Teaching Faces

I love teaching. Seriously....I just think it is so fun! Here's a picture of me with my YWAM English class
I love to keep class informal with lots of interactive activities and a light spirited atmosphere so the students feel like they can make mistakes. I can't believe we're almost done with level one! This coming week will be the last week of the course. The other day as I was teaching, my sister-in-law took some pictures of me. It so funny to look at the pictures and see all of the funny expressions I make as I teach because I'm so into it.

For example....

and...

and....

On Saturday I went to Goiania and had all of the students over my sister-in-law's house for breakfast. I will try to post some pictures soon, but it was a huge success! They were only allowed to speak English and it was incredible how well they carried on conversation even though they've only studied for about 2 months!

Off On Another Adventure

A week ago, I thought we were going to have a normal next few days. By "normal", I mean Jeyson going to the hangar, me teaching, helping in the office, etc. Instead, in a moment, our next few weeks got completely turned upside down.

Do you remember how Jeyson has been working on a plane that flies in Boa Vista? Jeyson was supposed watch it take off for Boa Vista, but instead he took of with it. The base there has one main pilot who recently had surgery. Although he is recovering well, he isn't allowed to carry any weight. So, the mission asked Jeyson to go to Boa Vista with Rodrigo to fly as a co-pilot for the next few weeks. He will load and unload the plane and get great hands-on experience as they fly to tribes throughout the next weeks. So, off he went with the plane, on a cross-country trip to get to Boa Vista, and bring back the newly fixed plane at the same time.

The plan was for it to take about 12 hours of flying to arrive, but right now it's rainy season and the trip wound up taking 3 days (doing hops whenever they could). Jeyson posted this pictures on facebook with the following captions which I'll copy and paste, so you can see the trip from his perspective:

"Mutum" at a Wai Wai village where we had to land unexpectedly due to bad weather. It was apparently wounded in a hunt and allowed to live as a pet, though i was told it is delicious!

Spent the night at a missionary's house in a Wai Wai village...
Crossing part of the Amazon river....

Goods have to be trucked (often through those highways in the other picture) then shipped for several days to the larger cities in the Amazon region. No wonder living here is so much more expensive than in other parts of Brazil.

I wonder who possibly picked that spot to build his house!

Hours and hours of this....where would you land in an emergency?

Typical "highway" in the Amazon. Muddy road and barge to cross the river.

I'm missing Jeyson a lot already, though I'm keeping busy here and we're able to talk every day. If Jeyson winds up staying long enough (it's possible he could stay until late April) I hope to go and join him for part of the time. In the meantime, I'm enjoying seeing things virtually along with you.

Muddy Tales

Recently Jeyson went on another trip to the Pantanal area with Joy to pick up a different missionary family in a different tribe. I love the areal shots, like this one where you can see the immense flooded marshlands that make the road system impassible. If you look closely you can see that the white spots are cows that are retreating to the circles of land not covered in water. Their pasture turned into a system of islands!
But what I was really anxious to see are pictures of where the missionaries live and I was so happy to unload the camera at home and see just that! Note: a stray random dog from the village hanging out as the plane was loaded.
Jeyson with the father of the missionary family they were picking up. It was SO muddy where they landed, you can see Jeyson even rolled up his pants. At the end of the post there's a quick video of the plane trying to maneuver in the mud.

After landing, Joy took off again with some of the people and Jeyson stayed behind with the missionary to close up their house while they're away and they went on the next flight out. To get to their house, they had to cross this river. (Funny side note: Jeyson said the dog crossed back over with them swimming through the muddy water)

Here's where the missionary family stays during their time in the village

The outhouse

And bedroom (though the mattresses had been packed up and stored already for the time they will be away.)

Kitchen . The sink basins are big buckets that are turned over when they're away.

And they also have an office. You can't see well in the pictures, but all the rooms have dirt floors. I'm so glad we're part of serving people who are willing to sacrifice so much to do their work!

Now, for the video. This is my first time uploading a video and I'm so happy to find it wasn't as hard (or slow!) as I had imagined. Here's Joy trying to control the plane in the mud. Next to the camera you can hear people speaking in the tribe's language and laughing about the sliding and muddy plane. It's so funny how we can't understand what words they're using, but humor is international and we can know what they're saying since we're laughing at the same thing!

Avocados Galore!

It's avocado season here and we have more than we can handle! We recently went to Jeyson's parents' house and came home with at least seven avocados.
And these are no small avocados either! Look at the size compared with my hand!

The question is what do we do with so many avocados? The answer: What DON'T we do?!? We make guacamole, put slices in our salads, put them in our sandwiches, and make smoothies with avocados, bananas and milk (and a little honey or sugar). Then, when we can't handle them anymore, Bobby loves to finish them off! Too bad I can't send them to you via email to enjoy along with us!