The McClures!

Jackson is all tuckered out.

 

This week we've been blessed to have our friends, the McClures, with us. We worked with Basil back in the day at Mayfair, in Oklahoma City, and he was our college minister before that. Basil and Rachel were missionaries in Brasilia so every few years they bring back their boys, Matthew and Joshua, to see where they're from.

We had a great week, though it just flew by! Yesterday was definitely the best day. We took them up to Praia do Forte, where we enjoyed the beach and tidal pools and, of course, the sea turtles. It was Jackson's first time to really get to enjoy Projeto Tamar (he was asleep last time). He loved it.

 

 

 

But if Jackson could talk (in complete sentences), he would tell you that his favorite part of the McClures' visit was Matt and Josh. They were his new best buddies, and he loved having "big boys" around to climb on and play Wii with him. It was fun to watch Matt and Josh, who we've known since they were little guys, take care of our little guy. (I still can't believe they're 15!)


It was amazing to spend the week with such special friends. As I write, they're packing up their bags to head to the airport.

But we won't have much time to miss them! Tomorrow morning we're headed BACK to the airport to pick up Dan and Becky Rogers, from Eastern Hills Church of Christ in Athens, TX (our sponsoring church). We're thrilled they'll be staying with us for the next few days!

Hotel Quirey is open for the summer!

Babies, Babies (NOT MINE!!!)

This afternoon we're headed to meet our new teammate, Paisley Diana Mabery, who was born yesterday morning. We're so excited for Matt and Mary Virginia and new big sis' Aubry!

In the meantime, I got these new pictures of my ADORABLE niece, Tessa, who I seriously want to devour.


I can't believe I'm going to have to wait until DECEMBER to see her! By then she'll practically be in college!

Here she is with her daddy:

Ack! I can't take it!

Though it's not quite enough for me to want another one of my own yet!

Tonight

Tonight I am thankful for:

* A wonderful trip to a (different) grocery store today, where I discovered lychee drink, pecan chocolate chunk cookies and chocolate croissants.
* The mountain of tortillas that Russ and Randy spent the evening making. They're for a fajita night we're having next week with the McClures.
* Jackson.
* Our WiFi is finally set up in our apartment. (Thanks, Randy!)
* Russ.
* Time with good friends talking about things that matter and things that don't.
* Pizza Hut Super Supreme Pizza. Sometimes it's worth the splurge.
* Pizza Hut Mozzarella Pizza. See above.

Showing Off

Here's a little video of Jackson being his adorable self.

Most Days

Most days I can pretend I live There. I go to the mall and eat at Burger King. I open my cupboard and find muffin mix, Girl Scout cookies and all kinds of other treats. I sit in my air-conditioned apartment and watch a movie. Our car is relatively big and it's filled with normal kid stuff--car seat, stroller, sippy cups.

But some days, like today, I go to the grocery store and remember that I'm Here. There's no regular flour, only self-rising. There aren't any hot dogs. The diapers that we've been trying to find for a week still aren't in stock (and are not to be found in any grocery store around) and we have to settle for another brand. All the shelves have been rearranged; no one would necessarily notice several items missing. But I notice. With the shelves rearranged, you're never quite sure if the missing item(s) are ever coming back.

And I think, This would just never happen There.

I'm not There, I'm Here. And I'm happy to be Here.

And I know that in the long run, these are tiny sacrifices--there are people all over the world experiencing real suffering.

But some days, like today, I feel a little sorry for myself.

Camp

Tonight we had a really fun LST party. The theme was "camp" and we started by roasting marshmallows and hot dogs.

 

Usually Brazilians eat hot dogs cooked on the stove and covered in all sorts of interesting toppings (mayo, parmesan cheese, corn, peas, etc) so this was a little unusual for them. But they adapted well.

 

We used a grill that is made from the drum of a washing machine and umbrella guts as our roasting sticks. It was quite a sight. There were lots of people all dressed up headed to the restaurant up the street. It was certainly some interesting church advertising!

 

Then we went inside for some silly games and fun. The pinatas were a big hit. The Sunday school kids made them to help out LST. It's awesome that the kids are already learning how to help support other areas of the church.

 

Finally, no camp experience would be complete without singing. Here is Justin leading a song I know very well from my camp days:

Tonight's party was a lot of fun and was well-attended. I'm sad that there's only one party left! Things always seem a little dull after LST leaves!

(This post was by Val. I don't know why it says this is Russ.)

Slices of Life

I'll try to catch you up on the past couple of weeks and let you see what life is like these days...in pictures!

