We all know that some of the greatest things in life are a collaborative effort - Lewis & Clark, Peanut Butter & Jelly, Simon & Garfunkel and Calvin & Hobbes - just to name a few. Well, this blog is no different, we have combined all of our efforts to bring you the best blog possible (and to save you the trouble of clicking between every blog). We hope you enjoy it.
I read this today in Beth Moore’s “To Live Is Christ”.
I believe Saul set sail to Jerusalem as a young adolescent with a pure heart; but somewhere along the way the negative influences outweighed the positive, and his purity began to erode. The law became his god. That’s what happens when you take the love out of obedience. The result is the law. Without love for God and His Word, we’re just trying to be good. Nothing will wear you out faster.
I know when we left for Brazil many people were concerned for our safety living overseas. Now I am not going to say that there is nothing to fear or that caution is not necessary, but I will say that for every person you find in Brazil who might be looking to take advantage of you, you will find 10 (or 20 or 30!) who are willing to help you and are looking out for you. Just a couple of examples…
Yesterday, April and I were shopping at a local hardware store and we asked a lady if they had curtain rods…well, that’s what we wanted to ask her, but neither of us could remember the word for curtains, so after alot of pointing and motioning we figured out that they did not have curtain rods, but the lady told us when we checked out they would open every light fixture (yes, we bought light fixtures for our whole apartment yesterday) and check each one to make sure they were not broken. We told her thank you and thought it was very helpful of her to explain the situation to us before we got up there. Well, when we went to check out this lady came out of nowhere and started helping us check each of the light fixtures and boxing them up. We then asked her if there was a place to grab a taxi nearby and she told us just to wait there and she would call one for us. So she was kind enough to call a taxi for us and she wished us a Happy New Years and left while we waited on the taxi. After a couple minutes a taxi pulled up and I asked him if he was waiting for us, and he said no, he was waiting for another person, but right after I asked him, she came out of the store and talked to him, just to confirm that he wasn’t waiting for us, and then when our taxi arrived, she came out and confirmed with him that he was our taxi and that he knew where to take us! While all of this sounds like very small things and its nothing we could not have done ourselves, it was just nice to know that somebody was going out of their way to make sure we were taken care of. I realized with the taxi that she had been quietly sitting back and watching us the whole time in order to make sure we got everything right!
Then today at lunch we were eating at a little corner cafe and while we were eating this person came up and was in hysterics going from crying and weeping to yelling to begging. Well, having our limited language skills I couldn’t understand much but it was clear that she was asking people for stuff and then yelling at them when they would not give it to her. As the lady was making her way down the sidewalk “talking” to each table, our waiter came over and stood in front of our table and “shielded” us. There was nothing rude or blatant about what he did, and he tried to make it look to us like he was just standing there relaxing, but it was clear what he was doing. It was a kind gesture that he knew we had limited language and that he came over to protect us so that we would not have to deal with the situation without understanding everything.
These are just two recent examples of people who have been overly kind to us over the past several months and there are many many more who we could tell you about!
The New Years day is always special! Even if we don’t really intend to, there is always that sense of renewed hope. And I think specially for this year, there is no better word to describe how I feel right now; hope for the new year! Hope for the lost here in Niteroi. Hope to spread our Lord’s word in this city. Hope to see lives being changed buy the power of the Holy Spirit. Hope to grow deeper in our personal relationship with God. Hope to someday be all reunited in Heaven with our beloved ones. There is a lot of sadness with being away from our family and friends, but let the hope that only Christ gives, guides us in this new year!
Brent and Jill arrived at our apartment at 7PM and we met up with the rest of the team an hour later. It had been hot and sunny all day so we were not too concerned about rain (foreshadowing).
White clothes for the New Year
In Brazil it is customary to wear white clothing and new underwear to welcome in the new year. We had the white clothes part going for us as we tried to blend in. This picture was taken on our balcony. We are on the 12 floor and our balcony generally has a nice breeze. We eat all of our meals and spend a lot of time on the 6×10ft balcony.
I prefer action shots to posing for pictures.
Carrie was talking to Jill (not pictured). I originally walked out in a white T-shirt but when I saw how nice Carrie looked, I knew that I would not be leaving in said shirt.
