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!

All in a Day's Work

This week Jeyson had an awesome opportunity to get back up in the air and be part of an exciting trip....

He went along on a two day trip with Joy, a Wycliffe pilot.

Here are Jeyson and I just before take off in Anapolis

They flew to a tribe in a neighboring state (about a 5 hour flight) to pick up a missionary woman in her 70s who has been lives among the people and has been translating the New Testament into their language for the first time ever. From what I understood, she just finished her translation and has been revising it with the tribe. It is set to come out in print next year or so. This missionary is a single woman who lives alone in the tribe, but Jeyson said she seemed to feel so at home there and blended in so well with the people (except for physically :)

Villages they flew over...

The landing strip that the plane usually lands on was too muddy, so they landed in a nearby village of people from the same tribe. The missionary was able to get a ride with someone to this village, but she had to supply the gas....but there in the middle of nowhere that doesn't mean giving some money for the gas...it literally means bringing the gas! Joy and Jeyson brought gas from here in Anapolis to fill up the truck again after she was brought to the landing strip.

The people from the tribe gathering around...

The missionary was dropped off in the city and Jeyson stayed with a missionary couple for the night and Joy stayed with a friend. The next day Joy and Jeyson started the 5 hour trip home, but it turned into about a 7 hour trip. Because of bad weather, they had to stay about 2 hours at an airport in route...and my goodness was this a small airport! A family lives at the airport and are the caretakers of it. This picture will give you an idea of the feel of it...the family's laundry hanging out to dry by the runway.

And chickens hanging out :)

What a neat and meaningful adventure! We are so privileged to be part of what God is doing here - and how exciting to be a tiny part of getting the Gospel in to the hands of these people!

A Penny for Your Thoughts

It seems like frugal living is a popular topic to blog about. I love reading tips and ideas that others post about how they cut costs to live within their means, and I thought it would be fun to blog about some things we do to keep our living expenses low. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you do some of these too or have some other ideas.

1. Budget - The most important thing we do is keep a written budget. This allows us to plan exactly what we will do with each month's support and to know our limits.

2. Drive one car - This may be a bit extreme for the US, but the cost of gas here is over double the costs in the States! We drive our car together when we're going to Asas, and when we're headed in different directions I drive the car and Jeyson takes his bicycle or motorcycle.

3. Eat at home - A big way we save money is by eating almost all of our meals at home. Of course we do enjoy meals out as well, but always within the limits of money budgeted for fun in our budget. One thing that is a major help with this is meal planning. If I know what I'm planning to make, we're much less likely to grab something out.

4. Avoid the grocery store - This may sound a little crazy, but here's what works for us. At the beginning of each month I make a list of all of the meal ideas I have for the month. I go out on one huge grocery shopping trip for everything to make the meals except for the very basic fresh stuff like fruit/veggies. (I even buy meat and freeze it in potions for the two of us). Then every week I decide which of those meals I'm going to make and buy just the fresh food to go with it. I try to avoid going to the grocery store more than once a week because I know I'll always come home with way more than I had planned on! If I need something before the week is up, I try to be creative and use something from the pantry/freezer unless I'm really stuck!

5. Lights - We invested in economic light bulbs a few years ago and it has REALLY paid off! Our light bills are SO much lower as a result!

6. Clothes - We don't often go clothes shopping. The clothes here are no where near as nice as they are in the States, so we bought back new stuff with us. Now, we'll only go out to the store to buy something if we are looking for something we actually need.

7. Gifts - In general, we try to keep gifts meaningful, yet simple. After all, it truly is the thought that counts!

8. Homemade stuff - We both love creating things, so this one comes naturally to us. I make lots of food from scratch - bread, granola, croutons, pizza, and even now yogurt....just to name a few! They turn out so tasty and healthier. We've also made gifts (Jeyson recently made an adorable puzzle to give to a baby as a birthday gift), curtains, lamps, bookshelves, and pillows.

9. Contentment - I guess the biggest thing we do is choose to be content with and grateful for what God has given us. This helps us to keep our life simpler, less expensive, and happier!

YWAM English Class is Off the Ground

So much to blog about and so little time! I am hoping to catch up on blogging a little in the coming days (we'll see if it really happens :) but in the meantime here are some pictures of the class I'm teaching at YWAM. This has been an absolute blast! The students seem to be picking up on the material very quickly and are anxious for more. On the second week of the level one class, one students said to me "It is my goal to be having conversations by the end of the week". I tried to help me see that it will take a little longer than 2 weeks to be fluent :) but also tried to encourage him that he could already have a very simple conversations telling about himself, his classmates, etc. He's on his way! But it's fun to see how seriously they're taking this and how much that is helping them pick up on the material! These are some pictures of some activities we've done as a class.
The stuents are pretty young, the above girl is only 18 and so sweet and open. She came from across the country to be part of the course.

I love to keep the class moving - working in groups, standing up to mingle and ask each other questions related to the topic.

Tonight Jeyson and I are headed over to Goiania for an activity night that the English class and the YWAM discipleship training school are having...crazy hair night! The students will be presenting some skits in English, which I'm anxious to see what they're prepared. Then we'll spend Saturday with them and with Jeyson's family. It should be fun!