments. :) Who knew that two year old could be…so difficult, yet so fun? So exhausting, yet bring so much joy? So challenging, yet so rewarding? I sure didn’t. I always heard about "two year olds"…but it’s just one of those things you can’t KNOW until you EXPERIENCE. And then all you can say is…”Wow. Wow.”

As the book states…I’m the mother of that two year old who sometimes says, “This kid is driving me CRAZY!” BUT I’m also the mother of that two year old that sneaks in his bedroom at night to tell that crazy son how much she loves him. When I tiptoe into his room at night, he is always laying there…looking so innocent, so precious. Sometimes I just whisper “I love you” to him. Sometimes I pray over him. Other times I place my hand on his back, just to feel the comfort of his slow steady breaths. And then there are times when I just sit there next to his bed in the dark silence, looking at him…overwhelmed with the love I have for him.

When I was pregnant with Jonah, AuntiJoan told me after worship one evening, “Amy, there’s a love you have for your child that you just can’t fathom until you have your own.” I thought, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, AuntiJoan…I know. That’s what everyone says. I know I will love him a lot.” But, WOW, how I did NOT know! And, WOW, how I DO know now!

Today was Jonah’s last day as a two year old. Tomorrow my baby boy will turn three years old. (Yes, we’re having a party, and I’ll try to do a post next week for you on that.) I can’t believe he’s three. Although being two definitely had its challenges, it was overall an incredibly FUN year. Every day he said something that cracked us up. Every day he verbally recalled some memory of family and friends (sometimes a year or more old) that totally shocked us. Every day he did something sweet that would bring tears to our eyes. Every day…no matter how frustrated we may have gotten with him that day and no matter how exhausted we were when we put him to bed…that night our hearts burst with joy and pride of our son. Our special and precious son. What a wonderful reminder of the amazing God we serve…His love, His holiness, His perfectness, His gentleness, His forgiveness.

I look forward to three-years-old being even more fun and bringing even more joy that I cannot yet imagine. Thank you, God, for the precious gift of children.

“Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward.” ~ Psalm 127:3

Cultural Clip: Climate

2011-02-05T21:11:00.002-06:00

I’m pretty sure that Tennessee has had the snowiest and possibly coldest winter since I’ve been alive. Yet, I’m here. In Belém. One degree from the Equator. In the Amazon Rainforest. Thankfully I’ve been able to keep up with the snowfall that TN has had via pictures on Facebook and email. I have been happy that Tennesseans have been able to enjoy God’s beauty in this way this winter. I’ve been excited for the kids (and…ahem…teachers) :) for being able to use their snow days for actual snow! It has brought me much joy to see pictures of friends going sledding and building snowmen with their children. But I have to admit that I have been a little jealous. :-/ I truly wish I could have been there to experience this unusually snowy winter of TN this year…sledding, building snowmen, etc. But thankfully, we were able to experience it in a little way here in Belém thanks to my mom’s thoughtfulness.

Jonah “built” his own snowman. He didn’t even have to bundle up, obviously. We also read a lot of "snowy" books so that at least the kid could know what it was all about. In fact, right now his favorite book is “A Snowy Day” by Mercer Meyer.

We even made snow cream one day when Tennessee was experiencing one of their “blizzards.” My mom brought us a “snow cone maker” for Christmas, so we just whipped some snow cream right up.

After looking at snowy pictures of the last snow my mom sent me via email, Jonah said, “Mommy, I want it to snow here. When will it snow here?” How do you tell your two year old, “umm…NEVER!” But maybe next time we’re in Tennessee we will get a taste of that snow.

So, what is the climate like here? One good friend of mine from MJ asked me a few months ago, “When does it get cool there because that’s when we want to come.” Again, the answer was NEVER, but please come anyway! :)

As I mentioned earlier, Belém is about 1 degree from the Equator and is a city that was basically carved out of the Amazon Rainforest. So the weather here is hot and rainy and very humid…year-round. In fact, Belém is one of the rainiest cities in the world. Basically we have a rainy season (I think it is officially called “dry season” for some reason) and a rainier season. The “dry season” goes from about June to November with daily temperatures around 90 degrees F. During the “dry season” it rains almost every afternoon…or at least every other afternoon. And we don't just have rain...we have torrential downpours. When these rains come, everything is almost put on hold. You don’t leave your house until it lets up. If you’re out walking, you step into a bakery or store to get out of the rain until it stops. It has been said that people in Belém actually schedule things “before the rain” or “after the rain” instead of using set times.

During the “rainier season” the temperatures are cooler :) usually only reaching about 87 degrees F. The rain is much less predictable in the rainy season, which typically runs from December to May. It might only rain in the afternoon or it could rain several times a day or it may even rain all day. (This is based on what we have experienced thus far in the rainy season.) Some days the sky looks beautiful as if there will be no chance of rain, so I’ll jump on the opportunity to head to the grocery store (about a 10 minute walk away). It never fails that if it doesn’t start raining on my walk there, it will be raining by the time I leave the store. One day this past week I found myself struggling to hold the umbrella over my head while also holding 6 plastic bags of groceries and my purse. When I finally made it home, I was completely drenched and left wondering why I even bothered with the umbrella!

The biggest advantage of the rainier season: cooler temps. I know it seems funny and I even laugh myself that the “cooler time of the year” is only 3 degrees cooler than the “hotter time of the year.” But it really has made a difference in our home. Our house went from averaging temperatures of about 87 to averaging temperatures of only about 82. At least for the month of January…in the short time since February has arrived those temperatures have been climbing again.

But the rainier season also has several disadvantages:
*more mosquitoes in our house
*inconvenience of walking places in the rain
*the bus windows are closed when it rains, which makes it much hotter and stuffier
*increased humidity, resulting in…
*mold growth (on things we didn’t know could even grow mold!)
*more time needed in getting dishes and clothes completely dry

Other than that, I don’t really mind the rain. The light peaceful rains remind me of a rainy Tennessee spring day. The incredibly powerful rainforest DOWNPOURS with thunder that shakes your insides remind me of our God, the Creator, who is almighty and powerful.

The “changes of seasons” here aren’t nearly as dramatic as they are back home. I miss the comfortable temperatures of spring and fall and the beauty of the plants during those times. I miss the normally quite unusual snowfalls that may happen in Tennessee. But at least I don’t miss the summers! There will be days this summer you will probably wish you were in Belém with us! And I imagine that there will be one day in the future when I will long for the days of “a powerful afternoon Belém thunderstorm.”

Granny and Boppa Visit Belem

2011-01-21T07:59:00.008-06:00

I know this post is long overdue, but better late than never, right? :-/ One reason that I have postponed this post for so long is I wasn't really sure where to even begin on posting about my parents' visit. Each day could have been a separate post by itself! So, I will do my best to let a lot of pictures give you a snapshot summary of our wonderful time together.

On December 2, 2010, my parents landed in Belem, Brazil. We welcomed them with huge hugs and much joy...it was the first time we had been able to hug a family member in over 5 months, and it felt good!

They were exhuasted from 24 hours of travel, but seemed energized as we began visiting together.

One of the first things we did after they arrived was get a Christmas tree and decorate it. This was Jonah's one Christmas wish...to have a Christmas tree in his house. Thanks to a monetary Christmas gift from our grandparents, we were able to make his wish come true! :) We spent a Saturday assembling the tree and then making garland and lots of homemade Christmas ornaments for it. It turned out great! Jonah even got to put the topper on with Boppa's help (see below).

We had our Christmas celebration the second day my parents were here...basically because my mom couldn't wait! ;) Once Jonah opened up his Lightening McQueen umbrella, there was no need to continue in his eyes. The only way we could get him to open any more presents was by Nick holding the umbrella over them while he finished opening his presents.

And then the tricycle came out and he was really in hog heaven!

While they were here, our Sunday fellowship meals were bigger! The more people, the better! We hosted worship the first Sunday they were here.

Momma brought us "Dominick the Donkey"...a super cool puppet that she and Mrs. Gloria made for us to use in Bible class. The boys also received little Bibles as gifts from Mr. Jim and Mrs. Marge that they proudly carry with them each week now!

We went to a beautiful park one day where Jonah was able to enjoy jumping on the trampoline with his friends, Josiah and Gugu. (The picture at the top of our blog was also taken at the same park.)

One day after Portuguese class we ate lunch with our Portuguese teacher, Sara. Momma and Daddy were excited to finally get to meet her.

One morning while Nick and I were in Portuguese class, Momma and Daddy took Jonah to a local botanical type park with Melissa and Josiah. Jonah LOVES it whenever he finds a playground! (Check out how steep that slide is.)

We visited the "Christmas in the Zoo" display at the mall. It was Christmas decorations saturated with rainforest animals. Very cool.

Jonah's favorite part: getting to drive the safari jeep!

Perhaps the highlight of their time here was a weekend getaway they treated us to. We spent the weekend in this chalet near a fresh water beach.

It is a nice, quiet, and secluded beach...the best part: it has SHADE! We set up some lawn chairs, a cooler, and some sand toys under the shade and enjoyed the breeze coming off the water! It was a peaceful day as we were the only ones even there!

We got to eat some good food at the beach...

and spend some time relaxing outside of the busy city. It was a refreshing weekend.

Back in Belem on their second Sunday, we worshiped at the King's home. It was great having a larger group to worship with.

We spent one evening at the docks down by the bay and saw the sunset.

We went to the Ver-o-Peso: the largest open air market in North Brazil.

We made Christmas cookies!

We went to the zoo.

The last full day they were here was my birthday. They took me to lunch at the mall where Nick and I ate Pizza Hut (quite a special event here). That evening we went over to the King's for cake and ice cream.

Thursday, December 16, we took them to the airport to board their plane back to the frigid temperatures in Tennessee. It was a wonderful two weeks. It was so much fun introducing them to some or our new friends and showing them around this city we now live in. It was great to show them our new home, our neighborhood, and our grocery store. Now as we talk to them via skype or Magic Jack, it is actually comforting to know that they know what it's like here. They know what our home looks like. They know where I keep my silverware. :) They know what the bakery looks like that we go to a couple of times a week. These things seem so little, but somehow it is so comforting. God blessed us with a wonderful two weeks!

So...our guest room and bathroom are now ready for guests! My parents have initiated it...who will be next? C'mon down! We'd love to have you!

C'mon 2011

2011-01-01T11:53:00.004-06:00

Brazilians love firecrackers and fireworks. Although I have often been a little annoyed at the constant cracking and booming of fireworks in this city, I actually enjoyed them last night on New Year's Eve. Nick and I were able to enjoy a spectacular fireworks show right from our living room to bring in the new year.

As I stood there watching explosion after explosion and flash after flash, I felt as though the fireworks well represented 2010 for us. It seemed as though 2010 was one big explosion or big change after another. Yet everything happened so quickly...one flash after another. Many changes...many people...many places.

We brought in 2010 in our home in Lubbock, TX shortly before moving back to TN for a "flash." After 5 months in Mt. Juliet, we headed to Brazil. We have now settled into our 4th home in 2 years.

2010 was choppy. It was full of new experiences and little familiarity. It seemed as though we were constantly going through major changes and adjusting and settling. It wasn't a bad year...it was full of many unique blessings. BUT I'm certainly looking forward to 2011.

2011 will hopefully be a year with more stability for our family. We have internet, we have settled into our new home, we have our possessions, we are progressing in our language and culture learning, and we have new friends. This year we will wrap up the first phase of our mission and begin a new phase. It's exciting! We are looking forward to the many blessings God has in store for us here in Brazil this year. We hope that your 2011 will also be full of the peace and joy of our God.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Who's Your Football Team?

2010-12-26T19:28:00.006-06:00

On our way home today I ran into a local drugstore to pick up something. This store is much like a CVS in the USA. It's a drugstore, but also has toiletries and other random items. Also like CVS, you do better if you have a "CVS care card" to scan at checkout. I have been in this store several times...each time, I pick up an item that appears to have one price, only to be asked to pay more at check out. Argh! I always notice that they ask me before they check me out, "Do you have an Extra Farm Card?" I always reply, "No." They never offer to tell me how to get one, and since I'm usually in a hurry and there's usually a lot of people in line behind me, I don't bother to frustrate myself with handling such a situation in Portuguese.

Today was different for many reasons. When I went to check out, I was expecting to owe R$40. When I told him I didn't have an "Extra Farm Card," he told me the price was R$58! R$58! What?! So, now that I'm getting a little more courageous with my Portuguese I responded with something like, "How much? Is this because I don't have an Extra Farm Card?!?" He nodded his head. I paused. R$18 difference!? I could believe it! I glanced at the parking lot where an exhausted Jonah was napping peacefully in the air conditioned car with Nick. I wasn't in any particular hurry today. AND I only had R$50. hmmm....Okay, I decided, it's time to figure this thing out. Today was the day to get the Extra Farm Card. So I asked the patient young man behind the counter, "How do I get one?" I could tell he was frustrated that I was just NOW telling him I wanted one. But without grumbling, he went through a complicated process of punching buttons and pulling things out of files. Finally he then told me he would charge me only the R$40 if I went immediately to the back of the store and registered for a card after paying. So I did.

