it's saturday!!!!!!

Well it's Saturday morning and we slept in. It felt wonderful. I think at some point we even had some children laying on us but they eventually gave up and moved on to cartoons. (We get 2 cartoon channels in English which has been pretty nice.)

Last night we had Sara and Anna come over for dinner. They arrived this week from the US. They will live here for about 3 months before moving on to their cities and are with IMB as well. It was really good to hang out with them again and catch up.

The boys talked ninety to nothing all night. When they have an audience of English speakers they rarely hurt for words! :) Sara and Anna (or Anna Caye as she's known back home) have even offered to watch the boys one night so Mike and I can go out.. Mike and I will get a DATE!!!

Tomorrow we are gonna visit a couple of different churches in different neighborhoods and practice some more of our seriously lacking language skills! ;) The boys start school Monday so please pray pray pray!!! We are hoping it all goes well and that they melt into everything very smoothly. Pray for them each to make friends easily even through the language barriers. Pray that they will start to feel more at ease here in a country that is so far away from all they know. They have amazed us so far. (JohnMark especially...he gets 6-7 calls a day from kids asking to play.)

Life gets easier down here for us each and every day. We are beginning to relax and just be more at ease with the simple things that life hands us. We do know that Satan is still prowling around though and would love to trip things up for us. Sometimes it seems he rears his ugly head right when things are going perfect. So please continue to pray against this! Pray that we'll continue to adjust with ease and pray for family missing us back home.


For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12

things I'm learning

• a pot roast is cheaper than a spiral notebook
• coffee filters don't really filter the tap water...if you know what I mean
• Google Translate is becoming a very good friend to me
• my kids are better at meeting Brazilians than I am
  
• it doesn't take language to play (hence the last point)
• hanging clothes up to dry makes them really CRUNCHY...as Jayden likes to say
• toilet paper in the US is WAY under appreciated
• making the nasal ão sound in Portuguese words might be the hardest thing I've ever done
• 13th floor breezes can be very refreshing but also very gusty
• stop signs don't really mean stop...they just mean pause briefly or you'll cause a pile up

to be continued...

nosso apartamento

Tiago...the monkey whisperer

We spent some time with avô and avó today! These are our very close friends that we met during our time in Virginia. They lived in the quad with us and we got really close to them. WE LOVE THEM and are so grateful they are making this time of transition easier for the boys. Today they went with us to get ice cream and took us to the park next to their house to show us the monkeys. Avô has some serious skills when it comes to monkeys. He brought a banana and the monkeys came right up to him and ate out of his hand. He even got the monkeys to eat out of the boy's hands.

Don't worry GRANDMA BECKY...the boy's rabies shots are up to date. :)

one funny story

before I head to bed....EXHAUSTED! :)

Tonight we had plans to eat dinner with a couple from the states that go to language school with us. Don and Marie have been here several months and know the ropes to things much better than we do. They wanted to take us to a pizzeria so we made plans to meet at 7:00. As we drove our FIXED car (not the kombi) to meet them we were making a turn and noticed large billows of smoke coming from the front of our car and coming into our car! (Actually several cars around us were also motioning to us that they, too, noticed the smoke coming out of our car) We quickly pulled over and I ushered the kids out of the car as quickly as I could and into a grassy area nearby. Mike tried to push the car over a bit more out of the road! We called the sweet couple we were about to meet and asked them for assistance.

Long story short...we are back in the KOMBI!!! The kids are so excited. They sang all the way to the pizzeria!

the kombi

What a day we've had...and it's only afternoon!!!
We started off going to visit our new schools and meeting our teachers. Everyone was speaking in Portuguese except for a few of us newbies and it was a bit of a whirlwind! I LOVED IT!!!
We then drove over to the kids school. Two of the boys were with me and Jackson was with Mike. Mike drove the school's VW kombi all day because our car is in the shop getting the AC fixed. I found this picture of one online but I think it might be a nicer version than the one we got to drive. I wish you guys could have seen us be-bopping around the streets in this sweet machine. Wouldn't a peace sign look really nice on the side of this beauty!?!



