Lost in Translation

ok, there are a lot of pictures, and they were a huge pain to organize, so I'm just going to give you a basic rundown of the pictures, and hopefully you can match up the captions with the pictures. hese first few are just pictures from around the building, just spending time with some of the teens and young adults, playing volleyball and soccer.

The next set of pictures are from our day off on the beach with Jefferson and Shrek. (Pedro)

Then there's a random soccer pic of lightning fast Brent.

Then you can see a picture of the boys family (pic of girls coming soon)

Next is the view of the favellas that you can see from the top of our hill.

Next picture was Brent having fun after a hard days work... unfortunate for Cailin.

Next picture... we were VERY tired after the 11 hours of flying and the 6 hour layover in Atlanta.

Then we have some pictures of the view from the top floor of the church building.

The next little bit of pictures are from the same day at the beach. The big group is a soccer team that Randy found working out, so he and Brent decided to jump in with them and take a pic.

The next few pictures really got switched around, but among them are Magno's baptism, more beach pictures, and a few from the Gringo vs. Brazilian soccer game.

We are finally here! Not even just visiting another country, but we’re actually here, acting as though we are Brazilians, kisses on each cheek, greeting the morning with “Bom Dia” “Tudo Bem”, and having churrasco (sounds like shoe-hah-shkoo), or as Adrienne puts it, “death by meat”, every day! We truly are
blessed to be here, it is very obvious that God is working through us and for us, and that He truly had big plans for us to be here. In this post, I just wanted to fill you in on some of the things that are happening here, the activities that we are getting involved in, the fun things we have been doing with the church here, and the amazing ways in which God has already been working. I will write about a few of these things, but many of them can be seen through the pictures that have been posted.

First things first, the most exciting news literally within days of us stepping on Brazilian soil, Magno made the decision to put on Christ in baptism!!! This obviously was not because of any of us since we hadn’t yet been there long enough to influence him, but none the less, it was definitely encouraging to know that this is the kind of church that we were stepping in to. A little background just so you all know how much this means to us, Magno and Elisangela are a new couple to the church who began attending about a year ago. Despite being new to the church and once more new to christianity, they have become very involved and offered to house us, so for our 6 week stay here, they are our adopted mom and dad!!! So it was amazing to see the baptism of the man who was soon to be our dad, and who is daily becoming more and more a very close friend to each of us.

We also have stepped into possibly the most warm, welcoming, and hospitable mission site that we could have found. We got off the plane and worked our way toward baggage claim, but we couldn’t find any of the missionaries at the entrance of the airport, so one of the men at the airport (who spoke no english) attempted to call the church for us, and eventually, through much laughter and confusion and help, sorted everything out and we finally met up with Daniel and Sergio, one of the missionaries and an elder. This truly is not a culture for introverts, and you should have a very strong stance and very small personal bubble if you want to ride the bus, but otherwise, this truly has been an amazing first few weeks.

I thought that you also might like to meet our host families. One you have somewhat met, and we also have a picture of all of us posted. Magno, Elisangela, and their 6 year old son Nicolaus decided that they were up to the task of taking us 4 boys into their home, treating us like their own kids. As you know, this young couple only recently became involved in the church, and Elisangela was baptized not long before her husband Magno. Jefferson and Dani, of which I don’t yet have a picture posted, chose to take on the feat of hosting the 2 girls, and so far have had a blast doing so. Jefferson just recently finished preaching school and became the minister at the church here, while his wife works at a physical therapist at the gym just 10 minutes walk down the street. The two of them are very fluent in English and have made out to be the perfect match for the girls.

But enough about the side comments, what about the work that we are actually doing? Total, we have taken on somewhere between 50-60 readers, most of them coming upwards of 2 and 3 times weekly, and ranging anywhere from learning basic words by a 1 hour session of charades to speaking fluently and asking us questions about conjunctions, transactions, and other English grammar that we don’t even know! It has been a blast through every situation! We have seen all different topics of conversation, some very light hearted and entertaining, and some more deep than you could ever dream of from a relationship built in 2 weeks. It’s very obvious that prayer has been at work here, and these people were truly ready for us to be here. Thank you so much to all of you who prayed and are still praying!!!! God really is using your prayers to make a difference in these people’s lives.

If you know about LST, then you realize that this really is the bulk of our time spent here, but we still have some spare time that we have been spending doing none other than... FUTIBOL! I have never in my life been in a place where you can take a soccer ball out into an empty parking lot, start playing, and wind up with enough people to play a full game of small field. It’s great!! So whenever we don’t have any readers and we’re not advertising trying to find more, we usually scrounge up a hodge podge of people from the church and get a soccer game going. It really has been an amazing way for us to connect with a lot of the high school/college age kids from the church. Even though we can’t talk, this is still one thing that we all have a common interest in and that we can all get together and build a relationship by playing together.

And just a little tid bit so that you can all be updated on what seems to be the popular thing to talk about, what have we been doing on our off days. It has been incredibly relaxed, but a lot of fun. The first day, we went with Jefferson, one of the missionaries, and Pedro to the beach. It was beautiful, and if you like the color red, so were all of our shoulders for the next 4 days... But the sun burn was well worth the time we spent playing in the ocean with Shrek (we’ve decided Pedro looks like Shrek) and Jefferson. That night we grilled American hamburgers at Adrienne’s house, another missionary, and had ascenola juice straight off of the tree. And the next day we went downtown to all of the street shops and street vendors and learned the joys of trying to buy something strictly using the only language we both knew, counting on our fingers. It has definitely been a fun experience so far, and we are enjoying every minute of it.

I apologize if this seems like a long post, but there are a lot of things that happen in 2 weeks when you are doing the best job in the world. I mean, after all, who wouldn’t want to share a message with someone that could change their life, give them passion, desire, and a real hope for the future. And some call this work? Well, it truly is exhausting, but there is no doubt that each and every one of us are loving every minute that we are here, and wish for nothing else than to continue doing the work here that it’s obvious that God has planned for us to do. Thank you for your continued prayers, and we will continue to pray for all of you in return out of thankfulness.

Sincerely,
The Gringos

and another picture of Heath and our host's son, Nicolaus in their new Brazilian soccer jersey's