I arrived at the counter at the back and asked for an Extra Farm Card. She began the process of taking my information, but it came to a sudden halt when I couldn't remember my 8-digit "zipcode." I frantically looked through my purse full of Brazilian documents...none of which contained my address. :( Then I tried several times to recall it, but the computer denied it every time. At this point I'm feeling really badly, because I have paid the "care card" price, yet I can't register for a "care card" because I don't have all the information. The lady was really nice and told me to just bring it in another day. But that was bothering my conscience, so immediately we went home to get the number and then returned to the store with it.

Finally! I was going to have my very own Extra Farm Card and never again would I get ripped off at the register! I marched inside to meet the woman at the counter who returned a huge smile at me, shocked that I returned so soon. I excitedly handed her my "zipcode" and she continued the process of asking for all of my "basic information." Name, birthdate, ID number, address, phone number, religion, and football team. WHAT?!? Football team? (a.k.a. soccer team) I must have misunderstood her. I asked her to repeat herself. "Football Team." Notice this isn't even "Your favorite football team?" simply "Football Team." A smile started to spread across my face thinking about what I thought she was saying and how funny it must seem in the actual context. Then I looked at her computer screen, and sure enough, to my great surprise, it had "Football Team" with a drop down menu to choose which team was "yours." When I realized I was hearing correctly, I almost could not hold my composure. I used every muscle in my body to keep from bursting out laughing. I had no idea what to say. I didn't think "Tennessee Titans" would be on her drop down menu. And I know this is horrible, but the only soccer teams I can even name are from Southern Brazil (which probably wouldn't go over well here in Northern Brazil). So I finally responded with, "I don't know! You choose for me!" She chuckled and chose a team from Belem. (A splendid idea! Wish I had known the team name so I could have said it myself!) Finally I was told that I could return to the store in 20 days to retrieve my card (of course). I just hope it's truly a "care card" and not a credit card!

I continued to use every ounce of self-control within me to hold back my laughter until I got into the car. Brazilians take their soccer very seriously, and I sure did not want to offend anyone by my laughter...but that was the LAST question I was expecting to answer right along with all of my basic information in order to get my Extra Farm Card!

So...who's your football team? You might want to have that answer ready...you never know when you might need it. :) Meanwhile, I'm going to find out the name of "Belem's Team" so I will be ready next time.

Thanksgiving Dinner

2010-12-14T19:10:00.006-06:00

Since my last post was so word-y, I'll try to make this one more picture-y. :)

Thanksgiving. If you read the last post, you know that we had to move our Thanksgiving Celebration from Thursday to Saturday. We unpacked about half of our "shipment" Friday night, trying to focus on any items that would make fixing the Thanksgiving meal more enjoyable (i.e. food processor, hand mixer, baking dishes, etc.). It was fun to use those items again! We did our best to get our house back in some kind of order in time for the Kings to join us around noon that day. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Granny Pick (who thinks of EVERYTHING) sent Jonah a "Thanksgiving Package" at the beginning of November. Throughout the month of November, Jonah told me things he was thankful for and we added them to his "Thankful Tree." Since you probably can't read them, I'll share them with you. These were totally unprompted by us and ONLY what he thought of by himself: Water, Flowers, My Cars, Books, Dica (his imaginary friend), leaves, food, bananas, and finally, the last day, he added Mommy. :)

Here we are fixing the meal! Everyone contributed in someway to the cooking and everyone contributed to washing dishes too. :) (You can see some of our boxes we didn't get to on Friday night stacked up on the side.)

The Meal: Roasted Chicken, Pork Loin, Mashed Potatoes, Stuffing, Green Bean Casserole, Pineapple Casserole, Deviled Eggs, and Homemade Rolls...oh! and sweet tea of course!

I have to admit I was a little nervous about pulling this off with just Melissa and me. Afterall, for many years I have simply showed up to holiday meals with my one little dish (usually cheap and easy corn casserole at that!) and then just followed orders in the kitchen from the more experienced cooks! But this year, it was us or nobody! Yikes! BUT it was actually REALLY delicious!! (Even without cheap and easy corn casserole.) :)

There always has to be a "kids' table" at family holiday gatherings.

Later that afternoon, we enjoyed Melissa's homemade apple pie for dessert!

No football to watch :( so we watched a movie together.

And then we wrapped up the night with a couple of games of Settlers of Catan...a team favorite. This was supposed to be a self-timer shot of us playing the game, but Josiah caught a glimpse of the red blinking light while he ran by and took a double take to see what was going on. :D haha

It was a great day! It felt like home as we ate tasty familiar foods, layed around after lunch relaxing, and then played games together. We had so many blessings to be thankful for this year.

This never works when I try to do it, but just in case...click on the link below to see more pictures from Thanksgiving and the month of November in general.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=261517&id=500614603&l=ade4aaaf22

Arrival of "The Shipment"

2010-12-10T19:19:00.003-06:00

After more than 5 months of waiting on “The Shipment,” it finally arrived! It was a couple of months late, but it all made it. This was actually greeted with mixed emotions…but different “mixed emotions” than what I described in a previous post.

If you read the previous post, "The Shipment," you know the background…that it was supposed to be here 2 or 3 months ago and that my dad had been checking on it and then finally that it should have been here by mid-November.

A week later after we had finally expected it, I decided to get brave and call the Brazilian company that was responsible for its transportation from the port in southern Brazil to our city in northern Brazil. This was brave for me for two reasons…1. I don’t like confrontation and 2. My Portuguese still isn’t good enough to handle a difficult conversation such as this over the phone. But I did it! :) I called and began going through my prewritten spill, and as soon as they heard “Brasil Courier” (probably the only thing they could understand me say), they transferred me to the lady that deals with Brasil Courier. (This is the name of the company we used to ship our stuff from USA to Brasil. After a difficult conversation with this lady, we discovered that the truck with our stuff would be entering Pará (our state) the next day. We gathered that we would receive the boxes within a few days after that. Yippeee!!! We were thrilled! This would be the week of Thanksgiving! I was dreaming of how much easier Thanskgiving cooking would be with all of my fun kitchen items, etc.!

We waited several days for “the call.” Finally we got the call from our friend David. When we shipped our stuff from the USA in June, we didn’t have a Brazil address yet, so we shipped it to our friend David’s address. It was in his name with his address and phone number and with his government ID number. That was the only way we could do it! So Tuesday, David called and “The Shipment” was at his house! We were elated with joy! It was finally happening! We had been waiting for this day for months! So, as planned, David told the guys where we lived and told them to deliver the boxes to our address. They responded with the fact that they couldn’t do that today because Belém has laws about when trucks can enter and leave the city, but they could do it tomorrow. Yippee! Wednesday it was! No problem! We called Sara (our teacher) and told her we would have to cancel Wednesday’s class because OUR SHIPMENT WAS COMING!! :D Well, Wednesday the office called back and said they couldn’t deliver it to a different address without some special letter of address change with some special rubber stamp seal from David. David of course didn’t have a “special rubber stamp”…who does? So he asked them to email him something and he could take it to a Brazilian government office to have it notarized. He waited and waited on the email…and never got it. Turns out they decided to call Brasil Courier to get it approved instead. Oh, brother. We knew this would take several MORE days, so at this point Nick just asked them to deliver it BACK to David’s house, and we’d hire a truck to bring it from there. At this point, it had already been taken off their truck, it was Thursday, and they didn’t have another truck available, so we had to wait until they’d have one to deliver it back to David’s house! We assumed that wouldn’t happen on Thursday, so Nick went ahead and lined up a truck and driver for Friday afternoon. {Sidenote: Thursday was Thanksgiving Day. The previous week we had arranged with Sara to meet on Friday (we usually don’t have class on Fridays) instead of Thursday that week so we could celebrate Thanksgiving with our team. But when we thought our shipment would be arriving Wednesday or Thursday, we moved our Team’s Thanksgiving celebration to Saturday.} At 12:00 noon on Friday, Nick still hadn’t heard anything about “The Shipment” so he called to cancel the truck. Right after he canceled the truck, David called and said it was at his house! Nick quickly got back on the phone to secure the truck and driver again. AAAAHHHH!!! What a rollercoaster!

After lunch, Nick headed out to David’s house with the truck and the drivers to pick up the long lost shipment. Brian met him at David’s house.

Here comes the big downhill slope on the rollercoaster. Our boxes were there…the King’s weren’t. :( This was a shocker to all of us. My dad had tracked BOTH of our shipments for over a month. We had the impression that they were sent out from the port at the same time. So, we had assumed they were together this whole time and they were both at David’s house (since the King’s also used his address). But they weren’t.

My literal jumping for joy turned to tears for teammates. What in the round world happened? How? Why? Where was theirs? I had counted down to the days of receiving this shipment for so long…I had looked forward to this moment…but now could only greet it with a small amount of happiness knowing my teammates were not also experiencing this same joy. Such mixed feelings. I would have rather gone through the same emotions at the same time as our teammates…whether that was excitement and joy over the arrival of our possessions or extreme frustration and disappointment that our stuff was still not there.

To make matters worse, the Kings had already had a rough few weeks. Satan had been attacking them from all fronts and Murphy’s Law was taking over their house. This was NOT what they needed. And remember…they sent their stuff 4 – 6 weeks BEFORE we sent ours.

Well, as if that wasn’t enough, after our boxes were loaded on the truck and headed to our house, Brian’s car wouldn’t start. Another frustration for them.

So…with emotions of joy and excitement, but also mourning with our teammates, we welcomed our 13 boxes into our new home. It was actually somewhat comforting just to see the English writing on the U-Haul boxes. :) By the way the boxes were a little beat up, but the worst damage we had was that our TIN dominoes box was bent. :) How incredible is that? We were truly blessed that everything had finally made it and made it without damage! I don’t know how it survived the truck ride! Props to Kathryn, the Queen Packer!

Jonah was most excited about seeing his rainboots again!

And he was finally reunited with his "tools" that he has talked about since June!

So, what about the Kings? They called that Friday and were basically told to call back the next week. When they called back Monday, they were told that their boxes had been delivered to a small town in Santa Catarina (the second most southern state in Brazil) at the beginning of November. Knowing that their stuff had been turned over to someone else’s hands over a month ago, and no one had tried to correct the mistake, they pretty much gave up all hope of ever seeing their stuff again.

Understand that this wasn’t lost luggage on a vacation. This was more like losing everything you own in a house fire. But none of it was “junk”…ONLY the stuff they found important enough to bring with them to another country to live. The most disheartening items included the sentimental items such as pictures and videos. Everyone knows that eventually kitchen items and clothes can be replaced, but losing sentimental items can be hard to swallow.

They accepted the fact that they had lost these valuable items. But many people continued to pray for them. Hundreds of people prayed that their stuff would be found and eventually returned to them. Hundreds of people prayed that they would have the strength and faith to get through this difficult time in a foreign place away from their families. And God answered those prayers! Wednesday of that week, they received a call from Melissa’s dad (who had been talking with the company about the mix-up) and they had recovered FIVE of the SIX boxes!!! Praise GOD! We were so excited! They were shocked! They immediately put those 5 boxes on a truck to Belém and said they “should be” here in two weeks. We are still anxiously awaiting their arrival…hopefully next week, or the next. Box #6…they’re not sure about. Unfortunately it had some important items in it, but thankfully nothing sentimental. We still hope that it will also turn up. Meanwhile, please stop and say prayer that their rediscovered boxes will be delivered soon and that Box #6 will also be found.

So Many Things to be Thankful for

2010-12-04T19:16:00.005-06:00

So, I realize it's been a while since I've posted and I apologize for that. It has been a crazy last few weeks. Just in the last week, we celebrated Thanksgiving here (2 different times, 2 different ways), received our "Shipment" for which we have been waiting for many months, and my parents are currently here visiting us!

I will try to catch you up one event at a time. :) Starting with...Thanksgiving Day. We decided to move our Thursday Portuguese Class that week to Friday so that we could celebrate Thanksgiving as a team on Thanksgiving Day. However, those plans were jolted when we received word earlier that week that our "Shipment" would be arriving on Wednesday or Thursday of that week. Since we have been anxiously awaiting its arrival, we quickly moved our Team Thanksgiving Celebration to Saturday. (But...we should have known better...of course the "Shipment" did not arrive either of those days.)

