The Brauns in Brazil: Missions At The Airport

This weekend we went to a really great missions event about an hour from where we are staying. It is called "Missions at the Airport" and was held at a hangar in a small airport and run by a big airplane parts supplier that helps provide parts for our mission in Brazil and the mission we're temporarily working with in Ohio. They were expecting about 3,000 people, so this was a huge, well run event! But before getting on to the pictures of Missions at the Airport, these are a few other pictures I took this weekend that I just want to share because...well I'm a mom and that's what we do!

Our baby is getting so big...he's wearing shoes

And jeans!

Just something about that combo got to me...it makes him seem like he's becoming a big kid and not just a baby anymore!

Not big enough to put this whole gourd in his mouth though...despite various attempts :)

Oh and one picture we took on the way to the event. After gawking at how cute this dog is, we noticed he stayed PERFECTLY still...and was in fact a stature :) Super cute though!

Anyway, back to the event. In the hangar there were booths representing about 20 different missions organizations which use missionary aviation (including "our" mission in Ohio), there were a bunch of interesting planes to look at, a music activity tent where you could play with musical instruments from all around the world, a kids tent with some of the coolest ideas to gets kids thinking about missions, you could take rides in planes and helicopters used for missions, there were demonstrations of a Cessna 206 doing short take off and landings (like are done often in misisons), food, and much more.

Jeyson went for a ride in a DC3, which is a plane that was a huge part of WWII but is now often used in missions. It's a small plane, but big enough to fit missions teams in to fly them to different locations.

An interesting side fact we learned is that Amish can fly on planes! There were lots of them on the flight with Jeyson, though from what we understand they are not allow on helicopters...no idea why!

Elijah liked being in the blow up toys, but had no clue what to do. He mostly just sat still :)

At night (though we didn't stay for it) there was a concert and a HUGE bbq chicken dinner. Above is the grill the chicken was getting cooked on!

One of the most fun parts of the day was taking this little hay ride...

....over to see a hovercraft demonstration.

To be honest, I never really knew much about hovercrafts before, but it was so neat the way it just floats so easily right over the water and then hovers easily out of the water...

And over the land

I love the contrast of seeing the very traditional Amish people watching this UFO looking technology!

Some adorable Amish children watching with binoculars from a nearby field

All of this right on a tiny pond in someone's backyard!

Even though we're in the middle of nowhere Ohio, we ran into people we knew! First, we ran into a couple Jeyson knew from Moody, then we ran into a guy who worked in partnership with Asas for years. Ironically, the very week we came to the US he came down to Asas after many years to lead a seminar, so we were "supposed" to meet him then. I guess God didn't want us to miss him and allowed us to meet him in the US instead!

Sometimes as missionaries in Brazil, we get so focused on the work God is doing there and through our organization. This event was so refreshing to help us take a step back and see what God is doing throughout the world with and without missionary aviation. We are blessed to be even a small part of the story.

On the way home, we stopped at Leyman's - a famous store that has SO much random stuff, but specializes in appliances (like fridges and washing machines) that don't need electric power. This is perfect for the Amish population, but also missionaries order things from this store that they need to live in remote places with no power.