Here was a Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago. Here was the sight at the front of the room:

In my defense, Jackson had slept in and only woke up as we were getting in the car. And in Jenn's defense, little boys in shorts and boots are the cutest thing ever.

But let me call your attention to something else in the picture:

It's Jackson's latest fixation: microphones. He will walk to the front during any event and try to get the mike. Sometimes, if I'm teaching English or whatever, I'll let him hold it for me or even talk into it. I might just be encouraging it.

We had a small groups party that evening. We had an international-themed potluck, which consisted mostly of American food that we missionaries had made. Then we had a time of worship.


But that's not the most accurate picture. This is more like it:



You may be starting to notice a theme here--Jackson is quite a character.

Here's his "please-oh-please?" face:

Seriously, who could resist?

And if, somehow, I manage to say no, this face appears.

And then it breaks my heart and I give in anyway. Which is probably how I ended up with a kid that loves chips and salsa.

We've been having LST parties every week. Two weeks ago the theme was "birthday party" and we did typical birthday party things.


Like act like big dorks. But I'm not dissing Randy. I played this game too and won a box of yummy Canadian chocolate.

Jackson, of course, did his own thing.


Last Monday we took the LST "kids" (seriously--they get younger every year!) to the beach. Jackson had a great day--we finally found something that can wear him out.

Well, it didn't really last long. He was just resting, it turns out, because before long, he said "Bye!" and took off.


And he still had energy to play in the sand.


Last week's LST party was all about card games:


Russ made his own fun.

I guess I know where Jackson gets it from!

That brings us to this past Friday night. Yesterday at church we had a baby shower for Mary Virginia and their due-any-second-now-but-hopefully-won't-show-up-for-another-week baby, Paisley, and then we went out for lunch with Heather's parents for Heather's birthday. But, alas, I discovered my camera battery was dead the first time I tried to take a picture yesterday.

And I forgot to mention that Saturday night our small group finally resumed meeting. They're such a blessing to us and I want all of you to be praying for our friend, Genivalda, who is so close to becoming a Christian. Pray that God will remove whatever is holding her back from entering a full relationship with Him.

So that's what we've been up to! Our life seems to be a lot of big days followed by recovery days. Thankfully we have been blessed with a child who can handle our crazy life!

Didn't She Ramble

I know as I'm sitting down to write that my time is short; Jackson has been napping for a while and he always seems to wake up when I start to write.

For the most part, life has been normal. We've had some sunny days this week and have actually found a mason to take care of the church roof. LST is going strong; though the rain has been interfering with people actually showing up. Tonight is their second party and the weather looks good so hopefully we'll have a good turnout.

I'm in one of those modes where I've got about eight million things on my mind and on my plate and I spent my time jumping from thing to thing, seemingly never actually accomplishing anything. Today my excuse is that I'm tired because we had to get up early and take Jackson for some bloodwork, but I did the same thing yesterday so that excuse won't really hold up.

And this post is ending up way too stream of consciousness for my taste but I feel like I've been a slacker when it comes to blogging and I'm trying to atone.

My mind is, among other places, in the U.S. right now, with our teammate Matt, who lost his brother this week, and with my cousins, who lost their mom. I keep looking for words for them and keep coming up short. I have spent a great deal of time in prayer for them, knowing that it's the one time when I don't have to worry about the words. Thank God for His Spirit who communicates what we're unable to.

(That last sentence took me two hours to write because, as predicted, the little guy woke up from his nap!)

June will be an interesting month. The team has lots of visitors coming--Matt and Mary Virginia's parents (the baby will also be showing up in June!), Heather's parents, our dear friends the McClures and one of the ministers from Eastern Hills and his wife (also good friends!). I think there's a few other people showing up, too! Add to that the ongoing LST campaign, our big June holiday of São João and a new term of English class starting and you can see what a big month we've got!

I don't really have anything else to say, so I'll go for my default closing--a picture of Jackson!

The New Hood

It'll probably take me a couple more weeks until I have some decent pictures of the new apartment. We're relatively settled but we still have a lot of hanging to do (pictures, shelves, etc.) and that's all the stuff that really makes it look and feel like home. So while you wait, here are some pictures I took from our balcony.

Here's what you see when you look left:

I left this picture kind of dark so you could appreciate the sunset. If it were lighter, I would point out the following things in the foreground:
-on the left is a clube that we hope to join soon. They have pools for swimming lessons, tennis courts and lots of other great places to work out. It's a private club
-next to that is a Volkswagen dealership. This will come in really handy when we win the lottery and want to buy some new cars.
-beside that, on the far right, is a big grocery store. It takes Jackson and me all of three minutes to walk over there.