Thanksgiving Day Jonah and I were able to tune into the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade via internet. Jonah watched it in and out while I cooked our Thanksgiving Lunch...which consisted of French Toast with homemade maple syrup (thanks to my sister sending maple flavoring to me in a care package). It was delicious!

Our day only got better because that night we had a special treat! We had been invited to a formal Thanksgiving Dinner hosted at the Hilton Hotel and sponsored by our language school and the United States Consular Agency. The night reminded me of a FHU benefit dinner for those of you who are familiar with those...only no famous speakers.

It was a late night, but a great night. We went with our teacher, Sara. The invitation stated that the celebration began at 8pm. So we asked Sara what time we should get there. She said that about 8:30 - 8:40pm would be good. It is very typical of Brazilian culture to arrive to social gatherings much later than indicated on the invitation. Sure enough, we arrived just as it began.

The evening started with the student chorus singing several songs...some in English and some in Portuguese. It was so wonderful to hear them sing songs such as USA's national anthem and "Amazing Grace." They did a wonderful job! We enjoyed it very much. Jonah especially enjoyed clapping at the end of each song. There were a few times I'm pretty sure he was "the one" who started the applause at the end of a song. :)

Sometime between 9pm and 9:30pm, the chorus ended and we were treated to some more songs sang by a soloist. Also, many people got up and told what they were thankful for, and they also gave the audience an opportunity to stand and state their blessings as well. Although we didn't understand all that was said, we still enjoyed it.

Finally shortly after 10pm, it was time to eat!! It is not uncommon for Brazilians to eat dinner at 9pm or 10pm at night, but we were starved! We eagerly went through the buffet line and loaded our plates with Thanksgiving goodies. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about this dinner. I was afraid I would be disappointed because I would be expecting the "taste of home" and it wouldn't be there. But I was pleasantly surprised! They had many common American Thanksgiving foods such as mashed potatoes, waldorf salad, stuffing, turkey...and also a few Brazilian foods like rice, beans, and cheese bread. :) They didn't have sweet potato casserole, but they had pumpkin casserole that was made like a sweet potato casserole and it was delicious! Everything was wonderful and our bellies were stuffed by the time we headed home.

Here we are with our wonderful Portuguese Teacher and good friend, Sara.

Me and Sara

Here is Nick pictured below with our neighbor Glen. Glen is an American (has even spent some time in Nashville). He is a world renowned anthropologist and is currently working here in Belem. We didn't know he was going to be at the dinner, but he quickly flagged us down and we were able to share this little American experience together by sitting at the same table with him.

Here we are pictured with Glen and Christine. Christine is a consular agent here in Belem.

Shortly after 11pm, Glen, Sarah, Nick, Jonah, and I all piled into our little car to head home. It was late. We were exhausted, but our bellies were full and our hearts were happy. It was wonderful to have a taste of the States with some of our new Brazilian friends. God truly blessed us with a wonderful first Thanksgiving away from home.

P.S. Even though Jonah was out wayyyyy past his bedtime, he was awesome! We couldn't believe how well-behaved he was in such circumstances. Another blessing to be thankful for! The only issue we had with him was trying to keep all of his airplanes (aka: the many eating utensils at his place setting) landed on the table instead of flying through the air. :)

Cultural Clip: Traffic, Part 1

2010-11-14T18:52:00.003-06:00

It seems as though the first cultural experience a person has upon entering a different country (other than hearing the foreign language) is the traffic. You leave the airport and BAM you’re in it. It either seems familiar or it seems totally abnormal.

One of our goals this first year is to learn as much as we can about the culture here in Belém so that we can better connect with the people here. I thought that as I learned some of these things, I could share them with you. Hopefully this will help you understand a little more of our little life here south of the equator as well as broaden your own horizons.

Since we actually found a car here before finding a home, navigating through traffic was one of the very first cultural things we had to learn to adapt to here. You are liable to see anything on the streets here in Belém, but the most common modes of transportation include buses, taxis, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and of course pedestrians. I will discuss each of these in more detail in later posts, but for now I will give you a couple of general things we have learned about traffic:
• Lines that appear to be painted in the streets for the purpose of creating lanes are really only there for decoration. A street that looks like it has 3 lanes could actually only have 2 (because cars drive straddling the lane dividers) or it could have 4 (because cars squeeze in to make an extra lane) and in some cases it could even have up to 5…just because the drivers want it to.
• In most places in the city you cannot make left turns. This mainly applies when you are turning onto or off of a 2 way street. We were hit by taxi one evening on a very quiet street while turning left into our “driveway.” Even though there was plenty of room for him to pass us on the right, he passed us on the left…because we were technically supposed to pull to the side of the road and let all traffic pass before making the turn.
• Unfortunately, ambulances, fire engines, and police cars seem to receive very little authority when moving through the traffic.

• A thumbs-up can go a long way. You want to pull out onto the road? Just stick your nose out in the road, give a thumbs-up, and bod-a-bing bod-a-boom, many times the other driver will let you out.
• There are traffic rules…but you don’t really have to follow them. After all, if there’s a stop sign and you KNOW no one is coming, why stop? You can always slow down a little and give a honk in case there was someone you didn’t see.
• The bigger you are, the more power you have. Buses rule the road. (Maybe they should make their ambulances bigger...hmmm...)
• Every driver here thinks they are qualifying for the next Formula 1 race, even though their less than 1 liter cars only get them to the next stoplight a few seconds before everyone else.
• At any point in the day your peaceful, tranquil mind might be accosted by an intruding, high-decibel, noise from the rolling speaker next to you. They are serious about their sound systems here.

• Tinted windows (I mean VERY DARK tinted windows) are popular and necessary because of the intense sun here. When flagging a taxi, always try to get one with tinted windows! His car will be many degrees cooler than the other.

• Although when traffic is at a standstill, you are sure to hear an earful of angry honking, the horn is not always used out of anger. Beep your horn to ask for permission to cut through traffic. Honk your horn to say thank you. Give a gentle blow to let a pedestrian know you’re coming up behind them. Give a more powerful honk to make sure that bus driver knows your car is only ½ cm from his bus. Use a beep to let the pedestrian or cyclist know he can cross in front of you. Horns are used constantly here…and it is not usually out of anger. More times than not, it is a friendly way of communicating with all those you are sharing the road with. You would be surprised how many different things a little honk can say!

Some days driving in the traffic can easily cause substantial cultural stress as well as give you a serious headache. An older American who has lived in Belém for many years told Nick, “It’s like being in a video game with no extra lives. You have to give all of your attention to the road and be ready to react because you never know what might jump out from the side.” How helpful that information was!

"The Shipment"

2010-11-05T09:08:00.003-05:00

Shipment /Ship –mənt/ n Thirteen oversized boxes of our personal possessions shipped from the USA to Brazil, including anything from peanut butter to a microwave.

Perhaps one of the most tedious tasks we had stateside in order to prepare for this mission was to decide what to do with our “stuff.” Should we sell this? Should we keep that? Where do we store this? Do we need that? Should we take this on the plane with us? Should we send that in “The Shipment”?

Stuff. It’s ridiculous. We started this process about 3 years ago. We had been married less than 5 years at the time, and it was absurd how much “stuff” we had collected. We began having yard sales in order to downsize our possessions before the big move. We had 3 – 4 yard sales over the course of two years and then randomly sold more furniture and appliances before leaving Lubbock this past January. It became quite overwhelming to make a decision over every little possession…to sell or to keep? To take or to leave? To take on the plane or to ship? It got to the point that I let Kathryn and Marie make some decisions for me because I just couldn’t decide. Marie would quickly toss something in the “yard sale” box or Kathryn would say, “You won’t need this right away, let’s ship it.” It got to the point that I didn’t care what the decision was as long as I didn’t have to make it!

The final result: a shed on my parents’ property full of “stuff” we decided to store, a closet (maybe two) in my parents’ house full of temperature sensitive items (books, photos, etc.) to store, 6 crates and 6 suitcases that traveled on the plane with us when we came in June, and…"The Shipment” – 13 boxes of possessions we decided we didn’t want to live without, but nothing that was irreplaceable.

On June 17, my dad and Nick loaded up the Thomas Kitchen & Bath trailer with our 13 boxes and drove it to Atlanta, GA where a Brazilian shipping company would then ship it to Brazil.

“It will take 60 – 90 days to get there,” they told us. Therefore, when we decided what would go in “The Shipment” or what we would take on the plane with us, we used this guideline. We expected to stay in a hotel for 1 – 2 months when we arrived, so we took on the plane what we may need to survive in our apartment for 1 – 2 months after that. That was a mistake. The 60 – 90 day mark has long passed. Around day 98, my dad called to check on it…only to find out that it was 2,000 miles SOUTH of us in southern Brazil. This was our second mistake – we packed as if “The Shipment” would ride on USA roads to some port in Florida and then ride in a ship across the ocean to our port city of Belém in northern Brazil. In no way did we pack those 13 boxes to survive a 2,000 mile road trip in a truck (that is hopefully covered) across Brazilian roads (which are considerably worse than the Eisenhower Interstate System).

Today is about Day 141. Last week they told us it would be here this week. I don’t want to shock you, but it’s not here yet. Today they told my dad it would be 10 – 15 more days, but they can no longer track it now that it has left customs. ***Let me interject something here. The Kings’ shipment is with our shipment…only they sent theirs off 4 – 6 weeks earlier than we did. So theirs is REALLY overdue!***

So, “The Shipment” should be here within the next 2 weeks!! Surprisingly, I have some mixed emotions knowing the arrival of “The Shipment” is drawing near. Of course I am EXCITED! I can’t wait to have my cooking items…more than 1 pot or pan, baking dishes, measuring cups, food processer, etc.! I’m so pumped that Jonah (as well as Nick) will have NEW books to read (he has most of the ones we have here memorized) as well as a few of his long lost toys. I look forward to hanging on our walls family pictures and other familiar framed items from our home in the States. For these reasons, the arrival of “The Shipment” will be like the BEST Christmas EVER! (Only it’s stuff we’ve already owned for some time!) But there is actually a part of me that is almost dreading its arrival. I look around our furnished little home and I think, “Where in the round world are we going to put all that stuff!?” I don’t even remember what all is in “The Shipment,” but right now I’m thinking that we in no way needed to pack that much “stuff.” Occasionally something we packed will pop in my head and I’ll think, “Why in the world did we ship that?” A bedspread…seriously? We barely sleep under sheets in this house! Why is a bedspread taking up space in our “Shipment”?

We have learned a lot while waiting almost 5 months for “The Shipment” to arrive. I will share with you a few of them:
• Patience. (Do I need to say more?)
• Humility – there’s only so much that is in our control.
• We are WAY TOO materialistic.
• We can really get by without a lot of ‘necessary’ things. For example, a microwave…there has been one time (maybe twice) in 4 months that I’ve actually wished I had my microwave. In fact, I’m really disturbed now at the amount of counter space it’s going to take up in my kitchen!
• Stuff is just stuff…whether it goes to Brazil or not…whether it goes back to the USA or not…it’s just stuff that is definitely not leaving this earth when we do. It is only among “treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,” (Matt. 6:19)

In conclusion, we are reminded of the battle of the flesh vs. the spirit. We know that we do not NEED any of these THINGS to survive, but the flesh is weak and THINGS can seem so comforting when so little is familiar. Am I going to be THRILLED when a big truck pulls down my street and unloads 13 oversized boxes into my house? Oh, Yes! Am I going to go crazy trying to figure out where to put all of our “stuff”? Yes!

But what’s done is done and it will be another little adventure amongst this big journey that we are on.

Halloween...Slightly Modified

2010-11-01T20:48:00.003-05:00

(If you did not read my previous post, it would be better if you read it first.)

Sunday, October 31…fireworks went off in our city randomly throughout the day as they often do when there is any reason for celebration. But they were not celebrating Halloween. Sunday was Election Day in Brazil. Election Day #2. Elections were held earlier this month, but there were some “run-offs” needed, so October 31st was the day set aside for that. As we walked to Brian and Melissa’s for worship yesterday, we did not see Halloween decorations or trick-or-treaters in the street. Instead we saw people going to vote and people standing at street corners waving flags supporting their candidate.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Halloween is not celebrated here except for in language schools that teach English. Thankfully, we go to a language school that teaches English, so I did manage to spot a few Halloween decorations. : ) In fact, I was walking with Sara (my Portuguese teacher) through school one day when I first saw skeletons, bats, monsters, and ghosts covering the library. Like a giddy 8 year old girl, I clapped and cheered, ”Awww, Halloween! Yeah!” I had never been so happy to see a paper skeleton or a purple drawing of a haunted house. It was especially comforting because it was classic school Halloween cutouts that I would have found in the hallways of my school as a child or as a teacher. But to my surprise, Sara cringed. I think she was shocked that I celebrate Halloween…especially since I’m a Christian. I tried to explain to her the fun of children dressing up in fun costumes (that aren’t always scary) and having Halloween parties and going trick-or-treating, but I don’t think she understood. It was one of those moments when I had to step out of my American shoes and into some Brazilian shoes. Then I was able to see it clearly. Paper skeletons, bat cut outs, and purple haunted houses?? Whoa! That would look much differently to someone from a culture that does not celebrate Halloween as opposed to someone who grew up trick-or-treating and carving jack-o-lanterns with their family. Hmmm. Interesting. But to me, Halloween is not about the blood and gore. It’s about cute costumes, fun parties, hay rides, chili with cheese pumpkin faces : ), pumpkin carving, good candy, and other delicious treats. So…I still miss Halloween.

