News from a Nearby Field

Yesterday we heard the sad news that a Pilatas PC-6 missionary plane crashed in Indonesia. It was a plane flown by missionary pilot, Paul Westlund, and he along with two Indonesian passengers passed away. Paul had been flying for nearly 25 years. The cause of the accident, which happened in a remote mountainous region, is still unknown.

While the plane was not an Asas plane, or even an MAF plane, (it was one of JAAR's partner missions) we can't help but feel connected as this man was serving in a very similar ministry as we do. Please be praying for his wife and two children which he left behind.

But don't stop there, click over to here to see a moving video that had been put together long before the accident about the ministry in Indonesia. It is definitely worth a watch and quite a challenge to live sold out for Him. Apparently, one of the planes in the video is the actual one that crashed.

Mechanics, English, and Two Awesome Opportunities

Technical English came to a close last week. This was the class I was teaching (along with Jeyson when I needed help with specific mechanics knowledge) to the incoming mechanic missionaries and quite a few from the community. It was a great group and an awesome opportunity to share our faith.
It was a very casual classroom setting, as you can see from the pictures. In these pictures they were working in groups on translating part of an article for airplane mechanics.

One of my favorite parts of teaching was having the young man on the right in this picture (Jonatas) as part of the class. He is a new missionary that just arrived in Brazil from Venezuela to be trained by our mission to return back to Venezuela in a few years. Why? A few years ago all foreigners in Venezuela were kicked out of the country by the government (Hugo Chavez), causing an active and very needed missionary flight program to be shut down because all of the pilots and mechanics were foreigners. Their plane and all of the ministries that depended on the flights were stopped suddenly. So, recently, many local Venezuelan pastors and ministries have rallied together to get it started....which means getting Venezuelan pilots and mechanics trained. The first one to start is Jonatas and he came to us in Brazil to do it since there wasn't a good training place available in Venezuela. We were so excited to have the privilege to have a tiny part in getting this ministry in Venezuela off the ground again literally, but teaching Jonatas this course that he is required to have.

Jonatas and Andres (left, who just arrived from Colombia and is gong to be serving in Brazil with Asas) did a great job translating, considering they had to go from English to Portuguese - neither of which languages do they speak fluently!

The other awesome opportunity was getting to pray and share a verse with the class each day before beginning. Since it was English class, each day I shared a verse in English and we translated it together into Portuguese. The classes were held at Asas de Socorro, so I had the freedom to be as open about the Gospel as I wanted to be (which of course I was!). One of the neatest things happened on a day that my co-teacher Grace was teaching class. She came into the class in a huge rush and frazzled from a crazy day. She began class right away without praying or a verse. Then, one of the students in the back who is not a believer raised his hand. "Aren't you going to begin with a verse and prayer?" he asked, "That has been my favorite part!" Of course Grace backtracked and began the class again with Him as the start. It is so exciting to see how God is working! Although the English requirement for the mechanics class is over, they will spend the next year+ learning at Asas and, Lord willing, will have many opportunities to hear the Gospel through the other missionaries who are teaching.

Baby Room Progress

So it's been requested/required that I post some pictures of the baby room progress. It's really too bad that I didn't take a before picture for you to see that the hardest part has been trying to figure out what to do with all of the stuff we used to keep in here. Here in Brazil almost no houses (including ours) have closets or basements or garages, and our house is just a little over 700 sq ft!! So, this little 9X7.5 foot room has been our storage room for everything from umbrellas and backpacks to Jeyson's tools. After getting that all cleared out (and finding some VERY interesting places to hide these items :) we were on to the decorating. We painted one wall green and Jeyson's SUPER talented sister came and painted a tree in the room on one wall. It came out WAY better than I had ever imagined. Isn't she incredible??? I found my inspiration here

Next, I found some paper lanterns at the dollar store (actually the 1 real store since that's our currency!) and Jeyson put together this little cluster that I saw here ...however much toned down for a boy and for the size room we have!

So this is what we have so far. We still need curtains (my mother-in-law is going to help me make those), bumpers and other bed stuff (in the works) and our rocking chair is coming in from southern Brazil. (They don't have the wooden ones here in central Brazil, but I found a store that can get us one from a southern state) Our carpet is a jeans type material, which is kind of fun...oh yeah and Jeyson is going to make us a cute bookshelf and there is one more much smaller art project I'm requesting Jeyson's sister paint us. Things are coming along!

We bought this little dresser which will double as a changing table surface. (This is on the wall that you can't see in the above picture) We didn't LOVE the dresser, but after LOTS of hunting this was the best we could find and it will do the job. The small baskets will go on a shelf above the dresser and one of the large ones will stay on the dresser with changing supplies. The last big one will probably hold toys somewhere.
Oh, and about the changing pad...I couldn't believe that here they don't have ones with wedge/raised sides. All of them here are just a totally flat cushion! I really wanted the American style for safety, so my mother-in-law had a great idea. She stopped by a store that sells that hard, sponge filling, and had the guy cut us one. It turned out great! Now her friend is covering with with cute fabric and then a layer of plastic/washable clear material for easy washing. Much easier to register for one at Target if we had it! But here you have to be a little more creative and make do. It's been quite a fun adventure dealing with each detail. Now, if only they had bouncy seats here....any ideas on how to make one??? (Just kidding...I think! :)

1 Hour (Semi-Freezer) Cooking

I've been so inspired by all of the blogs talking about 1 hour freezer cooking sessions lately. The idea is you take 1 hour and cook a bunch of little things to throw in your freezer. I thought I'd try it out, Brazilian style. Some items weren't actually for the freezer...instead they were for eating throughout the week - is that allowed? It was in my book anyway. Here's what I got done yesterday afternoon:

I had a big bunch of cashew fruit from my mother-in-law. I pulled off the end (that's the nut) and made the fruit into a concentrated pulp that I froze in cups. Then, we can pull them out and make them into juices whenever! I made 9 pulps - good for 9 pitchers of cashew juice!
I cooked chickpeas/garbanzo beans in the pressure cooker. I froze some in ziplock bags for salads and made some into humus. I froze half and kept half in the fridge.

I made a batch of homemade yogurt (it took all night, but I got it set up in the hour of cooking)

I hard boiled eggs and made deviled eggs (I'm doing the Bradley birth eating plan and you have to eat 2 eggs every day!)

Jeyson made us some strawberry/banana smoothies to eat on the spot.

Not a bad start! I think I'll try this more often! Thanks for the inspiration all you who do this!