dorm-life again

Last week while in Campinas I stayed in the dorms with some of the students. Here's a picture to give you an idea of what I mean by Brazilian dorms. There are 220-something "dorms" about 3 kilometers from Unicamp. They are basically small houses with one bedroom, a common area, a small kitchen and a bathroom. The dorms were built in the late 80's and the spaces are limited to the more needy students. While there this summer (my winter) I hope that I can get to know many of the students and I am praying that we could see some good conversations about the gospel start up among the Brazilians and Americans.

bandeirante

The Bandeirante was one of the first, if not the first, all Brazilian-made planes. Many people in the States don't know that most of the world accepts Santos Dumont as the first man to fly. He was a Brazilian yet made most of his contributions to aviation development while living in France. Also, another interesting contribution of late by Brazil to aviation... they sent their first astronaut into space - Marcos Pontes in March this year. He performed some experiments on the International Space Station.

Embraer Air and Space Museum

Here's Lucas and Francival posing out front of the air and space museum. It's right next to the airport there in São José. Embraer builds planes for the military and some major airlines like Air Canada. I think they are the third largest producer behind Boeing and AirBus.

mexidão

How funny is this? I get the wild idea tonight to try and cook something. So, I cleaned out the refrigerator and called a friend (Emerson)... I did not want to risk it with too many people... I dumped everything into a wok... some kind of spaghetti dish with red sauce and eggs, a pasta with ham and cheese, rice, beans, one pork tenderloin, and two eggs. Ha ha ha. So I started out, stirred it around, poured some canola oil in (a little late... it stuck to the bottom). Then I tried to go for some flavor so I added Worcestershire sauce. But the more I cooked it the more the noodles and stuff lost its consistency. So I decided to take it off the stove and put it into the oven. I crumbled some fancy crackers that I found in the pantry and put a little butter on top to add some texture because it was kind of grossing me out. I tried cutting on the stove but it didnt light. The gas I guess built up so that when I went to light it again a small explosion of flames came out around my feet. It didnt burn me or anything just made me jump a little. It turned out pretty good. Anything though thats hot and has crackers on it is going to get eaten by two hungry guys though. Needless to say, I miss you Amy!

são josé dos puffs

Lucas and I at Francival's house complaining that he didn't get in the picture. And despite living in a neighborhood with three giant beanbag stores he still insists on keeping his traditional couch. Go figure.

awaiting answers

Lucas and I drove into Belo last night around 1030 p.m. On Friday we drove to São José dos Campos to visit my friend Francival. He moved to São José 10 months ago to study at ITA. He was invited by Embraer who is interested in hiring him after he finishes at ITA this year.

The house search went well. We saw practically every house available in Barão and then some. I made three offers on houses I thought were good possibilities and I heard back from one of the realtors already saying she is ready to work with us. It is my third option so I want to wait and hear back from the others first. Keep praying for God to provide us with a house and also for the team would receive their visas.

Baron Gerald

In just a few minutes a guy named Lucas and I will be in my car and on our way to Barão Geraldo (Baron Gerald), the small city just outside of Campinas where UNICAMP is. Lucas is going to visit his brother who studies there and I am going to try and arrange for housing for the short term team and for Amy and I. We have decided to stay the two months with them at Unicamp to get to know the city and the campus to consider whether it would be a potential place for future expansion. Also we hope that we can plant many seeds there with the students and connect them to the ministry in Belo Horizonte. Potentially two graduates or students from the ministry here will stay with us during this time and we hope many more can visit. On the 9th of June we also plan to invite the Brazilians we meet to return to Belo Horizonte for a retreat with us. Pray for my time there this week and that God would provide the needed housing close to the campus.

arrived

Just talked with Amy and she and the kids arrived safely and are at my parents right now. She said that the boys got to visit the cockpit on both flights (to Atlanta and to Tallahassee). Braden told me on the phone that he even got to flip some switches. If he did anything like he does in the car I am sure that when the pilot cranked up the plane at least the windshield wipers came on, the air was on high, etc... I am just glad he did not jettison any fuel or turn off any engines or anything.

layover

O.k., so Amy and the kids are sitting in São Paulo airport right now waiting for their flight to Atlanta. They will fly out around 11 p.m. tonight and then connect in Atlanta to Tallahassee. Amy is going to visit her sister Laura and her husband Trent. And especially she is going to meet their new son Trey. Please pray for Amy that the kids will not be too much trouble and that all the airport stuff would go smoothly. I will be working on her to do some more posts while she is in the States... we will see how that goes.

crazy eggs

We colored eggs on Monday with the kids (Lucy actually just gnawed on a plastic one). They loved dipping them down into the colors and putting stickers on them. We had to resort to using the stickers as band-aids though to hide all the cracks from dropping them.

breaking the bathroom

If you can hear that hammering in the background that's Lester in our guest bathroom tearing everything up. We are finally redoing our guest bathroom after almost 5 years in our apartment. The tub was poorly put in and leaked and didn't heat the water half the time (we don't have a central hot water heater). Hopefully they can finish in the 20-to-30-day range they promised. We'll send more pictures as it progresses.

"uneventful" in a good way

Our trip down to Campinas this time was uneventful, at least in the car department... no flat tires, no overheated engines (we did get Demps' car back in one piece). Chip Crooms, who will lead the team this summer*, liked the campus and thought it presented some great opportunities. Any place that serves 6,000 lunches a day to students under one roof is usually a good place for campus ministry.

We visited a few houses and "suites" (basically a hotel room in a house) to see what housing opportunities there are. I will go back down to try and secure something on the 17th of April.

A few prayer requests in the meantime: pray for Amy's trip to visit her sister, she leaves on Monday; pray for our church retreat Easter weekend; pray for my time with two small groups I meet with, that we could prepare for the busy summer and our time apart; and pray for the preparations for the short-term team in Campinas at the campus of Unicamp.

*I say summer here even though it will be our winter. And I realize that winter in Brazil is still summer for many that visit us from colder climates. 45º is the coldest I've ever experienced here... and that's cold when there's no heat in your home.