However, as you read in my last post, I had decided to give up on Halloween this year. But Friday, Nick surprised me. Several surprises actually! #1. He found a recipe for homemade chili powder! AND we could get ALL the ingredients at the supermarket here! #2. He took us to the supermarket, where we picked out two squashes that were the closest to looking like pumpkins! and #3. We also picked up ingredients to make popcorn balls while we were there!
I was ecstatic! I was like a kid on Christmas Eve all day Saturday wondering when we would get to carve the pumpkin and when we would make the popcorn balls. BUT there was no time on Saturday…which just made Halloween all the more fun!

We celebrated Halloween this year in Belém, Brazil, but it was a little modified. Now, I’ll try to lay off the words and let the pictures tell the story. : )

We carved a jack-o-lantern out of some kind of squash.

We made delicious old-fashioned popcorn balls!!

We roasted "some kind of squash" seeds. :)

We ate Pickler Family traditional chili with cheese-pumpkin-faces! (The cheese was a little weird, but that’s okay. No Fritos here, so we ate it with just crackers. And no sour cream, but that doesn’t bother me.)

When we sat down to eat, we got a call from Nick’s parents…so they “joined” us for dinner. They were on Skype, so we just sat them (the laptop) on the dinner table and ate while we talked with them. It was fun!

After dinner, we delivered our popcorn balls to our neighbors as special "American Halloween Treats."

After delivering our popcorn balls, we went back home and watched “Charlie Brown’s The Great Pumpkin” as a family for a Grand Finale to our Happy Halloween.

The final verdict: Jonah didn’t wear a costume and we didn’t take him trick-or-treating this year, but this was the BEST Halloween we have ever had in our 7 years of marriage. After all, I’d trade an evening of trick-or-treating with my 2 year old in a costume ANY DAY for an evening of Halloween fun at home as a family – carving pumpkins, making popcorn balls, eating chili, and watching Charlie Brown. :)

My Halloween History

2010-10-31T14:27:00.003-05:00

I love holidays. All holidays. Christmas and Thanksgiving are my favorite because they are special. But I like Halloween because it’s FUN! As I child I loved dressing up in these amazing costumes my mom sewed for us each year. (My favorite was the spider in 4th grade. Whatever I did with my two arms, I had 6 more arms following it! Oh, yeah… It was awesome!) In college I loved getting together with my friends on Halloween night and digging through our closets to see what kind of random costumes we could come up with so we could go trick-or-treating in the guys' dorms (the one time a year we were allowed in their dorms). As a teacher, I must admit I probably dreaded Halloween Party day more than any other school day of the year (especially if I had bus duty), but now I look back on it and I miss it! I loved seeing the kids come in the morning soooooo excited about their Halloween costumes! (I didn’t like trying to make sure their costumes made it through recess without getting destroyed!) I enjoyed having math lessons and English lessons that were centered on the fun holiday. It was so fun to watch all the students come parading through our classroom in their costumes to get treats…the kindergartners were of course always the cutest! And, as one who loves sweets and party food, I always enjoyed eating the goodies the moms sent for the Halloween Party that afternoon. : ) It was also great fun at Owl Hollow when we started Trunk-or-Treat and we got to see all the kiddos in their costumes and meet people from the community that came to join in on the fun. Nick’s favorite was when Kacy would make caramel apples to give out at the Trunk-or-Treat! : )

Halloween has been different the last few years. I no longer teach, so I don’t get to join in the fun there. Jonah was a duck his first year – at 8 months old. He was the cutest duck you’d ever seen. (Although Luke Philips was right there with him!)

Last year – at 20 months old, he was a little freaked out by the whole Halloween thing. I bought him a dinosaur costume at K-Mart. I didn’t particularly like the costume, but it was the ONLY costume in the store that he’d even get CLOSE to…he even tried it on! And liked it! So dinosaur it was. Well, once we got home, he REFUSED to have anything to do with the dinosaur costume! We worked for days to get him used to it..to at least touch it, but no, sir…he wanted nothing to do with it. So…I can’t remember whose creative idea it was (probably my mom’s), he went as a dinosaur hunter! We dressed him in EVERYTHING he had that was camo, stuffed the dinosaur and put it in his wagon, and loaded up to hit the Trunk-or-Treat at Sunset Church. He had nothing to do with the trunks or the treats at Sunset, but he did manage to make one loop around the parking lot pushing his dinosaur “kill” before we headed home for the night with an empty trick-or-treat basket.

One tradition that has managed to stay the same for Halloween for as long as I can remember is…chili. As a child, we always had chili on Halloween Night before going trick-or-treating. Momma always cut out cool jack-o-lantern faces out of cheese and put them on top of the chili. It was always a special treat. I tried to carry this tradition out even while at college, but have definitely carried it out since we’ve been married.

This year, many things are different. Belém doesn’t celebrate Halloween except in language schools that teach English. We have seen a few costumes, but the cheapest we have seen cost about $60. There is no Halloween candy in the grocery stores nor are there decorations in homes or on streets. No jack-o-lanterns on porches. And this city does not have chili powder. : (
A month ago I had these hopes that our shipment would be here by Halloween (it’s now 6 – 10 weeks overdue) which would at least allow us to have chili powder and arts and crafts stuff...but the shipment is still 2,000 miles south. A few weeks ago I thought maybe we could have a Halloween Party with the Kings and the boys could dress up in costumes we made from stuff around the house…but since we started our home from scratch only a few months ago, we have no “junk” in our house to pull a costume together with! So as of last week I had come to terms with the fact we would just have to skip Halloween this year, and that would be okay. After all, it’s just Halloween. Maybe next year we could celebrate this cultural holiday from our home country in our own special way…but this year I would just accept that we wouldn’t.

But Nick surprised me on Friday! : ) Stay tuned for another post in which I will I share with you how our Halloween ended up. (We’re still in the process of it now!) ; )

CCC = Renewal

2010-10-23T16:02:00.002-05:00

Many people are still asking me about my Continent Care Connection experience I had in São Paulo a few weeks ago (see two posts ago). It was literally a renewing time for me. It was not only spiritually renewing, but it was also physically renewing as I had several “new again” experiences. I thought I’d take this opportunity to share with you some of those “new again” experiences I had. Most of these were positive, although I may have included a few “not-so-positives.” :-/

For the first time EVER…
• I sang praises to God on the beach.
• I paid $2.50/minute to talk to my husband and son who were in the same country as I was! :(
• I almost stepped on the world’s largest cockroach with my bare foot. :(
• I slept while listening to the ocean’s waves crash all night long!
• I had my feet washed.
• I sent a text message. ;) (Yes, that’s the first time I have EVER sent a text message!)

For the first time in a long time…
• I flew on an airplane without Jonah…which meant I could actually read or sleep on the plane!
• I was able to spend more than 1 hour at a time with Melissa without the distraction of 2 year olds or housework.
• I met other South American missionary women.
• I was able to spend time with people who truly understand the life of a missionary.
• I saw the ocean!
• I laughed so hard that my cheeks hurt and I couldn’t keep myself in my chair. :D
• I played a late night game of cards.

(Below is a picture of my teammate Melissa and me.)

For the first time since I moved to Brazil…
• I needed long sleeves and a jacket!
• I ate classic USA candy (Twix, Reese’s Cups, and Trail Mix).
• I slept under a LOT of blankets, and I was STILL COLD! :)
• I was separated from Nick and Jonah for more than just a few hours.
• I sang praises to God with more than just 4 others.
• I wore socks for the purpose of keeping my feet warm.
• I saw hills and mountains!!
• I could converse in English with more than 3 other adults.
• Not only did I go more than 1 hour, but I went SIX DAYS without sweating at all!!! (Yeah, I probably should have thrown some exercise in there!)

For the first time since I’ve lived in our new apartment…
• I took a long, HOT shower.
• I went more than a day without cleaning or cooking!
• I blow-dried my hair!
• I wore my hair down!
• I slept without a fan blowing on me.
• I didn’t see any mosquitoes!

For these many reasons, CCC was a true renewal for me…both spiritually and physically. I was very thankful for these renewing experiences and am still carrying them with me.

A Week of Holidays

2010-10-17T12:06:00.004-05:00

This has been an abnormal week. A week of holidays.

When I returned to Belém on Saturday, the streets were filled with 2.5 million people. That’s 2.5 million visitors on top of the 2.1 million people that already live here. Sunday Belém hosted the largest religious festival in South America, Círio. This festival centers around a graven image of Mary holding baby Jesus that was found in this area many years ago. 2.5 million people came to worship this image. The lady that sat next to me on the plane Saturday told me that this holiday was more important to her family than Christmas…which is why she was flying in from São Paulo to be there. Monday schools were closed as an extension of this holiday.

Tuesday was another holiday in Brazil. Children’s Day! I remember as a child wondering why we had Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, but no Children’s Day…well, here they have it! :) And it’s BIG! Advertisements have been all over the city encouraging you to buy your child this toy or that for Children’s Day. Jonah’s gift for Children’s Day: Schools were closed again, so he got to spend the day with Mom and Dad. :) He did also get to go to a birthday party that night for one of Josiah’s friends. The party had a trampoline, ball pit, snacks, and party favors, so he had a blast with that too!

The positive thing about having No School on Monday and Tuesday was that I had a few days to recover from the conference last week. I was able to readjust to the heat, get the house in order, and get back into the swing of things at home. The bad thing was that stores were closed 2 of the 3 days (Sunday and Tuesday) and I had no idea! So our pantry was quite bare and we had no wrapping paper for the gift for the birthday party! :-/

(Below is just a random picture of Jonah with a GIANT leaf Nick brought him one day this week.)

Wednesday and Thursday were back to normal. Back to our normal routine. Back on the bus. Back to school. And as we would say in Tennessee, “Bless my Portuguese Teacher’s heart!” My Portuguese was suffering since I didn’t use it much last week when I was with almost all Americans. So I struggled through class this week. Hopefully it’ll start flowing again soon.

Friday was yet another holiday….Teacher Appreciation Day. And oh, wow! Once again, I missed out. This country REALLY knows how to make teachers feel appreciated…CANCEL SCHOOL!! Maybe USA can catch wind of this and see what they can do for all my teacher friends back home. ;) We invited our language teacher, Sara, to our house for dinner on Saturday to let her know how much we appreciate what she is doing for us. For the first time ever, she tasted peanut butter, chicken enchiladas, tortilla chips and salsa, broccoli salad, and sweet tea. The Mexican food was a hit, but we’ll save the peanut butter and sweet tea for ourselves next time. :-/ We enjoyed having this time outside of class with her. She is really awesome!

I guess next week we’ll be completely back to normal!

Continent Care Connection

2010-10-11T12:46:00.005-05:00

Last week I was blessed to be able to spend the week on Maresias Beach in the state of São Paulo, Brazil with 41 other missionary women from South America. Georgia Freitas (who works with Continent of Great Cities) and 16 other women came down from the States to lead and organize this spiritual renewal for missionary women that are serving in South America. The week focused on our connection with God, connection with other missionary women, and connection with the “Care Team” that came from the States. Eight South American countries were represented with Brazil having the most participants.

While spending the week on a beautiful beach nestled in the mountains, we were often reminded of God’s power and majesty through His creation. Daily we spent significant time singing praises to God and praying together. We also had several classes each day that encouraged us to deepen our relationship with God as well as practical classes given by a counselor on things such as personality differences and how this affects our mission.

We had several opportunities to bond with other missionary women from South America through fellowship and sharing meals together. In addition to that, we were put into small groups (called Connection Groups) with women in similar situations. We spent a couple of times a day with these groups talking with one another about the various challenges and blessings of serving on a foreign field. I was blessed to have in my group two girls I went to FHU with although I didn’t really know either one of them very well before this week. I am thankful for the new friendships I have with these ladies that are serving God and raising their families in Peru and Paraguay.

