Happy Wednesday (Quarta-Feira)

Today is quarta-feira, the fourth market day of the week. I am chillin' with my dog Sammy. It started pouring around 5. I can only remember a handful of mornings that were so dark and misty; it's a nice change. Life is pretty sweet. We are feeling an incredible sense of growth at ICOS, and our short-term goals have the potential to unite everyone even more. Our team is praying for more involvement and leadership from our members so that our mission team can take a step back and become a truly staff-run church. Bahians are stepping up and volunteering in worship, service, and especially youth. Thanks for all your help to reach this new and exciting phase. PS- our youth won a city-wide contest among the Churches of Christ that was like a Spirit Week competition that involved games and collecting food for the needy. Way to go guys!

The Smallest Things...

Several months ago, I caught a bus to a hospital on the other side of the city. The husband of my language teacher had been there for a month with meningitis. I gave him the Max Lucado book "It's not about me" in portuguese, which he thanked me for. I just wanted him to have something to do; his friends never even called during the five weeks that he was ill.

Yesterday, his couisin Eduardo stopped me before worship. He read a single chapter of the book while he was using the computer at his family's house; and in his words, it was if I had put the book in his hands on God's behalf.

Now he is studying with Travis each week; he started an online discussion group about the concepts of the book b/c he cannot stop thinking that his life is not his own. Praise our Father in heaven today for Eduardo. There are incredible things happening because he accepted that without God, life doesn't make sense. Right on.

Thoughts

We've had Samson for a week now. It's been a tough week--puppies are a lot of work--but he's settling in quite nicely. Now he's just a member of the family (a member that doesn't have access to every room in the house). He has started getting excited when he hears our voices. It's nice, though, to have a little friend to greet us when we get home from a long day.

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Yesterday I brought a book about Winnipeg to share with one of my readers. She was amazed by how different it was. She couldn't believe that there are houses made of wood. She found the pictures of the lush green summers absolutely beautiful but when we got to a picture of winter she said it was ugly. Now, in February when the accumulation of a winter's worth of sand on the streets turns everything a dingy grey, you may be able to call it ugly. But this was a picture of a tree-lined avenue (in River Heights, I think) right after a blizzard. It looked absolutely magical. But Nina disagreed. Oh well, she'll probably never see snow. I wonder when I'll see it again! (It's not all disagreements with Nina. She makes me laugh, sometimes deliberately, sometimes not. I'm trying to break her of calling coffee "cough". I've explained the difference but old habits die hard!)

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It seems like every day we have moments that expand our perspective. A recent example: For the past several years in North America, churches taking the name "Church of Christ" off their signs has been a source of controversy. But in Salvador, the fact that we have the name "Church of Christ" on our sign (or that we have a sign at all) has been an issue with some of our brothers and sisters in town. Who is right? I am, of course!

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I guess that's it for today. I just had several little things running through my head, none of which seemed to warrant a long post. (Well, I probably could have rambled for a while on the third one but it wouldn't have been fruitful.) It's Saturday morning, Russ is out for a bike ride with a guy that works in our building and I'm hanging out, listening to K-Love and enjoying the fact that I managed to make it through my crazy week. I think I'll go make some celebratory (fresh) mango juice. (Sorry, just had to throw that in to make you jealous!)

And His Name Shall Be...

...Samson.

Announcement

Puppy!, originally uploaded by russandval.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to present...um...our dog. Okay, he doesn't have a name yet. He's a Yorkshire, though a dog that small isn't the first choice for either of us. But he's sweet and precious and, as I said before, nameless. We will gladly hear your suggestions but here are a few things to bear in mind:

1. We'd like a fairly masculine name.

2. The name has to be relatively easy to say in Portuguese.

3. Val loves when pets have human names (Exhibit A: Virgil the cat) or are some obscure pop culture reference (See Exhibit A).

