Night Flight and Other Happenings

This has been a busy, busy week with no extra time for blogging until now. Here's what we've done:

This week Jeyson had to do a night flight as part of his training. Actually, technically, the flight did not HAVE to be a night flight, but he needed to practice "ILS approaches," which could only be done at the extremelly busy airport in Brasilia. The only time available to practice several instrument "touch and goes" is in the middle of the night, around 1 or 2 am. So...Jeyson went to Asas around 11pm, took off with the instructor at 1am, and came back home around 5am! Imagine how challenging it was to drink just the right amount of coffee to help stay awake, but not too much to need to land to use the bathroom during the flight :) During the landing approaches, Jeyson had to use the hood to cover his eyes from seeing out the window. It was challenging, but he did well. This week was also the kick-off for the teens small group at house home. We invited the teens over to roast marshmallows, which grabbed their attention since most had never done this before. Considering the small size of our church, we were very happy that 4 teens came out! After a few ice breakers, the group seemed comfortable and open and interested in the idea of meeting together for small group Bible study every Thursday. One girl, Julia, even said she would like to have the group at her house sometime so she can invite the teens from her neighborhood! On Wednesday we also participated in our church's new small group for young couples. The group was also small there, only 4 couples, but hopefully with time it will grow. There, we met a neat young couple who got married this year and just became Christians recently.

Another busy part of the week included 10 hours of meetings on Friday for our mission to discuss and vote on changes to the leadership structure. Rocindes (below) has led the mission a president for many years and has felt the need for Brazilian pastors and leaders to also be a part of the "board of directors" of Asas. So, after many long hours of meetings, the leadership model will change. Rather than Rocindes be the president, we will be led by mixed group, including members of the mission as well as pastors and leaders who are also invested and effected by Asas de Socorro.

By far though, the most fun part of the week involved the whole Ciotta family and: On Tuesday evening we all met online on a giant conference call from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Mississippi, and of course, Brazil. What fun! The virtual family party involved lots of laughs and catching up. It's hard to imagine life without this awesome, free technology!