The last connection this conference tried to encourage was a connection with the “Care Team.” The Care Team consisted of 17 women who currently live in the United States. Some of these women were former missionaries, some of them were counselors, and some of them were stay-at-home moms who have a heart for missions. Some were not much older than me and others were old enough to be my grandmother. I think their basic job this week was to love and serve these women who spend their days loving and serving others constantly. I did not feel worthy of this since I have only been on the field for 3 months, but it certainly felt good to have their words of encouragement and comforting hugs.

This is a pretty long post, but it does not even touch on how amazing the week was. I will post in a few days some of the fun “first time in a long time” experiences I had this week while on the other side of the country!

Oh, by the way, the amazing thing is that the only expense to this conference was transportation to the São Paulo airport. CCC took care of all costs from there – bus to the resort, lodging for 4 nights, 3 meals a day, snacks, and little gifts that they gave us throughout this week. I’m not sure exactly who all donates to make this event happen, but I am very grateful for it.

P.S. I had some pictures to put in this post, but apparently our internet is too slow or too sketchy to load them...sorry! :-/

Slowly But Surely

2010-10-03T20:06:00.003-05:00

We are getting there. After going more than 2 months without internet in our home, we can now use the internet in our home! *insert applause!* It seems so silly to think that living without internet would be such a big deal. In reality, I guess it shouldn’t. I know missionaries 30 and even 15 years ago lived every day without it. I admire them for it…but when we moved down here, we KNEW that Internet would be possible. We did not expect to have this much trouble obtaining internet in our home and for this reason it has been a difficult few months because of the lack of communication we have had with family/friends back home.

Now we have internet, but it is limited. We are using a modem through a cell company which only allows us to use it so many hours each month…which means that we are not accessible 24/7 with Skype or Magic Jack. We can certainly use these things MUCH easier now than before, but we will still have to plan it out since we will have to connect to the internet in order for someone to contact us with those modes of communication. We still hope to eventually get regular internet in our home, which will allow us to have Skype and Magic Jack accessible more often, but that could still be a while.

We were blessed this week to have a veteran missionary offer to come from Recife to help us get some of these matters figured out (i.e. internet). He has been a tremendous help and we are obviously further along in the process this week than we were last week! We were thankful for his presence and that we now have internet because of his help!

I know blog posts are boring without pictures, so I apologize. :) For those of you that would be very upset if the blog post didn’t contain at least one picture of Jonah, this one is for you. :) This was actually taken about 6 weeks ago when our team went to the Bosque together. I think it’s our first picture where the boys are actually posing.

I'll Be Back

2010-07-28T07:06:00.005-05:00

We are moving today which means we will not have internet access for a while. So don't give up on me! My blog may not change for a while or at least not very often, but once we get internet in our home, I'll get back on track!

I did write two posts yesterday, so you can check those out below.

Until next time...enjoy this photo taken from the hotel room yesterday right before a massive rain reminding us of God's power and beauty.

Nomad No-more!

2010-07-27T20:18:00.002-05:00

One year ago this week, we left the house in Winchester, TN that we called home for 5 years. Ever since then we have felt kind of like nomads. For the past year we have wandered from one place to another knowing we would not be there long, therefore never really truly setting up “home.”

We lived in Lubbock for a while as we went through training – 6 months to be exact – making it the longest place we stayed this past year. Next, we stayed on the Bradshaw farm in Mt. Juliet for several months as we made final preparations for our overseas move. Then, we lived with my parents for a few weeks, and now we have lived in Hotel Grão Pará for 5 weeks.

Tomorrow we will move once again. Hopefully this will be the final move for a while – at least for one year, but hopefully more. It is exciting! I AM going to set up “home” in this place! We ARE going to settle, but it IS going to take a while. Over the course of the next month or more we will have furniture and appliances delivered to our new home as we buy them. We will continue to buy small things for our home as we realize the need for them – such as dish cloths, dishes, organizers, kitchen items, lamps, etc. We will also tackle the process of getting phone and internet in our home. We are expecting our shipment from the US to arrive in September…hopefully! We will then have 13 more boxes to unload and settle in our new home. It will take time, but we will make our home a place that is comfortable for us...and hopefully a comfortable place for you to visit us. :) A wise missionary wife and mentor from Sunset encouraged us to make it “our place…our refuge.” So that is what we will do. Let settling in a new home commence!

Mixed Emotions

2010-07-27T13:06:00.002-05:00

Hopefully within the next day or two we will be in our own home. The excitement of being in our OWN home has overtaken us! We can’t wait to spread out and have space. We are looking forward to being able to eat home cooked meals in our own kitchen! We are eager to meet our neighbors and begin a new daily routine. We are ready to make the apartment “our home.”

However, in a small sense, we are leaving a “home” we have made here at Hotel Grão Pará. While Nick and I are definitely thrilled about moving into our own place, this has become a place of familiarity for us over these past 5 weeks…especially for Jonah. He knows his way around this hotel inside and out. He knows we push “6” in the elevator to get to our room and he knows exactly which room is ours and how to get there. He knows to push “T” when we’re going down in the elevator. He knows exactly where the breakfast room is located and looks forward to eating chocolate crackers after finishing his eggs each morning. He knows several of the ladies at the front desk by name and loves to charm all of them by speaking a little Portuguese, smiling big, and blowing them kisses. There is a ramp going out the hotel that he particularly likes to play on and for some unknown reason he calls it the “blue bridge.” The doormen know Jonah and are careful not to let him out the door when he’s not supposed to leave. In front of the hotel, Jonah knows he can see several familiar taxi drivers sitting in chairs waiting for customers. He has “salutes” he does with some while he knows the names of others. Hotel Grão Pará has become a place where he is comfortable and surrounded with people in which he is familiar.

It is encouraging to know that in time Jonah will also become familiar with our new home, new car, new neighbors, and new road. And hopefully we can come back and visit the hotel and the workers here from time to time. He will miss this place, but he will adjust.

I have to admit there are even a few things Nick and I will miss about Hotel Grão Pará as well. We will miss the people, the daily maid service, and especially the air conditioning. :) We are grateful that we had this place to live during these 5 weeks and will cherish the memories we have made here.

Crazy Morning with a Peaceful Evening

2010-07-25T20:09:00.003-05:00

We woke up at 6am this morning to the sound of fireworks in the park. I don't know why. We often hear fireworks here...especially during a soccer game...but at 6am? Why? I do not know. It was constant for 30 mins. My best guess it that they were warning us about the power outage. The power company was working on the electricity today, so our hotel did not have electricity from 6:30am - 12:30pm. Thankfully this was previously announced. For several days we have seen signs posted in the hotel to warn us of this. However, it still made for an interesting morning...getting ready in the dark with no electricity. I was amazed at how quickly it got hot without the AC running for just an hour.

We stumbled around in the dark getting ready to head to the King's house for a morning of worship and fellowship. Since there was no electricity, we took the journey down 8 flights of stairs. Fortunately the closer we got to the bottom, the more well lit the stairwell became. We weren't sure if breakfast would still be served since we didn't have electricity, but it was! The breakfast area in the lobby was full of people eating breakfast in the dark! :)

After breakfast we experienced a new adventure...riding the bus in Belem. Edson had taken the day off to go the beach with his family, so we decided it would be a good opportunity for us to explore the public bus transportation system in Belem. And we made it to Brian and Melissa's with no problem! Jonah of course thought riding the big bus was pretty cool!

By the way, I don't know why I'm laughing so hard in this picture.

We spent the morning in fellowship and worship with the Kings. For lunch Brian and Nick cooked pancakes and eggs for us. It was delicious! There is no maple syrup here, so we enjoyed them with honey instead. :)

After lunch, we left the boys with the dads for nap time while Melissa and I hit the supermarket. I stocked up on cleaning supplies to clean our new home this week. It was rather confusing browsing down 3 aisles full of colorful bottles all looking the same...all obviously for cleaning something but not so obvious for what they were intended. It'll be interesting trying to put them all to correct use. Hmmm...

Back at the hotel room Jonah enjoyed another 4 hour nap! Again we could hardly get the little guy to wake up so we could eat dinner. Hopefully he is finally catching up on some much needed rest which will hopefully result in a much happier little boy!

Tomorrow we hope to buy some more necessities for our apartment...such as FANS, a couch, and some small miscellaneous items.

Looking forward to an exciting and busy week!!

A Geladeira e O Forno...Yippee!!!

2010-07-24T20:46:00.003-05:00

Today our goal was to purchase as many necessities as possible for our new apartment while making sure Jonah still got a nap in. He had a rough week with very few naps, so it was a priority to make sure he got one today while he could.

This morning Brian and Melissa arrived at our hotel room at 8:30am in order to watch Jonah for us so we could purchase these things in peace. We were extremely thankful for their help! We had already done a lot of looking and knew exactly where we wanted to buy what and which style we wanted...well, we thought we did. I changed my mind on everything at the last minute. :( Go figure! We did not buy the refrigerator or the stove we thought we would nor did we buy them at the stores we thought we would. But nevertheless we DID buy a fridge and stove for our new home today! The fridge will be delivered on Tuesday and the oven will be delivered on Wednesday.

Those two items somehow took the entire morning. It was then lunchtime, so I went back to feed Jonah lunch before his nap while Nick, Brian, and Edson went to pick up our new car! We aren't driving it just yet, but Nick did drive it to our apartment to park it in our driveway.

And finally...Jonah got a good nap in! :) He slept for over 3 1/2 hours and we still had difficulty getting him to wake up good so we could go out to pick up a few more things. The little guy is exhausted! Slowly but surely we got out of the hotel room to grab some dinner and hit a store to pick up trash cans, a dish drying rack, bath mats, and a few kitchen towels.

We didn't get quite as much done as we had hoped today, but at least Jonah caught up on some sleep. Over the next few days we'll buy a few more necessities and will probably get moved in to our apartment the first 1/2 of next week!

And we do have: A Refrigerator and An Oven...Yippee!!!

KEYS!

2010-07-23T20:49:00.004-05:00

Today – exactly one month after leaving the USA - was a very exciting day.

After calling over 80 places and looking at about 25 homes, we found “the winner” last week. First thing Monday morning we began the process of obtaining this place as “our home.” Quite a process it was! Monday we filled out an application at the realtor’s office.

And then we waited. We waited for 3 days while they inspected the apartment and put together a contract for us. Thursday we finally received word that the contract was ready for us to sign. So we went to the realty office to retrieve the 16 page contract so that we could pass it on via email to several friends – bilingual Portuguese/English speakers (mostly missionaries) who are familiar with the culture. After hearing back from these guys, we took their advice and began the contract negotiation process. By Friday morning (today), we had the contract like we wanted it and we were ready to sign. We went to the realty office and waited for about an hour while they had the new contract printed. Then we signed it.

We then had to take the signed contract to a cartório office to have the realtor’s signature authenticated. (The cartório is a place where you make documents official. It’s kind of like getting something notarized in the States.) Then we had to take the papers to a different cartório to get our signatures authenticated. Next, we went to the power company to request the electricity to be turned on. They said it would take up to 3 days.

By the time we finished all of that the realty office was closed for lunch. So we ate lunch and waited until 2pm for it to reopen. After an hour of finishing details in the realtor’s office, it was finally official! We were handed the keys to our new home! What a happy moment for us!

In addition to receiving the keys to our new home today, we also received keys to our new car today! It is a black 2003 Fiat Siena. We actually found this car last week, but we couldn’t buy it until we had proof of residence. (There are MANY things we have learned you can’t do until you have proof of residence – such as open a bank account – so we are thrilled that we now have proof of residence!)

We are thrilled about hitting these two major milestones in our settling process. We are thankful for the prayers that have been lifted on our behalf. We are excited about our new home.

For pictures of our new home you can see Monday’s post “Round 2 – Securing Another Apartment Hopefully.” For additional pictures click on this public link to my Facebook pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=190788&id=500614603&l=6515e8100e

What about the Kings?

2010-07-20T21:02:00.003-05:00

While we're in a lull waiting on our contract, I thought I'd take this opportunity to let y'all know what the Kings are up to.

The Kings signed a contract for an apartment 2 weeks ago. It took several days to get the electricity turned on, so they were unable to move in until 3 days later. They have been there now for a week and a half. They had a refrigerator, stove, and washing machine delivered immediately. Josiah's mattress was delivered a few days later.

They bought a couch last Tuesday. They said it would be delivered Friday. The guy showed up and said he couldn't deliver it because it wouldn't fit in the elevator. :-/ Melissa called the store and the lady said, "Oh! When he gets back I'll show him how to take the arms off and he'll deliver it tomorrow." haha! They waited all day Saturday. You guessed it, he never showed. BUT Monday (yesterday) they finally delivered the couch and love seat to their apartment. They are very excited about having a place to sit now other than their air mattress.

They continue to shop for kitchen cabinets, kitchen table/chairs, and other furniture for their new home. Brian is also going to try to make some of their furniture, but obtaining good wood for a good price has been a challenge -- an unexpected challenge in the Amazon Rain Forest!