Anyway...back to the kid's schools. In my mind the teachers at their school spoke a little English yet everyone we met today only spoke Portuguese...hmm! We've told the kids to have some fun with all of this and not get stressed. They seem to be taking us up on the advice so far. The school has a garden with vegetables growing tall and several roosters. There is a robotics room and a really cool science lab. They offer judo class and a circus class. (not your typical school, aye)

We went to the McDonalds we discovered at the mall and decided to splurge for the boys. (VERY pricey down here) Thankfully the manager spoke a little English and could understand our order. The 30 people around us stared and laughed through the whole process. I just smiled at them feeling like a 5 year old. After sitting down to eat, Jackson spilled his drink and we started freaking out a bit. We had no idea how to go and get napkins from someone. Thankfully the guy sitting next to us spoke English and helped Mike learn to say, "I need more napkins." The man was wonderful. He talked with us for a very long time. We plan to meet up with him again.
All in all...it's been a weird day but we've accomplished getting gas in a vehicle without help, ordering food by ourselves, returning a faulty coffee maker (with a translator), and finding our apartment building from a new route! I think we'll sleep well tonight! We're definitely not in "Kansas" anymore!!!

off we go...

getting everything checked in

they wouldn't accept Jayden as checked baggage so we had to carry him on!

Robert and Cheri surprised us at the airport to send us off!
Here we are before our last goodbye to everyone.

getting settled in for a long haul

AND...we're here now safe and sound!!! We live on the 13th floor of a really nice apt. I'll post pictures of the rooms soon! It's really hot but we have a nice breeze that flows through the whole apartment. More later...

Almost Finished!

4 more days...

I've been going through so much of our stuff while trying to pack. I keep getting distracted with the strangest things. I sit and just look at old pictures or read old greeting cards I've saved in boxes.
I came across an old church newsletter that was sent out by Buck Run Baptist Church back in 2001. God had just begun the work in our hearts for a desire to do overseas missions. The newsletter was written by our pastor at the time, Robert Jackson, who now serves in Alabama. He played such a pivotal role in our decision to surrender to full-time Christian service.
Listen to what he wrote in the July 19, 2001 edition of the Forerunner.

Mike and Rebecca need our prayers as they seek God's guidance about the future of his position at Toyota, their lovely home in Georgetown, getting started in the Seminary, etc. As we pledge and give our love, prayers and support to them, let's watch our Lord do the remarkable in their lives. Every step of faith they now make will elicit the matchless grace of Jesus Christ for their lives and for every circumstance they encounter. As we watch in amazement at God's repeated intervention in their new journey, it will be an inspiration to our hearts just to revel in the faithfulness of the Father and be able to say, "There He goes again!"

As I read over these words...I just kept thinking how so many of the words he spoke way back then had come to fruition. God had taken care of Mike's job at Toyota when the boss allowed him to take Monday's off so he could go to seminary classes. God stepped in and sold our house during the time when the market was just awful. God's grace has been truly evident in our lives through all of these circumstances. His "repeated intervention in our journey" couldn't be more evident!

Yet I know this is just the beginning. I can't wait to see what He's going to do over the next few years. It's going to be an amazing journey for sure. There will be hard times and there will be joyous times. Refining always takes both of course. The five of us will come out of this journey different...changed I'm sure!

As Bro. Bob wrote...
If we simply make Him Lord of our lives and surrender our all (time, talents, tongue, treasure, and temple) to Him, we will see Him unleash His amazing, marvelous power on our behalf.

See HIS good works and marvel guys!!! Pray that I can take a backseat to what it is that HE is doing so that people will see HIM and not see me at all.

I have been completely overwhelmed by the kindness of everyone. Mike forwarded all the emails you have sent and I just sat and cried. Many of you have written to encourage the boys, offered to help sell our van and told us of your continual daily intercession! I just can't tell you how much that means to us right now. We know that without your prayers, we will fall on our faces...so thank you!

I'm sick!

I've spent the last week in a complete state of YUCK!

I don't know if I have swine flu, H1N1, bronchitis, or just the regular flu but I am sick!!!
This was supposed to be a week of packing but the only thing I've accomplished is uploading pictures of my kids dressed like chipmunks on facebook and walking around in a trance. That's it. FOR THE WHOLE WEEK...THAT IS ALL I'VE ACCOMPLISHED.
I've taken more medication this week than I've taken in the past 8 years combined. I've coughed so much that my voice is gone.

Mike says I sound like the guy from Slingblade.

My biggest concern is that after I'm well, Mike and the kids are going to come down with it. We leave 2 weeks from tomorrow so I'm kind of hoping if they are going to get it that they get it NOW!

And not to complain TOO much in one posting, but, I also lost my cell phone! The same old decrepit cell phone I've had for the past 3 years that had every phone number known to man programmed in it is missing! We were supposed to get new phones in Brazil so I guess it's not the end of the world but if you've been calling me and not getting a response just know why. (pray I find it once I'm well and my brain starts working again.)

And since I know you, too, want to see my kids in 2004 when they were dressed as Alvin and the Chipmunks...