This shirt is no longer white
An upgrade from the T-shirt. This shirt is no longer white.
Team Toasting the New Year
As you can see there is no drinking age in Brazil. Just kidding, it’s juice. We toasted in the new year as a team although not at full strength (Nathan and Sara arrive in March). We started feeling sprinkles shortly after this photo was taken.
Rain & Fireworks
At 10:30 it started pouring. The newspaper anticipated 400,000 people on the beach last night so as you can imagine there was not enough room under the trees for everyone to escape the rain. The shirts came off, the music kept playing and the Brazilians waited in hope that the rain would pass by midnight. At 11:45 the rain stopped and at midnight we had a spectacular fireworks display.
Wet Fireworks
Fogos de artificios (fireworks)
Clara & Rodrigo
These are our new friends Clara and Rodrigo. Clara works at Hotel Resedencial where we stayed for two weeks while we were looking for an apartment. She and her boyfriend Rodrigo have shown us some cool areas in Niteroi and he came over one night and helped me set up our wireless network. After the fireworks, we went to Rodrigo’s apartment where we celebrated the new year with Clara, Rodrigo and 25 members of his family. It was a great party with a lot of great food. Rodrigo’s family was so welcoming and we had a large meal at about 2 AM. We returned home very late declaring our first New Year in Brazil a success.
God has blessed our team so much in the 7 weeks that we have been here. I am excited to see what the Lord will do here in Niteroi in 2009.
I have decided that I am going to start a new category on our blog titled “Things I Don’t Understand” and I will just share a couple sentences about something that has happened that I don’t understand…This is nothing elaborate or in depth, but sometimes less is more!
#1 - I don’t understand why there are grown men running around the streets of Niteroi today dressed in women’s clothing (this is not made up).
Posted December 28th, 2008 by Zane
To celebrate the completion of our first year as missionaries we are releasing a special “Annual Report” which looks back over the past year. We hope you enjoy reviewing everything that has happened over the past 12 months and we look forward to sharing more with you in the future!
You can view the report in your browser below or you can download the PDF to your computer by clicking here. (WARNING! The file is very big!)
Posted December 23rd, 2008 by Zane
Our Portuguese teacher showed us this clip today in class and I thought I would share it. I was unaware of Zé Carioca, but for those truly dedicated Donald Duck fans, you may remember him. Anyways, this clip is of Donald Duck meeting Zé Carioca, a parrot from Rio de Janeiro. Zé is a short form of Jose in Brazil and Carioca is a term for people born in Rio. Here’s a few things I enjoyed about the clip…
1. Donald reading Zé’s business card and then Ze reading it back in perfect portuguese…I know I sound like Donald Duck alot…
2. Donald Duck going for the hand shake while Ze Carioca goes for the hug.
3. Donald Duck looking up words in the dictionary trying to keep up with the conversation…let me just tell you now, you can’t keep up!
4. Donald Duck calls Ze Carioca “Joe” through out the entire clip, instead of calling him Ze.
The first 2:30 minutes are all music, so you can skip that part if you would like…enjoy the clip!
You walk outside your apartment, JUST as your bus pulls up.
You meet someone new and they invite you to a family get together!
You eat at Bibi Sucos.
You do your homework……correctly.
You see someone you know on the street.
You get a package from home!
Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement! We are missing everyone so much during the holiday season. We are thankful that we are never truly alone. God is the most faithful companion. Love to all!
Here are some pictures of Zane dressed up as Santa for our team Christmas Party. I found the costume at the last minute and he a true trooper for wearing it! He looked great and it was so funny. We had him dress up and answer the door when our teammates arrived. They all got a kick out of it and the best part was when he answered the door dressed as Santa when the pizza arrived. The delivery man thought it was hilarious!!! I am sure he thought, crazy Americans! We also built gingerbread houses and watched a Christmas movie together. We all had a wonderful time!
Below is a time-lapse video of the walk which April and I make to language school each day, sometimes more than once a day! It takes about 15-20 minutes, but you get to enjoy it in only 1.5 minutes, so sit back, relax and enjoy (the relaxing part might be hard because its a little bumpy…)