4. Russ has veto power.

God Is Good

Right now I'm sitting on my balcony and reflecting. We just got chairs for our balcony--they were entirely an afterthought--but they seem to be meeting a need in my life. As I sit out here, I get drawn into moments of reflection that seem hard to come by anywhere else in my life. There's a definite peace to sitting out here in the morning, though the soccer court at the apartment building next to ours is full of teenage boys, the apartment upstairs is somehow still undergoing renovations, and the sound of trucks being loaded at the central post office occasionaly wanders over.

I started to write a long post detailing what I'm thinking about this morning but sitting here in my reflection seat, it ended up a little more personal than I'd like. (Maybe this isn't a good place to sit and blog from!) So I'll try to keep it short. These days, I'm trying to get out of the Job phase of my life and to be more like David (the king, not my brother, though he's pretty cool, too). I keep coming back to a song over and over--when I'm not listening to it, I'm running the lyrics over in my mind, contemplating them. So here you go, a little something for your own mediation time this morning:

Blessed Be Your Name
by Matt Redman

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

Squirming

I told myself that after everything settled down I would get on a schedule. My schedule for the past few months has been project-based. I've been the one free to run and buy things for whatever was going on at the church, the one able to do things at a moment's notice. But I found myself longing for some sort of schedule. Maybe it was just so could feel like my work could be compared to my teammates. Maybe it was because after a month in bed I needed some sort of structure. Whatever the reason, I wanted it.

And yet now I find myself with a regular schedule, at least in the mornings, and I'm squirming. My freedom is gone. Once one part of your day is scheduled, you have to schedule everything else around it. If I go to a study on Monday mornings and need to go to the grocery store, I know that Monday afternoon will be when I have to do it. (Unless I play hookey like I did today and go to the movies instead of getting groceries! Guess I'll be shopping on Tuesday afternoon!) I'm just missing the flexibility.

On the other hand, there are some wonderful benefits. Every day I have to get up and walk to the church building for my studies. That's exercise I wouldn't have gotten. And I'm getting even more familiar with that walk and the people on it. Today I learned which magazine stand will always have recharge cards for my cell phone (and is courteous enough to cover up the porn!). I'm learning which little grocery store is better to stop in for a snack and which has a better selection of fruit.

The best benefit is, of course, the time I'm getting to spend with people. I'm doing several one-on-one LST-type studies and am getting a great chance to build some new relationships. My beginner class is progressing and the students are really bonding. Even though we're not actively advertizing the class, there are new students almost every week because the current students keep telling their friends! God continues to bring us new contacts!

I know I'll get used to the schedule thing. I did, after all, used to work at a "real job". But I'm sure I'll still squirm for a week or two!

As Promised!

Monkey, originally uploaded by russandval.

That's right, friends, more monkeys. Keep reading and you'll find out the details. First I have to fill you in on where we've been.

For starters, we were getting our schedules back on track after our vacation and my parents' visit. Then the unthinkable happened- the laptop died again. Died for real this time. But it died during the week that the Parkers (read: free tech support) were moving, so we weren't able to do much about it. Then Monday we headed out on a team retreat.

Someone commented recently, "You guys seem to go on a lot of retreats!" Well, lately we have. The one in June was postponed from March (we were a little busy getting ready for the church to start). That was strictly a working retreat. We reviewed what was happening in the church and how that compared to our strategy. We reviewed our strategy to see if that's still what we wanted to happen. We evaluated our ministries, ourselves and everything else under the sun. Definitely not a vacation. (It even stormed the whole time we were out there, so the beach was not an option!) The latest retreat is our annual spring retreat. It is strictly for renewal and relaxation. Most of us (okay, mostly the women) even avoided saying the word "church". We spent three days going to the beach, swimming in the pool, playing games and eating.

Which brings me to the monkeys. We rode out with the Maberys and were there several hours before everyone else. While we were eating a fabulous lunch of imported food (peanut butter sandwiches and chips and Rotel!), something all of a sudden landed on our table. Russ and I turned to look and saw a monkey! There was another one in the bushes behind us. After lunch, we were in hot pursuit of the monkeys. There were four adults and a little baby one, who I tried to convince to come home with me. We spent the afternoon watching the monkeys and laughing at the Maberys' puppy, Nala, interacting with them. Once everyone else showed up, the monkeys got a little scared. They came back one other time, but not like they were the first afternoon.

