Easter Cookie Day

Happy Easter! We had a very uneventful Easter day, which was just what we needed! A few days before Easter though, I had the most wonderful afternoon with a few teenage girls from the neighborhood. These twins live a few houses down from us and come from a very broken home. It is such a joy to have them over the house, spend time with them, and pour into their lives. And...the best part...
Another teenage girl moved in across the street from them! I invited her over too and the twins brought their little brother.

We've baked lots of different things together, but not cut out cookies (mostly because now I didn't have a good recipe until now! :) Since cookies aren't part of Brazilian culture, they had never done this before but I knew they would love it! We mostly used Easter shapes...but why not gingerbread men and women too? They kept thinking of Shrek, since that was the only context they had ever seen a cut out cookie man before!

Lots of fun...and LOTS of mess! Focusing on being with the girls and ignoring the tidal wave of icing around the kitchen :)

It has been so much fun to build a friendship with these girls

and my favorite part of the day was getting to very clearly share the Easter story with them. I asked them if they knew what Easter was really about, and since they didn't know, I told them using a little wooden Easter story telling set that Jeyson's uncle makes. At the end you put Jesus in the tomb and cover the hole. Then, there are magnets on the back of the "rock" piece and magnets of Jesus's nails so when you pick up the lid to the tomb, Jesus seems to disappear! So creative and the story really held their attention. The best part was talking about WHY Jesus had to die and the opportunity it give us.

I was so thankful for the opportunity and pray I'll have many more!

PS - Everything is much smaller around here...notice the size of our stove behind us. What you see is the whole width of it!

Jeyson Tales

In case you haven't heard the word....Jeyson is home! It has been SO wonderful having him back - 3 weeks apart was way too long! We've been having lots of fun together again, though it does mean I have to get back to actually preparing meals again instead of just snacking :) Here's a quick two funny stories that have happened since Jeyson's been back home. Persimmons. If you don't know what they are, don't feel bad, I had never had one before coming to Brazil. They're a fruit here in Brazil we call "caqui" and in English they are persimmons. We both love persimmons, especially Jeyson, so I picked some up from the store the other day. Here's what they look like.... Very similar to.... A tomato - right? In looks anyway, but the insides, taste, and texture are totally different. Well anyway, here's our little dialog as Jeyson headed out to the hangar this morning:

• Me: There are some caquis in the fridge if you want to bring one as a snack. I think there are 2 in there.


• Jeyson: Wow, actually there's a whole bunch in here (grabbing one, throwing it in his backpack and heading out the door)


• Me: What?? I know I only bought 3 and we ate one already, so there should only be 2


• Jeyson: (opening his backpack to check) Ooops I packed a tomato!

Then, at the end of the morning, I stopped by the hangar to pick Jeyson up for lunch. As I walked into the hangar I noticed everyone in the building huddled around the plane Jeyson was working on. What was going on?? Turns out....there was a SNAKE in the engine! Jeyson and another mechanic were working on some part right were the snake was hiding, and he decided to crawl out of his spot! As everyone looked on, a head came out....followed by an over 3 foot (I could honestly guess 4 foot) body! (internet picture b/c I didn't have my camera...but you get the idea...BIG) The guys all started hopping around and backing up except for my husband and one other guy. The snake was then slithering all over the hangar floor in circles...and the people were dancing out the way! Jeyson grabbed a stick and started trying to grab it, followed by someone grabbing a broom, and at some point Jeyson touched it (I'm not really sure when...the scene was a whirlwind...I just know that later Jeyson reported it was very smooth :). Eventually, the other guy grabbed him by the tale and carried him outside and dumped him on the sand out on the runway. All in a day's work!!! Welcome home Jeyson!

The things you have to do....

It's been an eventful few weeks here on my own in Anapolis. Fortunately, it looks like Jeyson and I will be back together again soon as Jeyson wraps up things in Boa Vista. Meanwhile, I've had the chance to grow in some new ways culturally as I've had to do quite a few tasks that normally Jeyson does. Here's a few of the highlights: Here our stoves are connected to propane tanks. When the gas runs out (about every 4 months or so for us) Jeyson calls up and has a new one delivered. Since I've never been alone when this has happened, I've never really paid attention before. But, this morning as I was flipping some french toast - poof! Out went the gas. After calling up the number we leave on the fridge, a man arrived on a motorcycle with two (full) tanks of propane attached to the back. He asked me if I prefer a blue or silver colored tank (I never knew I could choose! I went with silver) and he hauled it in the door. Usually Jeyon meets him outside with the old tank (you have to trade in your old one for the new one since you're only buying the gas inside, not the tank) and will bring in the new one himself and hook it up. However, since the tank is SUPER heavy (the guy was grunting like crazy as he carried it) and I have NO clue how to hook it up, I played the damsel in distress and he came in the gate and set me up. Pathetic? Yes! But did I get to cook the other side of my french toast? Yes!

Next - Cell phone credit. Believe it or not, we didn't have cell phones until recently. When Jeyson was going on his trip, one of our friends lent him his cell phone so Jeyson and I could talk. Here there are only prepaid cell phones, so you have to keep loading credit on as you use it. Since Jeyson has been busy going to tribes I told him I would load the credit on from here. So off I went to the lottery ticket store.

Yes, that's where you can pay bills (if you don't do it online like we do) and apparently where you can get cell phone credit - and of course buy lottery tickets. These lottery stores are all over the place here and I have rarely been in one to pay a bill never mind get credit for a cell phone. The process turned out to be really, really easy, but the line was terrible. It took about 30-40 minutes since any time a person over 60 came into the store, they have the right to go to the front of the line! It's crazy to think there is no automatic way to recharge your cell phone. When I finally got to the front I put quite a bit of credit to avoid a return trip, if possible.

Lastly....the lizard. This is actually a picture I found online, but this is exactly what I found one afternoon. A very large, very dead lizard in our yard.

And you thought a dead mouse in a mouse trap was bad! I'm quite suspicious that this was the cat as one of his favorite hobbies is watching lizards in the yard, but he didn't offer to help clean it up. I grabbed the dust pan and broom, held my breath, and hauled away the corpse :)

Oh - and the lizard was so big it seriously filled the dust pan - no exaggeration!

What an interesting few weeks it's been. I hope Jeyson gets back before I have to learn too much more!

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!