When you look directly down and to the left, you see this:


It's kind of a crazy intersection but it's all one-way streets so it's not really too bad.

There's a magazine stand where people tend to gather.


We see this guy every afternoon.

He's a recycler--he digs through the trash and pulls out recyclables and turns them in for money. It's a tough but honest way to make a living. This guy is awesome because he is very conscientious with the trash. He goes through it all carefully and puts it all back when he's done. Not all recyclers are so kind--often they leave the trash strewn on the sidewalks.

Here's the view to the right:

On the next corner there is a little strip mall called Babel. There's a place to have açaí (AKA the Brazilian super duper miracle fruit, or whatever they're calling it these days!), a salon, a copy shop, a pizza place and a little ice cream store that has been closed for the past couple of days (we're a little worried!).

Finally, this is what you see when you look straight down:

Nothing too exciting. That's the drive in to our apartment, the front gate and our pool. Jackson and I haven't had a chance to try the pool out yet since it's been so cool and rainy but we're looking forward to the summer months!

We love our new neighborhood!

Joys

I used to think that the "joys of parenting" consisted the mere fact of having a child. I'm learning that there's so much more to it than that.

Sometimes the joys of parenting are seeing your little guy back to his old self after being sick, when he finally feels like playing again, when he laughs and smiles and actually wants to eat for the first time in several days.

That is joy.

Cold and Flu Season

"Winter" has arrived. I say winter in quotes because, with lows in the 70s, this is certainly nothing I would have previously categorized as winter. But it's cool and damp and even a jaded Canadian like myself uses this opportunity to pull out what I normally think of as "furlough clothes": lightweight long-sleeved sweaters, layered t-shirts, slightly thicker dress pants. (It has to be pretty cold for me to actually don socks; even if it were, I don't really have shoes that you can wear with socks!) The locals, for the most part, find this weather incredibly cold, as would you if 65 were the coldest you had ever experienced in your life.

With winter comes cold and flu season. All the little kids are sniffling/sneezing/hacking up a lung and some of their parents are, too. Such would be the case with JT and me. We've spent the past couple of days cooped up at home, watching the same couple of Backyardigans/Hi5 dvds over and over and OVER again. (Confession: we did escape for a couple of hours yesterday so I could go out to lunch for Mother's Day.) And my supply of stickers is greatly depleted because they're one of the few things I can count on to help Grumpy McGrumperton's mood.

He seemed to be feeling better yesterday but early this morning he seemed to be worse. Now he seems to be doing better; he just has that annoying cough. I, on the other hand, am definitely feeling worse but my mommy is 6,000 miles away so I guess I'm just going to have to buck up.

Tomorrow our LST team arrives and I just found out that one of the guys is from Winnipeg. It's kind of funny, though, because I remember him best as not much old than Jackson. Hopefully Jackson and I will be better soon so we can partake in all the LST fun!

Easter

It's cold and rainy, Jackson's sick and we're exhausted after a long week of "team therapy" (a tune-up week with Jerry and Gail Heiderich). The incredibly heavy rain is causing all sorts of problems around town, including mudslides and roof collapses. Though our apartment is high and dry, we're struggling to keep the church building from being completely inundated with rainwater. Our roof seems to have decided that it's done and is no longer accepting patch jobs. But it's virtually impossible to do anything about that until the rain lets up for a few days, not to mention the fact that every mason in town is working overtime fixing everyone else's roofs!

I'm still trying to catch up on last month's posts. Here are some pictures from Easter:

Jackson dressed up for church

Egg decorating party at the Maberys'

Jackson and Val decorating eggs

The kids following their egg hunt:
Aubry, Jackson, Ceara and Calen

(We called it the first ever "Naked Egg Hunt" because we had stripped the kids down to dye eggs and never bothered to dress them up again.)

Anniversary Service

I'm making up for lost time here!

On April 5, we had our third anniversary service. We had about 100 people join us for worship and a few more show up for lunch. (Isn't that a nice problem to have? I know lots of churches that are constantly trying to figure out how to get MORE people to stay for lunch!)

Here are some glimpses of the day:

Potluck Lunch (heavy on the beans and rice)

Some of our gorgeous girls!

The ICOS Family

BACK

We're back from our trip to Maceió. When I was growing up, my family went to church gatherings in exciting places like Weyburn, Saskatchewan and Carman, Manitoba. Jackson is enjoying a different experience.