We got home from the retreat Thursday and managed to get our new hard drive and all our programs installed that night. Now we're back and will hopefully be blogging a little more.

Where in the World?

We're still alive, but we're temporarily computerless while we get our new hard drive set up. More soon, I promise. (Including...monkey pictures!)

Sigh.

That was a sad sigh. I took my parents to the airport this morning. Our time together was wonderful. Combined with the time we spent in Winnipeg for Susan's wedding, I had five straight weeks with my mom and dad. It has been more than ten years since that happen (and I only had to compete with my siblings for their attention for two of those weeks!) I'll share more about what we did in the next few days as I get caught up posting pictures and stuff.

Sigh.

That one was a happy sigh. I just got home from the beginner English class. I took over teaching that class after the LST team left. Today was my first day flying solo. Fortunately, my mom spent much of our time together coaching me in how to teach English. The class is a lot of fun. When I say it is a beginner class, I really mean beginners. We are forming the most basic of sentences and learning the most basic vocabulary. The class is a mixture of people from the church and people from the community. It's wonderful to have the two groups together because the people from ICOS work hard to make everyone feel at home. Today I heard them invite someone to come to church and then stay for lunch and hang out with them until class. They're doing my job for me!

That's all for now. I'm alone in my apartment for the first time in almost two months and I feel like I should be celebrating! I'm off to jump on the bed or walk around without pants or whatever else strikes my fancy!

For the Curious

If you've been visiting looking for updates from Wayne and Diana, we're sorry, they've just been having too much fun to sit down to do that. Mom has taken a bunch of pictures and has put them up on Flickr. You can find them here.

Baptism!

Baptism!, originally uploaded by russandval.

This is our new sister Lorena. Lorena and Mary Virginia have been studying together for a while. I was walking down the street today with my parents and one of the LST workers and all of a sudden I heard someone say, "Hi!". Mary was on her way home from a Bible study with Lorena and couldn't wait to share the good news with us. She pulled up on the sidewalk (not such a bad thing here) and filled us in. We were so excited to get to share this moment with Lorena.

We haven't just been enjoying vacation time with my parents. LST had their final party tonight. We had over 60 people present. LST has been such a wonderful thing for us. We have over a hundred new contacts! Pray for us as we do our best to follow up with them! And while you're on your knees, lift up our new sister, Lorena!

Where Have We Been?

Mom and Dad T. Relaxing, originally uploaded by russandval.

Sorry that we haven't been updating much. These are the people that are to blame for our absence. We've been having a wonderful time with them and have taken lots of pictures which will be posted later.

Leave a smile wherever you go.....

Russell here, reporting alive and well back in Bahia. After arriving home around 3AM today, Valerie graciously let me sleep. I woke up after 2PM, and got dressed enough to run at our condo’s sports fields. After about an hour, I stopped to leave and said hello to the two security guards who were managing the courts. I introduced myself to one of them; the other I knew. We talked about my trip to Canada; then they surprised me by asking if I was an evangelical. I told them I that I was (it is interchangeable with protestant here) and they said that were sure I was because I was the only resident who stopped to talk to them. It seemed like the smallest thing to stop for a few minutes and reflect on life in a place that they will probably never see. However, it gave them dignity to face the arrogant and pretentious (their words) people who live around them. I am looking forward to more talks! Think about Lazaro and Ze Carlos the next time you check out of a store. What do people see in you?

We’ll fill you in on the trip soon. Right now we’re getting things ready for Val’s parents to get here.

Running

The past few days have been a whirlwind and it's not over yet!

We got in Friday afternoon. Friday evening, we met Don Millican (from Tulsa) and his son-in-law, Luke, for dinner. They had an overnight layover in Winnipeg so we jumped on the chance to see them, even though we were dead tired. We were good friends with Luke at OC so it was great to see them both again.

