First of all, Easter was FANTASTIC. We had a sunrise service that everyone thought NO ONE would attend and in fact almost EVERYONE who is ANYONE was there. It was a great service, followed by breakfast (ah, you miss out when you don't live in the tropics - fresh mangos, papayas, watermelon, etc.) and then a 10AM service. Although the 10AM service was a repetition, in part, lots of people stayed through for the second service, so the church was full again!
That evening the Cantata, "HE LIVES" was presented to a full, packed out crowd. There were 200 in the orchestra and choir, but even so it really was Standing Room Only. The presentation was just fantastic. The surprise of the evening was João's solo. He was narrating and then at one point, he sang the introduction to the choir's piece. This was planned, but people didn't know it. They kept looking around to see who was singing! What a hoot. They didn't know he could sing and some choir members told me they were really nervous when they heard the pastor would be singing, until they heard him sing.
We were on a high from that experience for several days.
Then I began working with the family life group on the Couple's Retreat to be held at the end of June. We have booked a small retreat center that is quite charming. We have now hammered out most everything - from fees, to menus, to activities, to schedule to speakers. But it has been kind of consuming working on this. It is one of my favorite activities to work on, however. I love family/couple ministry. Since it will be the week we get back from vacation, I want to leave as much as possible ready - and the rest I can work on during vacation. We will only be dealing with about 60 people, but it's still a great deal of work. The photos, obviously, are of the retreat center.
In between getting this ready, I have also been madly working on getting ready to travel next week. I wish I could just snap my fingers and get on the plane, but there is lots to do before travelling. Just buying the tickets requires lots of research and time these days. In addition, I am trying to leave things organized here. Since I do the worship services, I am working on that for part of the time when I am gone. Today, I have a cook here at the house making about 40 meals to freeze so that João and Sissy will have food while I am gone. That is wonderful, but also required a lot of time to plan the menus and buy all the food. But the family will eat better when I am gone, than when I am here. Hahahaha.
I continue to do physiotherapy on my left leg, that is a little bit stubborn in terms of healing. I can now walk without pain, which is wonderful. Believe it or not, that consumes a lot of time, by the time I wait and wait my turn and then do an hour of PT.
We have had a number of deaths in our church lately and that has made us quite sad. It does remind me, that I too am on the way out. I mean I know that, but when you stand before the closed coffin and watch the families' pain, it is a much more visible reminder!
We have been so busy that even our little excursions to the Tijuca Forest have been put on hold for a while. We are really looking forward to seeing lots of nature and being able to breathe deeply while on vacation.
It seems that I must go and freeze containers of shrimp and chicken stroganoff and serve some shrimp/fish stew (muqueca) for lunch. So I am closing out this entry. As momma always says: "It's a great life if you don't weaken."
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