So while we watch them as they work a few steps ahead of us, we can see that it is going to take a while to settle in even after we move into a new home. It's a lot to do...in another language...in another culture. We will have to be flexible and of course patient.

What's our status? Well, we are waiting for the realtor to email us a contract on the apartment. He said he would email it this afternoon, but we never received it. We are hoping this was just because of a typo in the email address and nothing that is seriously holding it up. If all goes well tomorrow, we will clear that up and then pass the contract on to some veteran Brazilian missionaries in other parts of Brazil that can review it for us. If all is well we can sign on it. And maybe even be in it over the weekend. :) Hopefully!

Keep praying! Your prayers are so much appreciated!!

Round 2 - Securing Another Apartment Hopefully

2010-07-19T10:58:00.003-05:00

Here we go again! We have found another apartment that we want to pursue. If you read the last post, I think I mentioned that we were trying to decide between two. We decided that we like this one the most, so we are now in the process of trying to obtain it...which we now know by experience that it doesn't mean we'll actually end up with it. We are hoping though.

So...meet what will hopefully be our new home!

It is not in a high rise apartment complex like we originally thought we would be in. It is on the second level of the building pictured below.

So we don't have a 24 hour security guard like the apartment buildings here have, but we are in this closed condominium area. Behind this secured gate there are 4 or 5 homes on this street. Edson said that it was still very safe.

This is the kitchen. They call kitchens like this here an "American kitchen" because it is not a separate room but opens up into the living room and rest of the house. That's a big part of why we were so attracted to the house. Openness makes a big difference when you're living in a small apartment.

The kitchen opens up into this living room. The two arched doorways lead to two bedrooms.

It has a porch! Big enough for a hammock! But don't worry, Momma, we will secure it so Jonah can't climb off!

This is the view looking off the right of the porch. The secured gate is at the end of the little road just before getting to the bigger road. The bigger road is not a super busy road though, so it's nice and quiet, which we country folk like! :)

This is the front bedroom, which will probably be Jonah's room. The window opens up to the porch.

This is the "service area," which is like a laundry room. This is where we'll put a washing machine.

This is a bathroom off of one of the master suites. There are TWO master suites, so if you come to visit us, you won't have to worry about staying in a hotel! :) You'll get your own bedroom AND bathroom.

One of the master bedrooms:

That wraps it up! This is one of the cleanest most recently remodeled places we have looked at. It of course does not have ANY cabinets, closets, or cupboards, but it appears that the owners have taken good care of it which is a relief.

This apartment is also only a couple of blocks from the Kings and within a 10 minute walk to the supermarket. This is a place we feel we can make a home in and be very comfortable (after we get some fans going!). We are EXCITED about moving and settling into our new home.

Please be praying that all things will work smoothly this week concerning our contract and final plans to move into this new home!

"No Apartment," That is the Answer

2010-07-17T12:10:00.003-05:00

We anxiously waited all week for the owner to get back from the beach. Friday morning we called and sure enough she had decided not to rent it. She lives in Brasilia and has decided to set that apartment up as a second home so she has a place to stay when she comes to Belem.

We are thankful that the realtor gave us a “heads up” because we were able to continue looking for apartments this week while we waited on her. Wednesday Melissa called 37 places for us. We were able to set up appointments with 6 of those. What about the other 31? Most of them were out of our price range, some of them had already been rented, and a few were in bad areas. Here’s what we found with those 6 places on Thursday: First place – our taxi driver stopped us before we went in and said it was not good because it was in an area that flooded a lot near the sewer. Strike one. Second place – the realtor called and canceled the night before because someone had decided to rent it. Strike two. Third place – we were able to look at it and we liked it although we had a few concerns. It’s a maybe. Fourth place – was not a real address. Strike three. Fifth place – we waited for 40 mins and the realtor never showed. Sixth place – the house was big and spacious but covered in mold and cockroaches and not in a safe place. Strike four.

We were unable to use Edson Thursday so we decided to go back on Friday to the place we liked and get Edson’s opinion. We have grown to trust Edson. As a taxi driver he knows the security level of every road in the city. He is also an electrician so he gives helpful insight in that area as well. He also knows other questions to ask when renting in this culture. We felt quite handicapped without him on Thursday.

So we hired Edson for the day on Friday – from 9am – 5pm. We were able to reschedule an appointment for the realtor that never showed on Thursday at 4pm, and we were able to schedule another appointment to look at the place we liked at 11:30. We picked up our friend, Neto, that we met at the mall that speaks English very well so that he could translate for us.

What a day! We arrived at the apartment at 11:30am. The realtor was not there. He called at 11:50am and said he couldn’t get there until 2:30pm or 3:00pm because he was coming from 30 km away. Okay.

We were in Brian and Melissa’s neighborhood so we all met them for lunch.

We then had to take Neto back home on the other side of town and come back out to the same neighborhood to look at a car we had been told we could buy that was in our budget. However, when we got to the car dealership, they had increased the price by R$5,000. :( Argh. BUT they had another one that was in our budget. We looked at it and Edson seemed to think it was a really good deal. It’s possible we’ll buy it.

While looking at the car the realtor called and said it would be 3pm before he could get there. So at 3pm, we went back to the apartment. He wasn’t there. We waited 20 mins before calling. This time he said he could not make it at all today and it would be Monday morning at 9am. We’ll see.

Well, apparently Neto (our 19 year old English speaking friend), talked his mom out of making him go on a family weekend trip and spent his Friday night calling realtors for us. We did not ask him to do this nor did we know he was doing it! We thought he had gone on the family trip and then he calls us last night and says he has found some places for us to look at!

This morning he took us to 3 different places. None of them were bad. We liked the last one the best…mainly because it had a playground for Jonah! That’s important to a 2 year old when there’s no backyard and it's not near a park. Elias (our other taxi driver friend) assured us it was in a safe and secure neighborhood.

We will still try to meet this other guy that said he’d meet us Monday morning. Then we’ll probably start the contract negotiation process on one of these two places.

Sorry for such a long post! So many details this time!

Please continue to pray that God will direct our steps to where we need to be.

"Apartment or No Apartment?" That is the Question

2010-07-13T20:15:00.002-05:00

This morning we awoke early, dressed nicely, and jetted out of the hotel without even sitting down to eat breakfast. Today was a big day. After a week of contract negotiation, today was the day we hoped to sign our contract on the apartment. Tim is no longer here, so we rushed to get to Brian and Melissa’s apartment before the realtor called at “8 or 9am” as he told us yesterday he would. Melissa can understand and speak Portuguese much better than the rest of us since she spent her childhood in Brazil, so she was going to speak with him for us.

We anxiously sat around in Brian and Melissa’s unfurnished apartment waiting for “the call.” Every time a phone rang in the apartment building, we excitedly hustled to see if it was ours. But it wasn’t. 8am, 9am, and 10am came and went…no call. Finally we decided to call him. No answer. We tried again around 11am. This time he answered. We waited silently as Melissa began speaking with him in Portuguese. We didn’t have to be fluent in Portuguese to understand that Melissa’s tone of voice meant that something wasn’t good.

This month is vacation month. The city is not nearly as bustling as it usually is. Everyone has escaped to the beach…including the owner of the apartment we were hoping to rent starting today. She told the realtor she’d be back Friday and we could then discuss with her the contract. But the realtor told Melissa, “To be honest with you, I think she has decided not to rent it anymore.”

Wow. Bummer. We knew that nothing could be final with the apartment until the contract was signed, but we were also already picturing that apartment as our new home as we have spent days shopping for appliances and furnishings…imagining where it would go in THAT apartment.

Oh, well. Nothing we can do about it now. We have already pulled out the classifieds and are diligently searching through them for places to rent…again. Nothing is looking too promising yet, but we know that when one door closes, another one opens. Perhaps there is something even BETTER than this apartment out there. Maybe it’ll even have bathrooms and a kitchen that aren’t so outdated. :) Maybe it’ll be in an even better location.

If there is one thing we’ve learned these last 3 weeks of living in Brazil, it is to be patient. If there is one thing we learned in the 5 years of preparing for the field, it was that God is in control. So we will continue to remember those two things as we start over in our search for a new home.

"How's the Weather?" by Nick

2010-07-11T19:41:00.002-05:00

For the first week, I never noticed it. Ice cold water was refreshing, and our clothes did get a little sticky. But for the most part, I don’t really remember being hot. Enter week two. I think the sun has moved and decided to set up his camp directly over the city of Belém. It’s there when we wake up. The heat from it is still there when we go to bed. The first week, we kept our curtains open a lot to let the sun in, and our air condition was never turned past medium. For the last six days we have kept the curtains closed and the air condition literally has not been turned off of high.

One of the most common questions we have been getting is “How hot is it there”? The answer to that is about 90-91 degrees. I know, you are thinking “Oh, that’s not too bad. It’s been close to a hundred here”! While that may be true, we walk as many places as we can. We wear our jeans to fit in with the local culture as much as we can. And here at the equator we are about as close to the sun as you can get. On top of that, imagine the steamy humidity that is provided for us by the rain forest that surrounds our city on three sides. How hot is it here? Yesterday, when I was looking at cars with Tim and Brian, I was so desperate for a little bit of shade that I stood in the shadow of a telephone pole. It seemed to be at least 5 degrees cooler there. I stayed there as long as I could waiting for Tim and Brian to finish looking at the car.

For those who are wondering about the rain, it isn’t as predictable as the legends make it out to be. I do think it rains everyday somewhere in Belém, but it doesn’t always rain in our neighborhood. Sometime we can see it passing east to west just north of the hotel. Most of the time it rains in the afternoon, but about half the time it rains during the night. Thunder and lightning accompany the rain about half the time also. Yesterday an incredible storm came through the entire city, blowing things apart, knocking out the power and washing away just about anything that could float. Brian was at their new apartment waiting on me and Edson to get there with some of their things, and he left one of the windows open when the deluge hit. Good thing it was just the maid’s area.

As a small bit of news we are still in negotiation with the contract on our apartment. I think that things are going to get more difficult with Tim gone, but maybe not. We also found a car! We have a verbal agreement to buy the car on Tuesday or Wednesday. It is a 2003 Fiat Palio Weekend with a 1.3 liter engine. Translation: it is a used Brazilian station wagon that doesn’t have much get up and go. I’m not sure if I’m ready to drive it here in the city. Edson suggested I practice a few Sundays before venturing out during the week. There isn’t much traffic on Sunday.

A Geladeira, O Forno, e A Lavadora, Oh My!!

2010-07-08T18:31:00.006-05:00

Overwhelmed. That’s the feeling I had last night as we stood in a Brazilian store similar to Sears. Time to pick out appliances.

In Brazil when you rent, appliances are not included. You’re doing well if there are toilet seats on the toilet and you’re REALLY lucky if there are any closets or cupboards or cabinets. We didn’t do too badly (assuming we DO get the apartment we’re hoping for). Our toilets have toilet seats and we have closets in one of the bedrooms. But no closets in other rooms, no cabinets in the kitchen, and of course no appliances. So we need to buy all of those items plus air conditioners for the bedrooms.

Nick reminded me that this should be FUN! I get to pick out my own refrigerator, stove, and washing machine! But it wasn’t. Instead Jonah wanted to play hide and seek among the appliances instead of chill in his stroller. While I tried to make sure he didn’t run completely off, I was trying to read appliance information in Portuguese, convert reais to dollars in my head, and picture whether or not we would actually have room for that particular appliance…and will my 9 x 13 pan even fit in that tiny stove??

It finally hit me why this was so overwhelming. Besides the cultural things listed above and the Jonah issue, we have NEVER bought kitchen appliances before. We have never owned our own home and every place we have lived already had those things. So I’ve never had a choice before. Now I have the choice, but I have to make it in another language with features I’m not all that familiar with (such as a gas stove) and brands of which I’ve never heard.

After conversing via Facebook with a current Brazilian missionary wife, I was refreshed as I went out this morning to do more appliance shopping. Now I at least knew which brands were good and which ones to avoid. This helped narrow down the options quite a bit. It’s still overwhelming, but manageable now.

Edson took us to about 7 different stores this morning and we were able to compare prices to see where we should get what. Nick took lots of good notes. Jonah wasn’t feeling great this morning, so he actually DID just chill in the stroller most of the time which also made it easier to think while we shopped. This afternoon Edson took Nick back out to look more, but I stayed back with Jonah so he could get a nap.

Perhaps I'll just skip all of those appliances and just get this massive standing mixer instead. ;) What do you think?? :) haha...Just kidding.

A New Home?? Maybe?