Saturday, Russell's parents came up from Oklahoma. They were in town for less than 48 hours so we made the most of our time. Fortunately they're great friends with my parents so spending time all together was easy. Sunday night we got a room at a nearby hotel (with pool and waterslide!) for a little family time with the Quireys.

The main thing we've been doing for the past few days is shopping. I've got to say, I'm quite exhausted. Every spare moment means a new trip to the store. I've forgotten how much work a wedding is. I'm so thankful that I'm here to help.

Last night was Susan's shower at church. I got to spend more time with some of my church family. But for me, the best part was sitting there at the front of the room with my sister, mom and both grandmothers. Grandma Turner arrived Monday and Grandma Merritt came directly from the airport to the shower (Grandpa got to go rest!). My family is very spread out. Grandma T. lives in North Carolina, the Merritts live in southern Ontario, Susan is soon to be living in New Mexico, Mike's in Oklahoma (though sadly he can't be with us) and after the wedding Dave's headed to Europe for several months. Times like this are rare and indescribably special.

On the docket for today: more shopping! Good thing it's my favorite pastime!

"Home"

So here I am sitting in my parents' living room. It's the weirdest feeling. In many ways, it feels like we were never in Brazil. That's one of my favorite things about our relationship with my family. We don't talk as much as some families but we're close. And when we get together, it's like we were never apart.

On the other hand, we do notice we've been gone. We've had some experiences in the past 24 hours. Here's just a handful:

- May I say again how grateful I am we didn't fly Varig? Our line was filled with people who were trying to fly stand-by and had been for a couple of days.

- Going through the line in U.S. customs (yes, we've had to go through several different customs lines in the past 24 hours), the customs official asked what we do in Brazil. I said, "We're missionaries." He misheard and thought I said mercenaries. It made for a very interesting conversation but we all had a good laugh!

- Two things that remind me that I haven't been living in North America: 1. This morning I sat at breakfast in the airport. The waitress had brought us our big glasses of complimentary water (!), then a large glass of milk and two big cups of coffee. It was so much beverage for two people! 2. I keep pausing in the bathroom trying to figure out how to dispose of my toilet paper. (Some of you will understand why!)

I think I'm going to go take a shower. That sounds so delightful. But just sitting here, talking with my parents, wrestling with the dog, and joking around with my sister is not so bad either.

One Week Later

Sorry I forgot to update you guys; I've had a few things on my plate.

Yes, LST finally made it here at around 1:00 Friday morning. After a slow start, they now have more than 50 readers and the church building is full much of the time. It's very exciting. They're having their first social event tonight so we're excited to get to meet all of the students.

Russ and I are just about ready to leave for Winnipeg. We're headed to the travel agent in a few minutes to see if we need to change our Varig flight to something else. Varig is pretty unreliable these days. (Just ask Jenn and the LST team!) We are sooooo excited to see our families and our suitcases are full of treats for them. (Sssshhh! Don't tell them--it's a surprise!) And I'm incredibly excited that Joel and Susan will be starting their new life together. In the same city. Finally!

I'll try to let you know how our trip is going; maybe even post some wedding pictures. But if the two weeks go by without an update, know that we're having a great time!

Sigh.

The LST team still hasn't arrived. In fact, we don't even know when they'll be getting in. Supposedly they've made it to São Paulo but we don't yet have confirmation of that. We had the first information meeting last night and had a decent turnout, but we had strongly encouraged people to wait and come to the meeting tonight so they could meet their teachers. Now that might not happen. Please take a moment and pray for their travels. We are so anxious for them to get here and the meeting will not be the same without them. (Not to mention that they've been stuck all this time with a four-year-old. Unenviable.)

It's Raining...

