Sweet Relationships

Food is an important part of building relationships here in Brazil. When you want to communicate that you want to start a relationship with someone or that you're enjoying the relationship you have, just bring over whatever you have on hand from your kitchen! I suppose it's like that in a lot of cultures, but I feel like we notice it more here Brazil because our houses are so close together and because building relationships is what missions is all about! So, when yesterday our neighbor stopped over with these:....we knew how much they had enjoyed coming our house for dinner the other night. What's in those packages above? They're call pamonha....very similar to Mexican tamales. The outside wrapper is corn husks and inside is a corn mush. They can either be sweet, savory, or have cheese inside. They're delicious! But what's even more delicious is knowing that our relationship with our neighbors is growing.

On a side note, one of the most fulfilling moments in ministry happened right after we got back from furlough. After we organized ourselves a little, we took our dog on a walk around the neighborhood to get some exercise. As we walked down the street, person after person called out to us from their house saying "You're back!", "We missed you!", "It wasn't the same here without you" I can't tell you how satisfying it was to know that we have made an impact here among our neighbors and to know that they are anxious to continue to build relationships with us.

And a day or so after that, a different neighbor stopped by tow bring us this homemade bread. As I've mentioned before, here in Brazil, the custom is that you then have to bring back the person's dish full. So, I whipped up some brownies and stopped by the neighbor's house. She invited me in and we sat for a while chatting about some tough things she is going through. Her husband recently left her and she is considering moving out of town with her twin 12 year old daughters and young son. While we chatted the kids finished off the whole bowl of brownies and said they wanted to learn how to make them and how to make cookies.
So, a few days later, they came over and we made chocolate chip cookies. I told them about cut out cookies and showed them the cookie cutters I have and they said the want to come back over to make those too. We had an absolutely terrific afternoon together, and I got to share just the beginnings of the Gospel with them. I'm looking forward to continuing to share more with them as we make more goodies!

But the icing on the cake (haha) came when the next day Jeyson and I were coming home and a totally different neighbor who just moved in said that the girls had shared their cookies with her and now she wants a lesson too. Who knows, maybe soon the whole neighborhood will come through our kitchen and hear the Gospel too! That's my pan...I mean plan, anyway!

Lettuce Show You

When I was in the States, I got feedback that you enjoyed reading posts about how life is different here in Brazil. So, the other day as I was getting ready to wash lettuce, I thought I'd take some pictures and show you how this little task is done.

Here, there are no washed, cut, ready-to-go bags of salad, that's for sure! The lettuce here is straight from the ground, dirt still visible on it often. The women here wash their lettuce with great care since bacteria contamination is a real potential problem. I confess that at first I was very intimidated and mostly only served cooked vegetables to avoid the process and not worry about contaminating us with bacteria. After a while though, my friend who is a doctor showed me how she does this and I gave it a try and discovered it wasn't so hard! In fact, after a while you forget that in the States you can even buy prepared salads :) Here goes the how-to:

Step 1: By a stick of lettuce. Here, for some reason, lettuce is usually sold like this - several heads strung together. Lettuce-kebabs as I like to call them :)
Step 2: Fill a big bowl with water

Step 3: Pour in about a Tb of bleach

Step 4: Add in a small squirt of dish soap....not everyone does this but I like to

Step 5: Swish around until bubbly. While this swishing step is not required, it just makes me feel good like I really got the job done :)

Step 6: Chop off the bottom of the lettuce and dump the leaves in the bowl and let sit for 10 minutes or so

Step 7: Take each leaf and rinse if off...make sure you get anything weird looking like this brown twig off, as well as the bleach!

Step 8: Look at your bowl and notice how much brown dirt and the occasional bug is in the bottom. Feel good about keeping yourself and your husband safe from bacteria and good about feeding yourselves with fresh, fresh straight-from-the-garden produce!

Step 9: Let lettuce dry on a towel. You could use a salad spinner but I don't have one.

Step 10: The next steps are all about keeping your lettuce as fresh as possible for as long as possible so you don't have to wash lettuce too often! Line the bottom of a tupperware bowl with a few paper towels. This way, if the lettuce is still at all wet (which is always will be at least a little) the water wont make the leaves in the bottom of the bowl get nasty and mushy.

Step 11: Dump in your lettuce and stick a few more paper towels on top for extra security and seal well. Now, your lettuce is just like the bag kind! When you're ready to eat some, just open up and it's ready!

And...Action!

I can't tell you how good it feels to be back in a routine again! Our meeting with the leadership was pushed back until Friday, so I don't have anything to report on that, but in the meantime we have both thoroughly loved diving back into our ministries. Jeyson was put on a team that is working on a major maintenance project for a plane that flies out to tribes from Boa Vista. You may remember that we visited that base in the Spring and Jeyson actually was flown up there to work on this very plane when a tribe was facing an emergency. Now, this is a very in-depth engine overhaul so it was flown down to Anapolis where we have a bigger shop and more man-power.

The guys were working all over the plane, each on a different spot in order to get the work done as quickly as possible. Here is Jeyson with a new missionary, Rodrigo, who is just getting his hands dirty with maintenance for the first time now that he has finished his first basic theoretical course.

This project is so involved that even the windows were removed while they were at it. As soon as it's up and running again, the backseat will be filled with supplies and missionaries who are going to bring the Good News to people living in otherwise unreachable places. Crazy to think that this plane will ultimately bring people into God's kingdom!

This project came with great timing too as one of Asas's missionary couples from the past was in town. Neil and Meredith are with Mission Aviation Fellowship Canada and served with Asas since the 70's! Now they're down for a visit, and of course Neil got put to work.

I just stopped by to pick Jeyson up at the end of the day.

Meanwhile, this week I have been catching back up with my students and neighbors....just forgot to take pictures. Hopefully I'll be able to post some soon, but, I just have to say it again! It feels SO good to be back and in action!

There's No Place Like Home

It's official...we are back home in Brazil! Since I updated the blog last, we wrapped up our time in AZ...

Soaked up every last minute with family....

Then we headed to NJ for one last hurrah (a holiday party with family) before catching our flight to Brazil. We are SO going to miss family and friends that live all over the States.

Then, Tuesday at 11am we left our place in NJ to head to the airport. We arrived at our home in Brazil at 8pm on Wednesday. It was exhausting! To be fair, there is a three hour time difference, but still we arrived home wiped out! At home we found just about everything perfect. We are still getting our stuff in order....we wound up coming home with 6 full suitcases (7o lbs each since that is allowed to Brazil) plus two busting-at-the-seams-full carry ons and two outrageously heavy backpacks. Of course as we went through the airport we had to act like the carry-ons were light so we didn't have to check them....but I could barely put on my backpack on - Jeyson had to put it and take it off for me! Anyway we are working on getting organized. We also had to do a huge grocery store trip since there was literally nothing in the house food, cleaning, or hygiene related. There wasn't even any flour, laundry soap, or toothpaste so we had a HUGE trip to the store to do. We are all stocked up now and I'm back in the routine of cooking and everything already. Today (Monday) was our first day back at Asas where there is much to do. Right now we're scheduled for a preliminary meeting with one person from the leadership next Monday to begin discussing what our next plans are. He will then meet with the other leaders and we'll probably all meet again. At this point he's just seeing where we're at with everything. We have also been busy reconnecting with neighbors, students, and our church. It's been WONDERFUL to be back!

One of the highlights of being back has been meeting our very first nephew, Lucas. Jeyson's sister (who lives an hour away from us ) had her baby only a few days after we arrived. He was so precious.

Then, just few days later our first niece, Charlotte was born across the world in VA.

Too much excitement for one week!