2010-07-07T12:43:00.003-05:00

We have found an apartment that we like! We are pursuing it, but we don't "have it" yet. There are many steps to complete in order to obtain an apartment here. We have started the process and hope everything goes smoothly from here on so that we can soon move into a new home!

This apartment is located within walking distance of the park I wrote about a few posts ago as well as a supermarket, butcher shop, bread shop, paper store, ice cream parlor, and I'm sure we'll discover other good places soon! This is important since we will only have one car...and not sure when that will be!

It is also in a secure neighborhood and the apartment building has it's own security system as well. Jonah has already made friends with the security guard, Lula:

The living/dining room gets the morning sun (MUCH better than the afternoon sun of course) and the apartment is on the 11th floor so it gets a nice breeze too - and hopefully not many mosquitoes!

The kitchen isn't the prettiest, but it is among the biggest we have seen in Brazilian apartments!

The master bedroom even already has a "closet" (which is not always the case here), but Tim said we would have to take the closet doors off to provide ventilation so our clothes wouldn't mold. :-/

Master bathroom....looking kinda 70-ish, but it actually seems to have been recently remodeled.

Bedroom #2 - also gets morning sun...check out the hammock hook...maybe Jonah will just go to sleeping in hammocks instead of a big boy bed. ;)

Bathroom #2:

View of the city from our living room:

Thank you for those of you who have been praying for us to find a good home in a good location. We are excited about the possibilities and ask for your continued prayers that all will go well with this situation!

God Provides a Friend to Help...Edson

2010-07-06T20:12:00.003-05:00

July 5, Monday

What a day! We left the hotel at 8:15am to home-hunt and didn’t quit until 7pm! Our taxi driver and new friend Edson spent the entire day with us. He took us off the meter and we paid him a flat rate to help us all day. He called 27 places for us and drove us to 5 different apartments/houses to look at. His help saved us a lot of time and money as he was able to eliminate apartments that he knew were in dangerous areas without us driving out there and wasting our time looking at them.

It was REALLY hot...and Edson's battery died while we were eating lunch, so we did the rest of the day in the taxi with no air. It wouldn't have been too bad if I didn't have a little body heater sleeping on me for about 30 mins while we were at a standstill making calls. I think that's the hottest I have been since we've been here!

We found one house and one apartment we really like. There are positive and negative traits of each, so we’re going to have to really sit down and decide which characteristics are more important and probably pay each of them one more visit before making a decision. But we feel good now that we are finally finding options that are more affordable.

At the end of the day after we had looked at 5 different places all across the city, Edson invited us back to his house to meet his son, girlfriend, and mother. We were able to meet his father last week. We sat on the sidewalk in front of his parents’ store and enjoyed an ice cold Coca Cola, the evening breeze, and good fellowship with our new friends.

We were thankful to arrive back at our hotel home tonight to finally crash. We were even more thankful that we could smell delicious chicken and vegetables as soon as the elevator opened on our floor. So glad we brought the Crockpot on the plane!

Tuesday, July 6 - spent 1/2 the day with Edson looking at apartments again...we were able let Jonah nap after lunch while Nick was able to obtain a cell phone! woohoo! One more thing marked off the list.

tight places need open spaces

2010-07-04T14:15:00.005-05:00

Living in a hotel room can be challenging for anyone…but perhaps it’s the most difficult for a 2 year old little boy. Especially a 2 year old boy who loves climbing and running and is happiest when outdoors.

Jonah has asked to go to the playground almost every day since our arrival.

We haven’t been at all.

We have seen one public play area. After being here for more than a week, we ventured out to explore it. I’m so glad we did! This park is my new favorite place in this city! Check it out:

I think Jonah was ready to move into this "house." :)

Check out this interesting slide!

I'm not sure who was having more fun here. ;)

These birds were all through the park! They stood in the water, walked down the sidewalks, and filled the trees above us!

Nice W I D E sidewalks we could all walk down side by side...even with strollers!

There were TONS of people running/walking in this park and it even had a little "exercise area" -- kinda like Charlie Daniels' park in MJ.

Exotic plants, beautiful walkways, peaceful waters...

...and to top it off: this cool castle thing!

It was awesome! For some reason I didn't get any pictures of these, but they had tons of coconut stands (where they give you a fresh coconut with a straw to drink form it) and little ice cream or snack stands...and LOTS of playing children! It was awesome!

Oh, yeah...did I mention that half way through our walk to the park a Belem afternoon shower struck?? Since I was the only one in our crew with an umbrella, these nice men at a restaurant (that was closed) opened up their gate and let us stand in the dry until it stopped.

People here will do anything for you if you have kids with you.

:)

We knew that living in an apartment in a city would be difficult change for us. But perhaps it is a blessing that we live in a hotel room for several weeks first. Our new apartment (whenever we find it) will seem so big and spacious compared to hotel-room-living!

This week we will hunt more for our new home. (It is my hopes this new home could also be near the beautiful park above!)

Sad Day for Brasil

2010-07-03T11:23:00.003-05:00

Friday, July 2

This morning Jonah woke up at 7am (1 hour earlier than normal) saying, “Funny noise. Funny noise, Daddy. Funny noise, Momma.” Today Brasil plays in the World Cup again…each game taking them closer to the championship that the whole country so passionately desires. So, at 7am this morning, the noisemakers in the street had already begun.

Game Day. This meant the whole city would be wearing green and yellow. This time I didn’t intend on being the ONLY one in the city in another color (as we were the previous two games). So I put on my green Brasil soccer t-shirt that the Scott Family from Owl Hollow got me during the 2006 World Cup. :)

The game was at 11am which pretty much knocked out the chances of getting anything done today. Brasilians begin preparing for their game parties, etc. by 10am and many stores and offices don’t reopen until a few hours after the game…about 3pm or so...if at all. However, Nick did manage to meet with a realtor and set up some appointments for Monday, so that was good!

We watched most of the game with our team in the hotel. The streets were quiet, the parks were empty, and fireworks were booming throughout the game. But to our disappointment, Holland beat Brasil. :( This was devastating to the whole country since this loss put them out of the tournament.

Patience is a Virtue - Part 2

2010-07-02T12:25:00.004-05:00

If you didn't read my previous post, "Patience is a Virtue," you might want to read it prior to reading this one.

Tuesday we went to the Post Office to register for our CPF (tax ID number). We were told to go to a different building the next day to pick up our CPF number. We didn’t make it Wednesday because we had 4 appointments set to see apartments…so we tackled it “first thing” Thursday morning. We took Melissa with us to help translate. We were told that they opened at 10am, which is when most things open here, but they apparently opened before then because the building was PACKED when we got there at 10am.

In Brazil they have “preference lines”…basically women who are expecting, people with young children, and the elderly get to automatically go to the front. This worked nicely for us in the airport as officials immediately directed us to the front and we NEVER waited in a line…so we tried it here. Oops. The lady behind the counter, looking quite perturbed, informed us that we were “pushing it” by being in that line. Apparently she didn’t consider Jonah young enough. Apparently she has never had to wait in line with a 2 year old before. She went ahead and processed us though…so it was worth it considering the other line was about 50 people long.

Once we got our number we sat down to wait for it to be called. We were thankful that it was air conditioned and that there were chairs for us to sit in – at least Melissa and I had chairs. Nick stood and Jonah just crawled all over all 3 of us as if we were a really fun jungle gym. I truly believe that Jonah did as well as a 2 year old little boy could possibly do in such conditions. He was good…but he still exhausted us.

After 1 hour and 20 mins of being climbed on, they finally called our number! We were thrilled to get moving. But when we went to the counter, the man said we should have had TWO numbers since TWO of us needed CPFs. Of course. So, while he began to process mine, Nick went back to wait in the FIRST line again. The man told him to take Jonah with him so he could go to the front of the line, but we weren’t going to try that again! Not the same day in the same place anyway! The nice man did allow us to take the number straight to him so he could process us our request instead of waiting in the chairs for 1 hour plus again.

After 1 hour and 40 mins we finally have our CPF numbers…which is huge…because you need it to pretty much do anything here. We are excited to have that behind us.

Now we can apartment hunt more…meanwhile we will be waiting 50 days to receive our official “CPF card” in the mail. :)

Patience is a Virtue

2010-07-02T07:17:00.005-05:00

Patience is an important quality for any Christian to have. Especially a Brazilian Missionary. We knew this when we first decided to become missionaries to Brazil 5 years ago. We have been told by Brazilian missionaries and we have read in various places that things in Brazil take a long time and require lots of waiting. You wait in line to pay your bills. You wait in line at the bank. And many times, you wait in line to get a number so you can wait in line.

We felt as though we were being prepared for this as we waited 5 years before things came together to fulfill our dream of being missionaries in Brazil. We had to be patient for the formation of a team. We had to be patient in finding a congregation to oversee the work. We had to be patient so we could be properly trained, and we had to be patient for our funds to come in.

There’s a little song our little Fowler family likes to sing. It goes like this:
“Be patient, Be patient, Don’t be in such a hurry.
When you are impatient, You only start to worry,
Remember, Remember, That God is patient too.
So if you take some extra time, He’ll be patient with you!”

This little song has really helped Jonah in times when he’s had to be patient. And now I can see how it will help me.

Today was our first real experience with “being patient.” But since this post is long enough as it is, I will write about it in a separate post. Stay tuned to see why patience is so important.

Meanwhile, enjoy this picture of Tim, Josiah, and Jonah.

Brazil - Day 7 - 6/30/2010

2010-07-01T19:27:00.004-05:00

Today was focused on apartment hunting! We looked at 4 apartments and that pretty much exhausted us in this heat! We spent a good bit of the day traveling in taxis all over the city to see the different apartments in various parts of the city.

We saw 3 before lunch. We took a break for lunch at "The Docks." The Docks is a nice shopping/eating area down by the river. We also strolled through the Ver-o-Peso (famous open air market here by the river) and got some acai.

We saw another apartment after the boys' naptimes.

We haven't had a whole lot of luck yet. We're having trouble finding what we want where we want in the price range we need. :) We're trying to be patient so that we can find "the one." Pray that it's out there!

This wraps up our first week here in Belem. I will probably stop with the daily posts and just post as interesting things come up (which could be daily). Mostly for a while our days will consist of hunting for our new home.

Prayers are appreciated.

Brazil - Day 6 - 6/29/2010

2010-06-30T13:05:00.003-05:00

This morning Nick and I went to the post office to register for our tax ID numbers while Melissa graciously kept Jonah for us. We completed the registration process and will have to go to another place tomorrow in order to pick up our temporary card.

This afternoon we began our apartment search.

This one wasn't bad, but it wasn't "the one" either.

But it had some incredible views of the city!

You could even see the river from the apartment. We stood on the porch and watched a MASSIVE afternoon thunderstorm move in.

The rain drops were so big you could see each individual one - like hail or snow. It was nuts! I don't really know how to describe it. And the skyline practically disappeared. (The picture above and the picture below are the same shot, just taken 10 mins apart.)

For those of you that don't know, Belem is considered one of the rainiest cities in the world...over 98 inches of rain each year!

Brazil - Day 5 - 6/28/2010

2010-06-29T09:15:00.002-05:00

This morning we hit the ground running so we could get as many legal things accomplished as possible beofre Brazil played in the World Cup at 3:30pm. Also, Tim (Melissa's father) joined us today. Since he is a former missionary to Brazil he is very helpful in these areas. The city was a sea of green and yellow today as people cheered on Brazil. Jonah and Josiah joined the mix...here they are pictured with Tim.

Since most of the day consisted of legal matters, I asked Nick to write about it since he's handling most of that and I don't have a clue what's going on!

"Amy asked me to be a guest blogger today. I wonder if this will be a regular occurence? Before breakfast I went down to the block to Pepé’s office to sell the dollars that I brought with me. Because the banks don’t open until 10 it took about 12 phone calls before he found somebody who would deliver the money by motorcycle from somewhere else. You should ask me about Pepé, sometime. He is interesting.

After that, which took almost two hours, we started working on our green card registration. Brian took our family down the street to a place that makes legal pictures. Each of us had our picture made. Then Brian and I met Tim back at the hotel and took a taxi to the Federal Police Station. There I presented the passports and he gave me a list of documents to collect. Thankfully, Brian had already gone through this and we had a head start. We dropped Tim off at the Cartorio to make official copies of our passports while Brian and I went to the bank to pay the fees for our green cards. The total fee for the three of us was almost $300. Then we all met back at the hotel. I tried to fill out some fingerprint forms and messed one of them up. We hustled back to the Federal Police just before they closed at two because of the game. This time it was Tim, me, Amy and Jonah. They processed the papers and I filled out a new one for the one I messed up. We did finger prints on all our fingers...twice. Then we left with our temporary green cards. The official ones come in four months, which is three months before they have to be renewed. Hahaha.