As much as we love to talk about our great weather when the rest of you guys are suffering through the winter, it's the land of eternal sunshine. Through the fall and winter, Salvador turns into Our City of Perpetual Rain. In the fall, there are days of non-stop rain. Now that we're in the winter, the rain is a little more unpredictable. Like this morning--we left the house and I decided not to bring my umbrella because the forecast predicted a warm, sunny day. As we got out of our taxi, Russ noticed the grey clouds looming over the ocean and commented to the taxi driver that it was going to rain soon. No, he reassured us, it's not going to rain today. So we did our work at the church building and then got ready to leave. We locked the front doors and the rain started. Lightly at first, so we started walking. When it rains here, no one walks unless they have to. People take shelter until whatever they can and wait it out. They're in no hurry! It's taking me some time to get used to this mindset. It quickly picked up and we found ourselves getting wetter and wetter. We decided to stop and have a cup of coffee. As we were finishing our coffee, the rain let up and everyone started walking again. We hurried to the door and before we were even off the front stairs, the rain started again. This time we waited (with several other people) until it let up enough to get home.

Why do I tell you all this? Not to complain, because I hate complaining. (Is that a complaint?) This morning, as I stood and waited for an end to the rain, I realized it was a blessing. I hadn't been having a very good morning. The LST team isn't arriving today isn't arriving today as planned, so that creates some extra work for us. It seemed like I had the opposite of the Midas touch--everything I tried to do went wrong. Russ and I kept quarreling. I stubbed my big toe. And all I could think about was all the things on my to-do list. But the rain forced me to stop. It made me enjoy a cup of coffee with my husband and have a good chat. I had to take a breath. Sometimes I find myself forgetting to take breaths. (You can ask the rest of the team--Russ and I are notorious for not taking days off or vacation time.) But today, I had to and I'm glad. I feel so much calmer now. I thank God for giving me the eyes to see that the rain was not a curse but a blessing.

Addendum: It's even easier for me to breath now. After 478 days, our books are finally unpacked. It's about time. I've missed them.

How awesome it was to share the news of Gicilene's baptism this morning!

We've been a little short-staffed this weekend because several of the team are traveling. It left just Keith, Stacey, Randy, Russ, me and all the kids. It was tough, but we soldiered on. With both Travis and Paul gone, Russ got to preach. I'm biased, of course, but I think he did a great job. I asked him afterward what kind of feedback he got from the congregation. He said, "One lady told me my hair was beautiful!" Not the feedback every preacher wants to hear, but in a land where people don't hold back from telling you how fat you are or how bad your Portuguese is, it's a welcome compliment!

We're getting excited for Let's Start Talking to get here. The team is arriving on Tuesday afternoon. One family will be living at the building for the six weeks they'll be here so I've been trying to make the place a little more livable (those of you who have seen it in person will understand). At first the job was really hard because we only had power in the front two rooms and the bathroom. The power company said it wasn't their fault and everyone else who looked at it blamed the power company. Thanks to the persistence of some of our guys, it finally got resolved.

Problems like that have been coming up, just like we had before our first service. I guess we should be used to that by now. We've been advertising the courses all around town but no one could call for information because our phone wasn't working. The phones are back up now and people are calling. This is the first time LST has been offered in this city and the responses have been interesting. Everyone who calls is skeptical that the courses are free. This morning as we were getting ready for worship three police officers stopped in to ask about the course. Some friends of ours that own a fabulous Italian restaurant have been give people LST fliers along with their check. We've handed out fliers in the street, in language schools, left them in taxis, put posters in stores, taken out a newspaper ad and talked to everyone we can think of. Now we have to sit back and wait. We have informational meetings this week on Wednesday and Thursday. Please pray that they go well and we have great turn-outs. We have spaces for 65 readers so that's a lot of potential new contacts for the church.

World Cup fever is officially over. The game ended at about 6:00 last night and by 9:00 many stores had taken down their special displays. Everyone is so disappointed, especially because it seemed like Brazil didn't even show up to play. I have to confess that I'm a little glad it's over since we're trying to get things done this week. It was hard having to schedule everything around the games. But I'll miss the opportunities we had to watch them as a church family.

Two weeks from today, we'll get to worship with our family in Winnipeg. We can hardly wait!