First Thoughts on Boa Vista

Hello from Boa Vista! As you can see from the map I found, we are very far from our home in Anapolis....in fact we are now in the northern hemisphere! Point A on the map is our home in Anapolis, and B is where we are now - Boa Vista. We're near the borders of Venezuela and Guyana.


If you were to ask us how the time has been so far, the first word that would pop out of my mouth would be HOT!!! I have never in my life experienced such heat and humidity! It feels like the most humid day in the dead heat of August when you literally run from your air conditioned house to the air conditioned car....except there's no air conditioning during the day :) The first night we stayed at a guest house where we actually didn't even have any air at night, but fortunately we were asked to housesit for a traveling missionary family who has an air conditioning unit in their bedroom and we have been able to sleep much better! Here, air is really a basic need, not a frill! Most people have a unit in the bedrooms that they turn on at night. Central air is unheard of, but we are grateful to at least be sleeping well. During the day a "sweat mustache" is constantly creeping onto your upper lip and there have been moments that my hand gets wet when I run my fingers through my hair! Yesterday I took 3 showers....all with completely cold water. It's been wild! Thankfully today has been much cooler since it is raining...it's been a welcome relief!



Well before you think we want to run back to Anapolis and never move to north Brazil because of the heat, let me just tell you - we are having a WONDERFUL time! Despite the heat, we are loving every moment of being here and very much hope that soon we will be here long term!

Since I just described how the heat can be rough, to balance things off, I'm going to tell how great it's been here in Boa Vista using the letters of HOT :)

First of all H is for Helping in the Hangar. Every day since Jeyson has been here, he's been hard at work with maintenance to get a plane back on it's feet/landing gear :) Actually the project doesn't have anything to do with the landing gear, but I'll tell you more about what he is actually doing with pictures once we're back in Anapolis. The high point is that Jeyson has been loving his work and feeling very fulfilled by being part of a challenging project that will directly allow isolated tribes and people groups to be reached.

O is for Open....we are completely sold out on the ministry that is done here in Boa Vista and very open and willing to come here and to give our lives to this ministry. It would take many many posts to share all of the stories and pictures of tribes and villages being reached with the ministry here in Boa Vista....but to put it simply we are very open to living here and being part of it every day.

T is for Taking it all in. Since this is a place where we very possibly could end up, we've been taking in very detail of information possible.

Here's some things we've noticed:

- Nice, medium sized city
- Right on the edge of a river (where you can rent small boats for fun)
- Lots of trees, plazas, parks,
- Very neat and organized and pretty (for Brazil)
- Produce market
- Downtown seems drivable for me (in comparison to the insane downtown of Anapolis where I still don't have courage to venture into and try to find parking on my own!)
- Lots of mom/pop shops

- The hangar is in the middle of the city so we could live nearby and not need a longer commute (like in the Manaus base where the hangar is 30 minutes from the city)

- Fruits and Vegetables - there are lots of them here but some things that we are used to eating cheaply are outrageously expensive. Some examples are broccoli, peaches, plums, strawberries. On a positive note, there are tons of new and different fruits here to try that I've never even heard of before. It's all about adapting to what grows in the area....but that might be hard in some ways.

- Bread is very expensive here! I was shocked to find that simple whole wheat sliced bread is 3 times the prices that it is in Anapolis! I think I will be even more thankful for our breadmaker if we live here!

- No malls or large/chain stores like Walmart or McDonalds

- Very few imported items

- Only a few hours from Venezuela and Guyana....easily drivable for a fun weekend.

Off to soak in the rest of our stay