The rest of the afternoon Jonah napped on me while we watched the Brasil game. It was incredible. By the way, there was not a soul in the park, not a taxi on the street, and not one store open. After the game the streets filled with people and parties in celebration of their victory. We headed out for supper and because the shopping place was closed, our taxis got separated. We ate dinner at a “pay by the kilo” place and then had ice cream with our taxi driver, Edson. He is about our age and very eager to be friends. We enjoyed our time with him. When we got back to the hotel our team met to plan out the next day, Brian payed his first hotel bill, Jonah got a shower, and now Amy is reading while I catch up on Facebook. Another great day in Brasil and another friend to add to our growing list of contacts."

Brazil - Day 4 - 6/27/2010

2010-06-28T12:56:00.002-05:00

Today was a great day! The morning started off with our first worship service in Brazil. We worshipped with just us and the Kings in our hotel room.

While we spent time in song and prayer and studying God’s Word, it sounded as though the whole city of Belém was right outside our hotel room. There is an “art fair” in the park across the street from our hotel every Sunday, and MANY people come to enjoy the day there.

After our worship service as we were discussing business as a team, the sound suddenly escalated and became even more intense. As we looked out our hotel room, we saw a parade in the streets below us. Some people were in costumes, some were on stilts, and others were playing musical instruments. Everyone else was cheering and singing.

After our team meeting, we decided to “join the party!” :) We cruised the fair looking for something to eat for lunch. We found a lady making crepes and decided to give that a try. While waiting on her to make them, we made some new friends! Hanna, Janaina, Dan, and Camilla – who were also working at the crepe stand. They were extremely nice and excited to meet us. They all spoke a little English too, which helped conversation. We hope to go back to her stand weekly (at least while we are at this hotel) to help build these relationships.

Brazil - Day 3 - 6/26/2010

2010-06-27T11:31:00.004-05:00

Today was our day to settle into our hotel room. Since we will be here for several weeks or more, it is important that we make it feel as homey as possible…especially for Jonah’s sake. Brian and Melissa watched Jonah for us after breakfast so we could focus on getting things organized without Jonah under our feet.

Our hotel room home:

Our "kitchen area" :)

Our office area -- this is where our computer plugs into the Internet. Here Nick is talking via Magic Jack to his dad. Behind Nick you can see Jonah's area...a tiny little pack-n-play from the hotel is where he sleeps...and then we put his car rug down so he could have his own little familiar area. He loves it and is playing much happier now that he has his space!!
Check out that bright equatorial sun coming in!

Jonah's few books we brought on the plane...I'll be anxious to get the rest of them when our shipment comes in 3 months!
Car seat, stroller, and suitcases are stuck in every cranny we can find!

In our newly organized room we were able to enjoy a lunch of peanut butter sandwiches before putting Jonah down for a nap.

After Jonah woke up from his nap, we took Josiah so Brian and Melissa could have their FIRST BREAK since arriving here a week and a half ago! We took the boys to the park across the street from our hotel so they could get some much needed energy out.

Nick then went and picked up McDonald’s for us to eat in our room (which we later found out they deliver!). We at McD’s and the boys played a little while longer before Brian and Melissa returned from the evening out.

Tomorrow...our first Lord's Day away from our church family in the States...

Brazil - Day 2 - 6/25/2010

2010-06-26T13:39:00.003-05:00

This morning after breakfast, Nick went to exchange some money for us. We were then able to rent an internet cord so that we could have internet! We were told that today wouldn’t be a good day to try to “get things done” (such as our legal stuff) because Brazil was playing in the World Cup at 11:00am. For those of you that do not know, Brazilians takes soccer VERY seriously! It’s something an American cannot understand until you can see it for yourself – and even then you still can’t understand the passion that ALL Brazilians have for soccer. I’m not talking just men. Men, women, and children of ALL ages! So, it is really difficult to get some things done in Brazil during a soccer game…particularly when Brazil is playing in the World Cup. So we joined the rest of Brazil and set aside that time to watch the World Cup with our teammates. Our first cultural experience together. Unfortunately it wasn’t a win, but it wasn’t a loss either…I’m still trying to get used to this “draw” thing.

After an unsuccessful attempt at getting Jonah to take an afternoon nap, we walked several blocks to a nearby mall to go the supermarket. Yes, supermarkets are in malls here. We got to the mall only to discover that it was closed…at 2:40pm, on a Friday…interesting. After roughly conversing with a man in Portuguese we learned that it was closed for the game (the 11am game!) and would reopen at 3pm. So we stood in the heat and waited. After 20 mins, we were thankful for the air-conditioned mall in which we could now get some groceries. We tried to pick up a few things so that we could eat lunch in our hotel room each day. After battling an overtired and grumpy two year old through an unfamiliar grocery store for 45 minutes, we were anxious to leave. As we headed to the door we realized an afternoon thunderstorm had struck! Well, maybe we won’t leave just yet. We strolled around the mall until it quit so we didn’t have to walk back to the hotel in the storm.

There is a missionary from the Christian Church who has lived here for 50 years. He and his wife are the only Americans we know in the city so far. They invited us to their house for dinner (about 30 mins outside of Belém). We enjoyed a nice American dinner of beef stroganoff and apple pie! We went to bed tonight with our bellies full.

Here is a coconut Jonah brought in from their backyard.

Brazil – Day 1 – 6/24/2010

2010-06-25T20:40:00.002-05:00

After some tearful goodbyes to our families, we experienced the smoothest international flights we have ever had. We boarded a plane that took us to DC then to Sao Paulo and then to Belém…our new home.

As we were descending into Belém, we looked below and saw a city of skyscrapers that met the Amazon River. It was incredible. “Here we are...our new home for the next 5 years,” Nick whispered to me. It still hadn’t set in yet that this is the REAL thing. This isn’t one of the 5 survey trips we have taken. This is our family MOVING to a CITY in another country. Whoa. But excitement began to build as Nick and I chatted as we flew over the city. We talked about the people that were walking in the streets below us that would come to know Christ. We talked about the possibility of even some future Christians being on that very flight with us that first took us to Belém. We talked about a city that will hopefully be a different city 5 years from now as lives are transformed by Christ. It was exciting!

On the ground, we were happy to be reunited with our teammates. We were thrilled that ALL 12 of our bags made it to Belém without trouble. But we were exhausted from 20 hours of travel…17 hours of which were on a plane. We got all of our belongings to our hotel, grabbed some dinner, then went to bed at 8:15pm (6:15 CST).

Praise God for a safe arrival in Belém and pray for our patience as we settle into our new city.

PRAISE GOD!

2010-06-03T22:45:00.002-05:00

For those of you who actually read this blog, you will be among the first to hear our BIG NEWS. Just this week we received word that we had been APPROVED to get our VISAS for BRAZIL!! For those of you that know what a struggle and obstacle course this has been, you can understand the true excitement and joy that comes with this news! We had targeted May 1 as our departure date, but they did not even ACCEPT our visa application until April 30 - a month after we had originally applied. It has been a long road of gathering the right documents and jumping through hoops, but now it is paying off.

We had been in a waiting game and had been told that we probably wouldn't get them until mid - late June. But God is always working. God worked through some unusual circumstances to help speed this thing up. We still have to go to Atlanta to "finish the visa application process," but we are hoping this pretty much just means we go down there and get it. If things continue to move smoothly, we should be LIVING in BRAZIL by the end of the month!

Thank you for your continual prayers and support as we go through this transition!

Field Focus - Teaching

2010-06-01T08:47:00.002-05:00

During our residency here at Mt. Juliet, one of our goals is to inform as many people as possible about the specifics of our mission plans. This helps create awareness throughout the congregation and people can know more what to expect as they also become more closely connected with the work. Nick has taught several Sunday morning and Wednesday night adult Bible Classes and I was able to talk with the ladies in the Sunday Morning Ladies' Class. In addition to the adult classes we were able to teach a couple of children's classes which was certainly a joy!

Audra Ann invited me to talk to her Wednesday night first graders about missions and specifically Brazil. She is doing a whole unit on missions and these children are certainly blessed to have her as a teacher. This was my first time to teach a children's class since we left Owl Hollow in July. I have missed teaching (both public school and Sunday school) so I had a blast getting back into my teaching element.

I'm always reminded of children's pure and innocent hearts when I teach. After I taught this class, one sweet girl came up and said, "Mrs. Amy, are you going to come back to our class after you get back from Brazil and let us know how it went?" I'm thankful to God for young hearts that are truly interested in spreading God's word!

One of several adult classes Nick taught.

Nick had the opportunity to teach the Sunday morning 5th graders and he had a blast doing it! These kids soaked up every word and even chewed hard on some biblical meat he threw at them.

They dug into God's word to find answers to their questions about world religions, baptism, and disciples.

We have enjoyed teaching these and many other classes at Mt. Juliet. We are continuously overwhelmed by the support - emotional, spiritual, and financial - that the members at MJ constantly shower us with. We are truly blessed that God has placed us with this group of people.

As far as an update on our departure...we are still waiting for a visas. We finished our shots last week and we have a few more legal things to take care of here in the states. We hope to get packed up in the next week or two so that we will be ready to go when our visas arrive. We are hoping to have them in the next few weeks.

Field Focus

2010-05-15T13:58:00.003-05:00

Here are a few photos to give you a snapshot of what we have been doing these last few months to prepare for the mission field. There are many more I need to get from Nick, but here are a few to get started.

This first one is actually from when we were still in Lubbock. This was taken at a Meet-N-Greet we did at Sunset for the Kings. Pictured below is Jonah, Abi (Jonah's friend from Lubbock), and Josiah all holding Brazilian flags.

When we had the Sponsoring Church workshop in March, we had the opportunity to escape to a farmhouse in Kentucky with the Kings for a team retreat. Here are Jonah and Josiah enjoying the outdoors.

Here is Nick going in to meet with the Brazilian Consulate about getting his visa.

In April, Nick and I traveled to Dallas to be a part of a dinner in which MRN commissioned all of the mission teams they trained this year. At this dinner we were able to reunite with some of our Sunset classmates that are on teams to go to Mexico, Scotland, and Ukraine.

On one of Nick's several trips to Atlanta he was able to meet with the company we will be using to ship some of our possessions to Brazil. Here he is pictured with Marcello.

These ladies from Mt. Juliet Church hosted a beautiful Spring Tea for me. I was overwhelmed by the amazing turnout of ladies on such a rainy and miserable day! Mt. Juliet has some very sweet, generous, and thoughtful ladies and I'm so thankful to have their prayers and support!

We had a Family Workshop at the end of April. MRN came and helped prepare our families and us for this huge transition in our lives.

What now? We are waiting on the Brazilian Government to approve our visas. We were told at the end of April that it could take 6 - 8 weeks. As soon as we get our visas we will purchase our plane tickets to Brazil. We continue to ask for your prayers for this work.

Stay tuned for another "Field Focus" with some more pictures from these last few months.

Family Focus

2010-04-12T21:13:00.007-05:00

We are quickly approaching our departure date for Brazil...we hope! We have a few more hurdles to jump before we get there. We are using every opportunity we can these last few months to spend time with family. Below are a few "snapshots" of that family time.

We spent Easter Weekend at Cedar Creek Campground camping with Granny, Boppa, Re and G, and P.D. and Susan. Jonah enjoyed some extra time with Granny Pick while reading books. He particularly enjoyed the hammock.

This past Saturday Nick, Jonah, and I spent a few hours "hiking" around Radnor Lake. It was a beautiful day with perfect weather to enjoy God's amazing Creation. We saw lots of turtles, fish, and birds as well as a few turkeys. Jonah, as always, LOVED hiking on Dad's back!

Friday we piled in the car with Granny and Boppa and took off to Springville to see Poppa and Mammaw. Poppa and Mammaw are my grandparents. We enjoyed spending the day with them...especially our afternoon stroll to the Lake. They are very special to us.

A few weeks ago, Grandma and Grandpa (Nick's parents) came to Mt. Juliet to enjoy a picnic lunch with us at Charlie Daniels Park in celebration of Nick's birthday. Grandma chased Jonah around the "Green Moon" (what he calls the playground at Charlie Daniels for some reason) while Nick and I flew a kite his parents brought for us to enjoy. It was again another LOVELY spring day in Tennessee to enjoy outside...made even sweeter by being with family.

Granny, Boppa, Aunt Re, Uncle G, Uncle Brian, Nick, Jonah, and I were able to go to Caney Fork Fish Camp to eat lunch to celebrate Nick's birthday. It was good to all be together as a family. Below is Jonah with Uncle Brian.

We have some more family to visit before we leave, but we are enjoying spending this time with our families before we leave. They are all very special to us and we will greatly miss seeing them in person so often.

Stay tuned for a "Friends Focus" and a "Field Focus" to see what else is going on in our lives during this transitional time for us.