We're Back!

After almost a month of traveling around FAR from the internet, we are so happy to be back! Not only are we glad to be back to the internet, but also our home, our normal ministry, and our routines.
We have been busy over the past weeks with many different things - some ministry related, some family related, and some just for fun. We've had lots of ups and downs, times of refreshment, and times of total exhaustion. But rather than retell it all in one entry, I'm going to take this entry and at least the next one to fill you in using lots of pictures we've taken.
We are so glad to be back in touch with you and if we haven't gotten back to your email yet, we will VERY soon!

To begin catching up, I'm going start to with a bunch of pictures from our 10 day ministry trip to Tocantins, Brazil. Tocantins is one state over from where we live in Brazil and we went to a small community called Colmeia. The trip was exhausting and in a very hot place (over 106 F without air conditioning) but it was definitely worth it for the ministry opportunities that we had.
You might remember that originally the plan was for me to work with a ministry to teens in this small community and Jeyson was going to work with evangelism to adults. However, when we showed up at the meeting place in Anapolis, we discovered several people from the teen ministry team backed out at the last second. The leader was ready to cancel the teen program since we would be so short handed, but Jeyson and a few others chose to join the team and we continued on with the plan. Above is a picture of us with a bunch of teens that came out to our program. This was just after a huge water fight.

The outreach plan for teens was pretty simple. We partnered with a local church in the community and invited their teens and all the teens from the community to participate in a week of activities. Each morning and afternoon we met in a nearby building and spent time with the 25 teens who came out. We did all types of activities. Here I was teaching the girls how to do a little craft.....

And we played lots of games.....
(Here is Jeyson leading some fun with paper airplane games)


And of course Brazilians LOVE soccer! We played until the ball split open and eventually popped! They even played a bit longer just kicking around the popped, deflated ball!

Then each time we led the teens in an Evangelistic Bible study. Each day we addressed a different question - Who is God? What is the Bible? Who is Jesus? etc. About half of the teens were not part of the group from the local church. These Bible studies were a great opportunity to present the Gospel to them over a whole week rather than just one quick session. They were really able to understand the big picture of our faith.

Then to address the group of believing teens, each day we would also present a skit about an issue they might be facing in their Christian walk. We then had an open discussion with them and challenged them to step-up in that area of their life. (Jeyson is in the blue shirt on the left)
(Jeyson is in the photo above with his back to the camera in the blue shirt)
One of the most important parts of the week though, was just chatting one on one with the teens. This girl above, Isabella, was a teen who came out almost every time. She was not a believer and I was able to build a relationship with her and share the Gospel with her very clearly.


Here we are with several teens from the church who we became particularly close with during the time. It was so sweet that several sadly asked if we could stay for another few weeks and spend more time with them.

In addition to the teen ministry, there was also a group involved with ministry to children in the community, a group who did door to door evangelism to the adults, and a medical/dental clinic where people could come to receive treatment and hear the Gospel.

Then each evening a big screen was set-up in a different place and the whole community was invited out to watch a movie about the Gospel. Jeyson was in charge of setting up with the movie, which meant he had to run from the teen ministry to the place of the movie with all of the equipment and get it all set up before the community arrived. He was exhausted by the end of the week!

Depending on the location, it is not always possible to stake the polls of the screen into the ground. They had to get creative, and one time the screen was even attached to a soccor goal, but it worked!

I was shocked to see how many people came out to such a simple event! One night there were over 100 people there. People brought their own chairs and lined the streets. After the movie each night, many people came to talk with people from our team. We were able to share the Gospel and put them in the care of the local church we were working with. It is amazing how many people here are ready and anxious to hear the news of Jesus Christ.

This man sat on his bike watching the entire movie!

The woman on the left and the one in the middle are from the local church.

When we tell people about these trips, we are often asked where we stay - a hotel? Not quite! We stay at different places, sometimes a school or community center, but in this community we stayed at the small, humble church itself. Here is one of the bedrooms (actually a Sunday school type room) where 10 women slept. The men slept in the church sanctuary itself - putting several pews together to form a bed.Since we're married, here's our hotel room! We borrowed a little 2 person tent so we could stay together. It was so tiny we couldn't even keep our luggage inside, but worth the effort :)Here's the church kitchen where all of the meals were cooked - right outside. We had lots of typical Brazilian food everyday, including rice and beans once or twice a day. Most of the cooks were ladies from the church who gave up the whole week to cook outside in 106 degree weather for us! It was very humbling.Here's where we ate all of our meals and had a morning devotion.
Here is one of the bathrooms.

