A New and Better Way

Rahel, Karen and I at the Passion Conference in May Erika and I then Pastor Marcelo and I Morumbi Baptist Thiago, me, Rahel, Andre and Erika Suzana and her husband Tiago and me Vila Andrade Vila Andrade church and community center

There have been several schedule changes lately. The situation at the Compassion project is over I think. I am no longer helping out there in any type of full-time capacity, just reading with some of the kids Tues. and Thurs. afternoons. The director is speaking to me again so that´s a total answer to prayer. Two of the kids don´t know how to read and I don´t know how to teach them. The 7 year old at least knows all the letters in the alphabet but one of the 9 year olds doesn´t. Any ideas? Not sure I should continue with this but I know that the extra attention is really good for these kids. If nothing else this internship has taught me that children´s ministry is not for me. In other news....I start teaching an English class next week and I also gave my first keyboard lesson on Thursday. I may start counseling two other moms as well. Last week the mom I was counseling didn´t show due to some family issues and the new convert I´m supposed to meet with on Tuesdays didn´t come either. Ev...

View from my bedroom window Sleeping room Living and dining room Kitchen and laundry room Hopefully that gives you a bit of an idea of my surroundings home wise. It´s very cozy. :)

I do not need a change of heart. I do not need to change my circumstances I need to change the attitude of my mind. As Mark Buchanan so powerfully puts it in his book `The Rest of God´ in God´s economy nothing really changes until our minds do, or to quote another section, ´God is more interested in changing your thinking than in changing your circumstances.´ That´s what I read this morning. And here´s another thing I learned. The Hebrew word for sanctify means ´to betroth´ or to commit oneself. We are to commit ourselves to keeping the Sabbath (that´s Mark´s point) but as I continued reading it was almost like the next sentence was written for me - ´you pledge to commit yourself, all of yourself, to this time, and then you honor that commitment whether it´s convenient or not (p. 33).´ As you may have noticed already this time in São Paulo has often felt less than convenient. In many ways it would be easier to be in a cultural where I do not know the language or customs at all ( Pr. Pa...

It seems like the days that I am meant to do home visitations to the families who have kids in the Compassion project are especially challenging. Yesterday was no exception. These visitations are every Friday morning and afternoon. I know I am always asking for more prayer but if you could especially remember me during those times I would appreciate it. It seems like everything conspires to discourage me and make me think that I am incapable of doing this task. I arrived at the church yesterday morning in a fairly good state of mind considering how tired I was. However, that quickly changed. The pastor and some others on staff were teasing me. Whenever there is something I don´t adapt to well or dislike somewhat they say ´that´s because you´re Canadian.´ Many times this is quite hilarious but yesterday I didn´t find it overly entertaining. (You can pray that I´ll grow a harder shell or is that thicker skin? lol I can´t remember. :) The whole cultural identity thing is what it is. I am ...

The mom I ´counseled´ this morning has 4 children and only two have the same father. Currently she is unemployed and her last boss did not pay her what they had agreed on initially. Rita (not her actual name) has less than a grade 8 education and frequently asks God to end her misery. Her father is dying of cancer, her 9 year old son is always getting into trouble at school and 3 men have left her over the course of her life. She has every reason to lose hope. Please pray that she will find a job soon and that God would lift her out of her depression. Next session I will ask her if she has ever attempted to take her own life and will try and present the Gospel message to her. Today I also had a good chat with Pastor Marcelo. We juggled around my work load so that I don´t feel as overwhelemed. However, I was supposed to be at the church tonight but did not manage to make it. I hope he isn´t too disapointed tomorrow. I have been having trouble falling asleep for the last couple of nights...

Lyndell and I in Porto Chicken hearts The infamous sofa bed The Cathedral da Se in downtown São Paulo There are more pictures on facebook if you are interested and have access to that. I can´t figure out how to put the text under the photos and blogger takes a long time to download images....

If there is anything I can say whole heartedly it is this - Cross cultural work/ministry shows you a whole new side of yourself. The three most important qualities for successful cross cultural ministry/business according to my Interculturall Communication class are the following: 1) Ability to fail 2) Flexibilitly and 3) A good sense of humour. Tonight at church I went through all three. Showed up for the worship team practice and had quite the experience. It seems like everything that could go wrong did. The keyboard player needed the song book with the chords in it which was locked upstairs. Since the church secretary is the worship leader and she had to be elsewhere no one had keys so we had to practice sans keyboard. I didn´t know all the words in Portuguese so I had to look at the Power point. But of course those songs are on the Pastor´s laptop and he wasn´t there yet. Then there was a lack of clear leadership so everyone was making suggestions on intros etc. etc. Gong show!! By...