There were close to 200 of our brothers and sisters from all over the northeast (and a few brave souls from the south).
Twelve of us from ICOS made the trek, which we had been told was eight hours and ended up taking fourteen. It was a tight squeeze in the car but we were happy for the chance to have some more time with some of our church family.
We stayed at a camp right on the coast that was just gorgeous!



It rained most of the weekend, so that meant I was stuck carrying JT around but even the gloomy weather couldn't keep us from having a great time! We met lots of new people and had a chance to see some friends that live far away. JT made more friends than any of us!


I called this post "Back" for two reasons--1. We're back from our weekend away and 2. WE'RE BACK ONLINE!!! Our internet connection is up and running and is going at an amazing speed! I am so thankful to be once again connected with the rest of the world!

Radio Silence (or something like it)

This is not a "I'm so sorry I haven't blogged" post. I've written a few of those in the past and I know them well.

No, this is a "I'm so frustrated that I haven't been able to blog" post.

We moved into our new apartment almost three weeks ago and we're still waiting to get our internet working. In theory we have service but no one has been able to make it work yet. So we wait.

In the grand scheme of things, it's a small problem. Nothing like famine or slavery or even swine flu.

Nope, this is what we call a "first-world problem".

But it's really irritating.

Hopefully things will be resolved in the next week or so. It'll be over a week, likely, because we'll be too busy in the next few days to deal with it.

We just did five days with Ron and Georgia Freitas from Continent of Great Cities to talk about strategy stuff.

On Thursday we'll load up the car and head up to the town of Maceio, which is about 500 kilometers away. We're going to a gathering of people from churches all over the Northeast of Brazil. There are 12 people from our congregation going, which amazingly is the exact same number of seats (including tiny flip-up seats) in the two cars that are going. It's going to be a long ride! But we're really looking forward to it.

Then we get back and we have our annual team dynamics session with Jerry and Gail Heiderich.

There's more stuff than that, but hopefully I'll have internet by then and will be able to tell you about it. See? That's faith!

In the meantime I ask for your prayers:
-as we travel.
-for the TWENTY people signed up for our church's new theology course.
-for our internet issue.

See you guys next week!

SOS Bible Study

Every Tuesday, Jackson, Heather and I load up in the car and head to a bible study. It rotates from home to home but usually it's out in Lauro de Freitas, a town that touches Salvador, just past the airport. It takes us about 45 minutes to an hour to get out there.

The study is with a group of women who know each other from the American Society, though some weeks Americans are definitely in the minority! It's a real mix of ages and religious backgrounds, too. Many of the women live in Salvador because their husbands work for Ford (so I always feel a little awkward pulling up in my Chevrolet!). We get together to study, pray and share each other's lives (and it's a great opportunity to speak English, too!)

This year Heather and I decided it would be worth making the weekly trek to participate in the study. I could say that it's worth spending that much time on the road and giving up more than half my day to be a part of the study because there are some women there who are searching for deeper answers. And that's true, but I'm not that noble. I go because it's a chance for me to take time out of my normal routine and be in the Word. I go because it's nice to be around such a diverse group of women who all share my love of the Lord. I go because it's nice to be around some women who have already been new moms and they have wisdom to share with me. I go because it's a drink of cool water in my week, a chance to listen instead of teach, to be served instead of serve, to sit instead of run around and put out fires. (Though I do spend much of the study chasing Jackson around, keeping him from destroying their beautiful homes--Ford execs seem to have higher salaries than missionaries do!)

Here's a picture of most of the group:

 

I thank God for connecting me with these women! They are a blessing to me!

(And though Heather and I joke about it, our purpose in going is not to stop at our Mexican restaurant on the way home, though it is an additional reward!)

Bear with Me!

I'm working at switching over to a different layout. Please be patient with me as I make changes! (I rarely get to do anything in one sitting anymore!)

Oh hallo! Did you think I'd forgotten about this blog? I've been a little busy. We're moving THIS WEEK. (My teammates don't necessarily believe me because this is the third week in a row we've said we're moving but the new apartment is finally ready.) Later this week I'll blog about today--our church's third anniversary service. But in the meantime, here are some pictures from the Quireys' visit last month.

We took a couple of days off and headed out to the beach. There was lots of time for flying kites,
and hanging out in the hammock.
When we got back to town, Jackson had fun with his new bike

and swimming in the pool at our apartment.

We had a great time with R's folks and it was tough to see them go. We know it won't be too long before we see them again but we miss them terribly!