I'm Out of Here

Hi friends, neighbours and countrymen.
I am on VACATION!!!! I haven't left town yet, but in a few more hours (after some sleep I hope to find time for) João and I will be heading for the hills (literally) for some serious rest. We have rented a chalé in the mountains where there is nothing to do except sleep, relax and do nothing slowly. No internet or telephone. It is quite chilly there (this week it was about 30 degrees Farenheit) and we have only our love to keep us warm. Well not true, since there is a fireplace, we are taking a heater and bunch of blankets and lots of warm clothes. Our car is full to overflowing, since I am also taking our food (it's a resort area and expensive). I think I have just about everything ready to go, except a few last minute things we will still use tonight. We have packed just tons of books and can't wait to do catch up on reading. I have 30 films to watch, so if our eyes fall out, I don't know what we will do. Today I had extra drawing lessons and at the end of the session, did my first sketch of a live model. I only had a little bit of time to work on it, so now I have the project to complete during my holidays. That should also keep me busy. I'll show you the results when I get back.
I know you will manage to survive without my blog for a month, but wanted to let you know that I haven't dropped off the face of the earth. Just dropped out of the internet.
Hope you have as much fun as I plan on having the next few weeks.

The sad end to the sad story

You may recall that I mentioned some time back, a doctor who was murdered outside the gym where I do aqua-fitness. Recently the whole story came out and so the story comes to a sad conclusion. Seems his murder was paid for by a state senator! But for personal reasons. The doctor was dating the senator's ex-wife (read: divorced). The senator took that as an affront I suppose and so paid R$30,000 for the man's murder. The police officer hired two very inexperienced young men (paying them R$15,000) to shoot the doctor. Everything was carefully planned, including the exact spot where it would take place. They just didn't plan on a police car being on the corner because the policemen were taking a break, buying some fruit from a corner market. And so we now know what happened. I am sure the two gunmen will be convicted. Perhaps the police officer. But the senator will probably suffer nothing. That's the way justice tends to work around here. Or, has I call it, injustice. I have lost faith in the system and, in general, politicians. I must say that in my mind, the senator isn't particularly more guilty than the other senators who rob the public coffers to build houses and buy cars - they are directly responsible for the 100 or so deaths of children recently. The children died from dengue, as a result of "no money" for mosquito control. That's because our politicians spent the money to "kill" their rivals and other wonderful causes. One politician in another state, spent thousands to hire a jet and take his family on vacation to Europe and even said he saw nothing immoral in what he did! Great. If depriving our children of education and medical care, so he could take a vacation isn't immoral, what is? When oh when oh when will we raise up a generation of politicians who really CARE about people? Who refuse huge salaries? Who pursue the corrupt? Who refuse special privileges because they chose to SERVE? I am so tired and so disillusioned with the corruption and selfishness it makes my cry. But the mothers who children who are in their graves, have shed more tears, I know. The families who wait for their loved one to have surgery for cancer, until it is too late, have shed more tears. The children who dream of having a better life, but have no teachers or schools have shed more tears. Can we not put our tears in a bottle and pour them out at the feet of our politicians and cry NO MORE TEARS???

Happy Little Family

Yesterday we celebrated another birthday around our house. It was João's birthday. I had been looking forward to our family dinner for a while and was a little disappointed that I woke up with a cold and felt a little under the weather. Nevertheless, I was able to put together a decent pot roast supper. João asked for a lemon meringue pie instead of cake, so that's what I made. It was beautiful and to me tasted so good. He enjoyed it. I am not sure if the girls were so enchanted. But they did enjoy the pot roast. Since we had a pie, I couldn't very well stick a candle in it, so we improvised with another candle and had fun yelling/singing Happy Birthday as João pretended to struggle to blow out the candle. João got a lot of nice gifts. I could hardly wait to give him the guitar I bought for him. Our music minister helped me to pick it out. I think João likes it and was really pleased to receive it before his vacation when he will be able to use it a lot. There is a dinner at church on Sunday, as well as a "tea" on Saturday evening, so we will be stretching out the celebration over a couple of days. That makes it more fun that way.
I feel much better today and am struggling with the temptation to not snarf down the rest of the lemon meringue pie. Have a good weekend!

