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After my last dismal post that seems to have been up for an eternity I thought that I would bring you up to date as to our latest happenings. This was actually the weirdest Christmas that either of us has ever experienced. The weird part was being alone on Christmas day with no kids and no presents! Weird! However, in God's goodness we did have some very bright spots during this special time. Christmas Eve we had 18 present at our home for a special, first ever, Christmas Eve service for Faith Baptist Church. We sang Christmas carols and interspersed a reading of the whole Christmas story. I started with a few of the prophecies of Jesus' birth, then went to the story itself in Matthew and Luke. After all was read I asked, "How many of you have never heard this story before?" Six raised their hands! It was amazing to be a part of their first hearing of The wonderful Story! After that special time we went to our coworker's home for an evening meal with his family. A...

This week started out with a trip to São Paulo. In case you don't know, that is a rough start. In my earlier days I loved to go to the big city. It is the fifth largest in the world and fascinating to see from the sky. São Paulo is a city that seems to go on and on and on into the distant horizon. When on the ground it can be overwhelming. I used to have a certain pride that I could navigate the beast without getting too lost. There was a sense of conquest each time that I lead a successful excursion into and out of her endless tangle of streets and avenues. Those days of pride and conquest are gone and this time I didn't want to go. But then I remembered something that pastor Moreno once said, "It is not about ME!" It may have been the Holy Spirit that made me remember that one. At any rate Alexandre and I went into our version of the Big Apple to buy trinkets. We went to save some money. We were after, of all things, little girl's head bands! Alexandre thought t...

The Lord gave us a lovely cool day for the first presentation of the children's Cantata. It was at the rest home and several kids were worried that Dawn would have me committed (little brats!). But, all kidding aside the day was perfect. The little ones preformed very well making Alexandre very proud (though he looked a bit haggard). Dawn's costumes made each little angel, shepherd, Mary, Joseph, King look just as cute as bugs. She also made the 30+ choir robes. So she has been busy at the sewing machines over the past several weeks. The folks at the home really appreciated our visit. In the next three weeks the kids will present four more times. We had about 20 in our van and you know we didn't have that many seat belts so pray for our safety. Our next Saturday visit will be at the orphanage.

When is the last time that you sang several Christmas carols in front of your own house at the top of your lungs? If you are like me you might answer, "NEVER!" Would that be embarrassing or what? We talk a lot about getting the Gospel out and yet to think about doing something so simple as singing Christmas carols makes us shrink with terror. Just yesterday the kids who will be singing in our Kids Cantata on Saturday at the resthome had an "in neighborhood" practice. The houses in the neighborhood are tiny and there were 20 kids so the practice was held in Michelle's garage. To help the little ones get over their embarrassment Alexandre told me that he was going to have them sing in FRONT of Michelle's house. After about a half an hour of practice he announced his plan. There was a scream of the above mentioned terror. But, out they went. They sang the whole Cantata with narration for the surrounding neighbors. Their singing would sound like shouting to man...

 Though Thanksgiving is celebrated in several different countries I have never seen it celebrated here in Brazil. So, with its arrival this past week I had not mentioned it Alexandre. He, however, brought up the subject as a possible church family activity. "What would you think about telling our people about Thanksgiving and what it means. I think that it would be good for them to know about the holiday and we could use fruit as our theme. He went on to share his idea. We would focus our "Family Time" on the fruit theme and each family would bring something made from fruit (cake, salad, juice, jello, pudding or just the fruit itself). We would have a mini feast, play some games and be able to share the Word of God with our people. Both Dawn and I liked the idea.    We played fruit games: eating watermelon, banana toss, decorate the orange and guava relay. Then we ate some luscious fruit deserts. I preached about the church being a family (Acts 2:42-44) and several hands...

Fifty-six years of Thanksgiving celebrations and many of them included the obligatory torture of watching the Detroit Lion's "play" football. I just Googled the Lion's Thanksgiving day record and got a somewhat dated but revealing stat. It said: From 1934 to 2007 the Detroit Lions Thanksgiving Day record stands at 33-33-2. In other words they've virtually cancelled themselves out over the years! I believe that in my life time they were more like 3-30. I will never understand why we spent the afternoon on such a special day watching their futility. However, I believe that it was because there was nothing else to do after we ate. Back in them thar days we had channels: 9, 7, 4 and 2. The Lions were on TV 2. After dinner we were a bit lethargic and so the game filled time. I thought that Lion's Watching was a necessary part of Thanksgiving until 1997 when I first arrived in Brazil. Thanksgiving was the Hudson's parade and then the Big meal followed by the Lio...

What on earth is a peekee neekee ? "Peekee neekee" is actually an English transliteration of the Portuguese transliteration of the English word picnic! Did that make sense? Some English words have seeped into the Portuguese. Words like "mouse" (computer version), "click" (again the computer "click"), "test-drive" have become normal here. Of course with a slight twist on their pronunciation. Thus Picnic becomes Peekee Neekee. I cracked up the very first time that I heard it! We had our family peekee neekee this past Saturday. The day started early with a heavy rain but the rain stopped just in time for our fun to begin. We had 45 from the neighborhood that took part and we had a great time. Most of the day was free time but there were a couple of highlights. One was our " Family Challenge ". We divided into three teams, Alexandre gave each team a list and off we went to fill out the list. We were to get autographs from: a bald ...