Here are two girls from our team praying together.

Wow what a week! Each night as we went to sleep in our little tent, we could honestly say to each other than we gave absolutely everything we had that day. It was incredible to see how God opened doors to share the Gospel and how (as imperfect as we are) God used our lives to challenge and encourage teens in their faiths.

There is so much more to tell but it would be impossible to say everything. Next entry I'll post some more pictures of everything else we were up to these past weeks.

And we're off and running....

This week has been packed and it's only the start of the crazy month of July. So I'm just going to take a few minutes to post quick pictures from this week and then give you some information about what's going here the next few weeks.

Also, just to let everyone know - because of the traveling we're going to be doing between now and the end of July, we're going to have VERY limited access to the internet, so I'm not sure how much we'll be able to post, never mind reply to email. In August everything will return to normal and we'll be back in regular communication again.

Ok to start, this week we had a fun social event at our mission. While a lot of the other missionaries are Brazilians, there are also people representing the US, Portugal, Argentina, and of course Jeyson with Ecuador. Also, within Brazil there are people from each of the 5 very diverse regions. So the event was a dinner where each country or region of Brazil set up a little table with decorations representing their country/region, served typical food, and wore typical clothes. It was a lot of fun and a great way to travel the world without jet lag! I decided to represent Ecuador with Jeyson rather than leave him alone to with all the work involved.

Looking around at the room with so many people groups represented, I couldn't help but think about how wonderful it will be one day in Glory seeing ALL of the cultures of the earth together praising God. Maybe we'll even get to try to typical food from each place :)

Here are some pictures:

Here is our table representing Ecuador. Thankfully Jeyson's family had typical clothes and things from Ecuador that we could display.


Here's a close up in our outfits. We decided to get dressed at home and just arrive wearing our outfits since it was easier. However, it never occurred to me that this might mean seeing people on the way! As we were walking out the door one of our neighbors was walking right by our door. We just said hi, got in our car, and didn't even bother trying to explain why I was wearing what looked like a nightgown and Jeyson was wearing a poncho and pan flute!!

Here is the Portugal table.

And one of the regions in Brazil

Jeyson having a typical drink from South Brazil.



And another table our friend Suze wearing a typical hat from the North.
Us and our good friends Andres and Camila. He is from Argentina, so they were representing there together.

Another really fun and different event of the week was getting to take our friends from church for a flight. Most of Jeyson's flying has been with missionary instructors or other people from the mission so this was a great experience for him to fly people who are not used to it, and even the wife had never flown before ever. It was a quick flight and afterwards the wife was so moved that she started crying out of joy. It was a lot of fun.

Here is a picture of the family. You may recognize the couple as our friends who we help with the preteens at our church.

A shot of the flight from the ground.

So now a little bit about our plans for the next weeks. At Asas in July things change a lot. Rather than Jeyson going everyday to the hangar as usual, instead we will have time off and then go on a 10 day, very intense medical/evangelistic trip to another State. This is a lot like the one day trip we went on to Brasilia a few weeks ago, but this time we will stay in the same city ministering a lot longer. Then when we return we will have another week or so off and in the first few days of August we get back to our regular routines.

During the first part when we will have off, we are headed to Goiania where Jeyson's family lives. On Saturday his sister, Lika, is getting married right on the Braun's property. There are already lots of relatives arriving and we can't wait to join in the fun. Even Jeyson's brother, Johnny, and his wife, Krista, came from the California and we can't wait to see them. There are also many Brauns coming who I have never met before and others who I have met when I visited Brazil in the past but could not speak to because I couldn't say a word in Portuguese. It will be so fun to finally get to have a conversation with them!

We really would love your prayer for us as we head out on this evangelistic trip. It is 10-15 hour bus ride (which is already tiring!), and each day there will be packed. Normally we get up around 6am and don't get to sleep until around 11pm. It is exhausting, so we would love your prayer for physical strength and energy. More importantly though, we really need you to pray that God will prepare hearts to hear His message and receive it. We are passionate about sharing the wonderful news of Jesus Christ and pray that God will bring lasting fruit from the trip. We can't wait to report when we get back. The trip will be from July 18-28.

Anyway, as I mentioned we will have very limited access to the internet in the coming weeks. (The Brauns don't have internet at their house and we won't be able to use it on our evangelistic trip.) If for some reason you write and we don't get back to you right away, we haven't forgotten you. We'll write as soon as we can!