Praises are in order! This has been my best week so far folks. Thank-you so much for your continued prayers The internship is going better now as I find more of a pace/routine. Its a very eye opening experience all around. Yesterday as I sat in on one of the classes for the Compassion kids I was able to see just how poor the public education system here is. In a group of thirteen 8-10 year olds only 2 kids knew for sure what the first day of the week was (Sunday). Several thought it was Saturday. Only one kid knew how to subract 40-13. And their spelling is atrocious. One boy has dyslexia and there is no one here who can help those with learning challenges. Very sad. Most don´t even know their birthdays! But that´s understandable when you are raised by your aunt, have no dad and stay home alone most of the day. One girl´s dad is a drug addict and the stories go on and on. Similar to Chain of Love. Right now I am making some posters to teach them a couple of songs. I will be playing key...

Yesterday I had my very best day at Villa Andrade. I think I have begun to hit my stride. Thank-you so much for all your prayers. There are still tons of challenges but I am starting to feel more able to keep my head above water. I will write a bit more about my day later. The reason I have titled my post the way I have is because a dear friend from Edmonton just lost her father. If you could kindly remember this family in your prayers I would so appreciate it. The church secretary here, Erika, is also feeling ill and is in the middle of exams (which she gets very anxious about). My friend Tiago who lost his mom a month ago and is also going through a really rough time and his dad just got laid off. My roomate Marcia is going on a missions trip and needs to raise her prayer and financial support still. Needless to say many people are needing your prayers besides me. If you could remember these people in your prayers it would bless my heart. Also pray that I would know how to encourage,...

Its my day off today. Yesterday I taught my first Sunday School class to the pre-teens. It went alright. There were only about 10 of them and they actually listened well compared to my classroom experience last week. It would have been nice to follow some of the fancy poster and game ideas I found in the SS material here but lugging stuff around on the bus when its already so crowded on Sunday´s didn´t appeal to me. So we played some games, read Psalm 139, talked about how we are all unique and God knows everything about us. I let them pray with their hats on and eyes open (shocking I know). Not sure what I´ll do next week as I´m sure the novelty of having a gringa for a teacher may soon wear off. Just getting everyone to read the passage was kind of challenging as many are emberassed about their reading level since some are quite behind. However, in the end I managed to get each one to co-operate and was able to encourage those who were hesitant about their skills. Not surprisingly I ...

Give me something to do! I whined to Iva the cook for the Compassion project. She just laughed at me and told me to go find Mariza the director. I am learning that while there is plenty to do a day at Vila Andrade is not defined by tasks. I am expected to just show up and then see how the morning develops. Yesterday this meant playing with the children, having lunch with them and then coloring and reading until 2 o clock. My afternoons are more planned out and Pastor Marcelo is doing his best to stick with our schedule. I have been told that I do not seem to have a good attitude at times and I think the lack of a pre-planned, task focused day is 90% of the problem. Now that I know that showing up and just going with the flow is the main expectation my stress and frustration levels have gone down significantly. However, being able to deal with and be game for whatever comes up is challenging. Take this morning for instance. I was super tired and barely managed to drag myself to the 8 am...

Good news! Marcia´s house has a landline and we are getting along swimmingly. Commuting from here is simple and I now have my very own cell phone. There is of course the challenge of no running hot water except in the shower, no dryer and quirky appliances due to the lack of funds to fix them. However, I am getting to experience what it is like to live ´alone´ as a single gal in Brasil. So to a certain extent I feel like I have ´gone native.´ As I mentioned previously last weekend things started to look up. I could really sense your prayers. Last night I went to a small group in the very heart of the slum when it was quite dark. Not to worry I had someone who took me there and then gave me a ride home. There are 30 people in this small group. About 12 are children and since the people are poor there were not enough chairs for everyone so some people stood. We sang along to a slightly off key guitar listened to a devotional by yours truly shared prayer requests, prayed and then ate cake...

Here are some more ´stolen´ pictures. These are from Andre´s facebook photos.

Bbbrrrrrr!! Its cold here. The last few days have been rainy and not at all warm. Let´s bring central heating to Brasil! I have a lot of things to update you on but I will stick to the basics and write more tomorrow. Thank-you for all your prayers and words of encouragement in the last few days. They have made a huge difference and I feel a lot more at ease even though my trust muscles continue to be stretched to their limits. Please keep those prayers coming. Now for an update on the living situation. Today I am moving! Not to Karen´s but to an apartment with a spare room that belongs to Marcia a member of Morumbi church. Marcia is a web designer, she lived in England for two years and she´s offered me her spare room. She says the place is tiny and in a few hours I will find out just how small it is. There is no land line so I can´t call home collect and while she has internet access I don´t know if she has the set-up for skype. She isn´t home a lot so I´ll have lots of time and space...