I'm not the one with time on my hands!

We have been having cooler weather and João and I have been finding ourselves humming Christmas songs. I find that really funny, as João didn't grow up with a wintertime Christmas. I know that 65 degrees doesn't sound "cold" to you guys, but it's cool enough to dig out long sleeved clothes and sleep under a blanket. It's funny too because most of our friends are just loving the weather, because we have had some great sunshine as well. I would have to say that, in general, May is the best weather month of the year (although that can vary).
It was a particularly busy week with our family life conferences and the guest speaker in our home. On the other hand it was also relaxing talking and sharing with him in our home.
At any rate, when I saw this video (trust me, I wasn't looking for it), I thought I have to put this on my blog. I think it is just hysterical. Maybe we can contract him to come to our church for a Christmas program, since we have such a hard time getting anyone to come to church on Christmas!
He has a whole bunch of videos playing vegetable instruments and I decided that he has a whole lot more time on his hands than I have on mine! The funniest is the cabbage. The broccoli is the most musical. I hope you get a chuckle out of this and don't feel like this is a minute of your life you will never get back. Monday morning hugs and kisses!

What a blast

I had just a great time at the youth camp over the weekend with the kids from church. They are a good group of kids. They were attentive, obedient and even let me sleep all night long. Hey is this April's Fool? No, it's the truth. I loved the kids and certainly got my quota of hugs.
They rigged up a slide of sorts, with heavy plastic on a hill. They poured water and soap on it and slid down the hill. It was really cold - at least to our Brazilian blood - on Friday. It was raining and about 65 degrees and there they were slip sliddin' away. I got a kick out of their resistance. A couple of people were worried they would get sick, but heck I figured they were young and strong and healthy and a little bit of chill and rain wouldn't hurt any. They got in on Sunday night and were really pooped. I only had my cell phone with me, so you can't get a good focus on the slide, but still I thought you would get a kick out of how I spent my holiday. And by the way I didn't slide as I didn't have appropriate clothes, although some of the girls offered to loan me a bikini. Fat chance (literally)!

Just so you don't think I don't do nuffin'

Yesterday was my last class with the "Radicals" or as you might call them "Volunteers Without Frontiers". I admire these young people greatly as they give up their "identities" to go and live among unreached people. Being young they can adapt and flow with the punches. At least that's the idea. They will certainly be in my prayers as they face innumerable challenges when they get to the field next year.
In their last class they each had to tell a Bible story with all the details from the Bible, without written notes, geared for people of an oral culture. The class took a lot of preparation, since oral culture is not exactly my specialty, but I really became convinced that we have geared our evangelism for the 20% of the world's population that is totally literate. Even in our churches here in Brazil it is probably much more effective to assume people don't really much like to read. So telling a story is much more effective than a three point sermon. But who will ever convince our seminaries of that?
My class was a 30 hour module that I found extremely challenging to teach in three hour segments since I had to model what I was teaching, meaning I had to teach through stories and oral methods, rather than use any kind of written or audio-visual material. In the end I felt I had begun to get the concept across, but the students didn't get enough practice to be really "confident" in the process. Even breaking them into smaller groups, it was hard with 27 people. Tuesday's class was a riot as they had to tell a story through song. You should have heard the songs. It was so much fun.
Today I am busy with this that and the other as I try to get ready to share four messages with our youth at their retreat. Since I will be with them at the retreat center, you can imagine how much sleep I'll get Friday night. I also must get the house ready for our revival speaker who will be arriving on Saturday. And I need to leave enough food for the family to eat while I travel. I am procrastinating by writing this post. I do that sometimes when I am overwhelmed with all there is to do. João has promised to vacuum and since that's the biggest house cleaning chore, I think I am basically okay on that score. I have made banana bread this morning, so at least I have something for our guest to eat for breakfast on Sunday morning. (If I can keep my family from eating it all up before then...) Next chore is to grocery shop. So off I go since I only have 20 hours left to get everything done! Since today is May Day, International Labor Day, I guess it's appropriate that I am laboring.