It's the Small Things

Two blogs ago I wrote about how sometimes it just sinks in that I am living in Brazil. After I posted it, I heard back from several people about how they appreciated that I was "keeping it real" about the ups and downs of my new life as an expatriate. That's such a strange thought...me??? An expatriate? Of course Jeyson has experienced this his whole life, since he's from several different places. Every time he's in Brazil he's an expatriate of Ecuador and vice versa. But for me, it's new and I'm still adjusting. So here goes a little more "keeping it real".

Here many people have asked me what I miss about life in the States. It's hard to really communicate, so let me just sum it up....it's all the little things! It's tortillas and take out Chinese food, it's Ziplock bags and a dishwasher, it's being able to unlock your door from the inside without using a key, and it's the little knife edge on the side of plastic wrap that allows you to cut a piece with having to take the whole thing out of the box and use scissors. It's hot, clean water from your faucet, napkins that are absorbent, and answering machines on everyone's phone. It's the little things. It's the things that make life a little easier and a little quicker. Quicker is definitely a big part of it looking back over my list. Things are much faster in the States because it's the little things that add up to save lots of time.

So what am I learning from all of this?

1. The purpose of life is not to see how quick we can be or how much we can do. It is to glorify God in everything we do...including the little things.

2. I have realized how much I think I have a "right" to these things and other comforts I am used to (even the ones that are much bigger, like a stable amount of money each month). However, nowhere has God promised us these things. These are not rights, and when they do come they are gifts. But we should not assume we deserve them.

3. On a very practical level, I have learned to improvise. I have learned that if I'm really missing a certain food I can try to fill that niche with something similar.....and that brings us to my fun project Sunday afternoon - making my own bagels!

I can't tell you how much I've been missing bagels lately and recently I saw some cream cheese at our local grocery store so I thought I just had to give it a try. It was a bit of a process, but fun! And they turned out great!

I learned that you actually have to boil bagels before you bake them.

So far so good in the oven! I forgot to take a picture of the after (before they were all eaten) but they really looked like the real thing and tasted like it too!

So next time you're eating of a bagel if you think of us, please pray for us as we serve in Brazil and for me as I continue to adapt to my new country!




Meanwhile this week, back at the mission hangar ....











One of the mission's airplanes taking off....











Jeyson was working on fixing a metal hook to tie down the airplanes. This involved welding - which you probably have noticed is one of Jeyson's favorite ways to fix things.

Here's an close up of the project.

It seems like it was successful!

As you might remember, before we came to Brazil we were really sensing God leading us to be part of a small group outreach ministry here but were not sure how to start. Just a few weeks after arriving we were approached by a leader in our church who said he is trying to start that exact ministry in our church and asked us to join a pilot small group, which we were very excited about. Each week we meet together and learn about how to lead a small group and how this will be an outreach to unbelievers. Then, in the beginning of the year we will end our pilot group's meetings and each start our own groups. Every week we look forward to going to the group and really feel like we have become a little family. The thought of dividing up next year is sad...but of course part of the plan. Anyway, we go every week but ALWAYS forget to take pictures. Finally this week we brought our camera so you can meet everyone!

On the left is Cle, who I have become fairly close to and Joao, and of course Jeyson.


On the left is Domingos and on the right is Jailson - the group's leader.


We carpool over to the group with this wonderful couple - Eduardo and Ana

Lastly, before signing off and spending some time with Jeyson, I thought I'd show you these pictures from our little "hike" through a park here in Anapolis with our friends Andres and Camila.

It's a beautiful park here in the city with a big trail looping around to walk around the lake
Enjoying the long walk, but then.....

Suddenly in the middle of the trail the bridge crossing over the lake was just....well not there! It looks like it fell down recently...glad we weren't on it!! Jeyson looks puzzled in this picture....what should we do? Just walk back? In the end we wound up trying to find away around the fallen out bridge and then walking back, but it was worth the fun anyway.

A buffet of thoughts

Today I have many scattered thoughts, so I think this post will be about a bunch of little things instead of one big topic...sort of like a buffet :) So here goes...





This week I felt very encouraged by a milestone in learning Portuguese. Over the weekend we headed to Goiania, where Jeyson's family lives, because Lika (his sister) was having her bridal shower. Here are some pictures of the event:



Anyway, the milestone was that I led my first activity in Portuguese. I had been asked to help with the shower games, but I had been thinking I would just be planning them and that someone else would actually lead them. The game I planned was one where the leader would do a lot of asking questions, etc, so I planned everything necessary for the person to fill the role. Then at the last minute when I was going to hand the paper with the instructions to someone to lead it, Jeyson encouraged me to step up to the challenge and lead it myself. After a little debating I went for it and everyone seemed to have a good time. Although this may seem like a small achievement, to me it was huge to stand up in front of a group, give directions, ask questions, serve as a judge, etc in Portuguese without any help. However, the biggest part of the achievement for me was not standing up and doing it (though that was big!), the biggest part was the fact that people enjoyed the game! What does that mean? It means that my Portuguese has improved enough to not get in the way of what I am trying to say! I am starting to not feel so much like a child when I speak anymore.



While that was great news, the truth is that it is not always so smooth. Some days I feel so frustrated because I want to say the most simple thing, but it seems IMPOSSIBLE to find the right words. Sometimes I have to repeat myself many times and I just feel like giving up. Sometimes I feel like crying when everyone is laughing at a joke but I can't understand it. But despite the ups and downs from day to day, I feel encouraged by the evidence that I am making process over time! Please pray for my progress in learning if you remember!



Another thought I wanted to share was a letter that I read this week from a Brazilian family writing to one of the missionaries with Asas. This family had heard about the work that our mission does and had been wanting to support an Asas missionary for a long time. However, this family just did not have any extra money to help in a monetary way. The letter said that the husband and wife would walk over 4 miles to work every day and would pass a lot of garbage along the way. So, this family decided to start collecting aluminum cans and other recycling material as they walked and bringing it to a recycling center to earn money to send to the missionaries! I was just blown away by the story and humbled to remember the many people sacrificing to support us so we can continue serving here. It is especially humbling knowing us from the inside, knowing we're not superhero Christians - just normal people with a calling to be here but still struggling with normal things just like everyone else. It really is humbling to know people are coming alongside us sacrificially just the same. We are so grateful!



Well another thought today is about my time teaching English at the Bible school/Seminary. When I committed to teach, I only made a commitment until June so I could have the chance to reevaluate if this was the right ministry opportunity for me. Now the course has come to an end so I thought I would share some of the pluses and minuses of the experience as I evaluate what kind of setting to commit to next (I will still continue at the children's program and tutoring for sure because they have turned out to be great ministry opportunities!)



First, the Minuses -



The course started out with 28 students, but they were not really committed. Many already were overloaded with other commitments and missed many classes. In the end only a handful were dedicated to the end.



Teaching at a Bible school was great because there was already the structure of a classroom, etc. but the school had many activities that conflicted with our schedule. Sometimes there would be a conference or a holiday scheduled at the school so all classes were canceled. It is hard to work with an irregular schedule.



An actual classroom setting gave too formal of a feel. The environment did not help bring about conversations which would have been good for English and great for relationship building.



Pluses -



I was able to help future pastors, missionaries, etc learn basic English skills which really are often required since a huge amount of resources are only in English. This was a ministry to them.



Teaching there forced me to be in a setting where I will practice Portuguese conversation, very valuable for me!



I was able to meet a few times with some younger students to read the Bible with them.



It was a good experience for me to have tested out to at least know what that kind of setting would be like.



Having so recently arrived from Brazil, it would have been impossible to have created my own program so quickly. The school gave a great structure that a needed.



So what's the bottom line? I am very glad for my experience there. It was a great way to start out and I can see a lot of positives that came out of it for me and some ministry opportunities. However, I don't think I am going to continue there now that this commitment has been completed. My thought is to next try out teaching a higher level of students in a conversation course in my home. I think the problem of the number diminishing would be solved because only those who are really committed would start coming out to my house in the first place. Also, a conversation class would facilitate more conversation (relationship building), and the atmosphere would be more relational than academic. So, we'll see. My plan would be to begin in August so I have some time to get myself off the ground. July is a huge holiday month in Brazil where all schools are off. At Asas things change in July. Rather than Jeyson going to the hangar each day, we will have a week off (during Lika's wedding week) and then go on a VERY intense evangelistic trip for 10 days to another State. Then we will have a few more days off and then get back to the usual routine, when I hope to begin this course. I really want to be effectively reaching out to others. I have never tried anything like this before, so I'll keep you updated about how it's going!

Another quick thing I wanted to show you was this funny picture. The other night two couples came over for dinner. When we looked over onto to the street from our patio, we saw this funny scene... all of our old bugs parked in a row on the street. See, our old car does fit in around here! Ours is the one on the right.

Here is a picture of Jeyson with one of our friends spending time together and working on a project...carving airplanes. Are you surprised?

Lastly, I just want to share this little thought from my devotions this morning. It is from the book My Utmost for His Highest. It says, "The secret of a disciple's life is devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of that life is its seeming insignificance and its meekness".