who me?

Lucy was helping in the "garden" today. We've been pulling up all the old plants... mostly weeds. There's a big plant and flower sale going on, so we are going to try and put some new stuff in our flower box upstairs... maybe.

attack of the caterpillars

Does anyone know why all these crazy caterpillars have descended on our apartment and taken over our outside area?

copa davis

On Saturday I went to watch the Davis Cup where Brazil faced off with Sweden in tennis. I went with Matt and Kent Bailey, Russell Long and Ryan Morgan. Alan also got in but he had to sit on the other side of the make-shift stadium. Today there are more matches since several have been rained out. Brazil needs to win its final two matches to get past Sweden. For you tennis fans out there, Mats Wilander is now the coach of the Swedish team. We were probably there at the match for close to 4 hours or so and I got FRIED! I put on some sunscreen on my face and arms but I missed the insides of my forearms so you can see the line where the sunscreen stops and my legs are toast... probably the worse I can remember in a long time.

chico's blog

My teammate Chico Rodrigues recently shared on his blog about some friends of ours that recently joined the church. It's always amazing for some reason... that moment when they are up front and being baptized and talking about their decision to follow Christ. It's like their whole spiritual life just flashes before your eyes. We need that constant reminder, a reminder to make things new every day.

pete and repete

Yesterday after Braden's friends' day at school the teachers invited them to come back again and this time to bring their little brothers. So today Simon got up early with brother, put on some nice clothes and packed a snack for school. Ethan, Brian and Candace's oldest, also invited his little brother Andrew to go. So all of them went to school today.

Braden really enjoyed his visit yesterday. He told us all about the playground, art class, and storytime. He mentioned that he had music class and that he sang the same song over and over, but didn't want to talk too much about that. It clearly wasn't the highlight for him. We'll see how things go for Simon today. Amy said he was in a fight over a ball already within the first few minutes of arriving. But so far no calls from the school, so that has to be good.

school visit

After a late night partying at our friend Gisele's birthday, Braden visited a school here in Belo with his friend Duncan this morning bright and early. He was so excited last night. Before he went to sleep he kept double- checking to make sure we knew what to pack for his snack. He gets home in just a few minutes. We can't wait to hear what he thought of the experience.

lottery coincidences

As many of you may remember last year I wrote my first novel. I didn't have a plan going into the book just a main character in mind, a young man working at a small town newspaper (obviously based on my experience at the Post-Searchlight). In the novel a man named Chason Hemmings "wins" the lottery... a man from White Purchase, GA (based heavily on Bainbridge). The story unfolds as the main character looks into the winnings of the small town city manager.

On September 16th a man named Ben Chason from Bainbridge, GA actually won the lottery. I couldn't believe it win I first heard someone from Bainbridge actually won the lottery and then I about flipped out when I found out his name was Chason. I just hope that the similarities stop there. I can't say why... you'll have to read the book to find out.

graduate again

This past Friday we got all the graduates together again. The setting although common place here would be considered pretty different for someone in the States. We met on the veranda of Brian and Candace's new apartment. Even though it's only on the fourth floor it looks out over our neighborhood (they live fairly close to us). It's amazing to see all the lit windows scattered across the black sky.

We had around 40 attend Friday. Our focus was to get them thinking more about what fellowship will mean for them now that they are out of school. We did a little speed dating type set up, where the girls all sat in a straight line and the guys rotated from chair to chair staying one minute with each "date". But instead of the purposing being to find a new girlfriend, the purpose was for discussion. I made up about 20 questions or so about real fellowship and gave them to the girls to ask each guy. Afterwards Brian shared some encouragement for them from the word and we had some cake.

Pray that our time spent with the graduates could help them to continue towards maturity and could connect them with one another to provide the needed support for growth during this phase.

Lucy's 1st

Yesterday we had some fifty friends over to celebrate Lucy's first birthday! Amy made a huge cake with paper dolls on it (the middle one even had on a dress to match Lucy's). We decorated with pink balloons and streamers. And all the girls at the party wore pink and the boys wore red. Amy made some sugar cookies with L's on them and a pasta dish with chicken, spinach and white sauce. It was quite a treat. Happy Birthday Lucy! I must be hungry... all I talked about was the food.

Thanks everyone for coming by and for the presents. Lucy loved her new dresses, toys and bath bubbles.

Too see the pictures: follow this link. And follow this link to see a special page made up just for her.

chops on china

Several of our friends came over on Thursday for some barbecue pork chops (my new specialty). We decided to serve it on our fine china since we never get to use it. So there we were with our silver forks and greasy lips. It was quite a site because Brazilians are very neat. They even eat their Big Macs wrapped in a napkin.

Happy Birthday!

Our friend Aninha had a birthday this past week (Sept. 4th). Amy and Aninha have been studying the Bible together for the past year with some other friends. After their study they all got together for cake! Happy Birthday Aninha!

rain on the grill

Last Saturday (a week ago) we invited over all 55 graduates that have been involved with our campus ministry to talk about the future. It rained but it all turned out great. We had a good moment of thinking forward and trying to understand better our situation... this is pioneering-ground for us, a campus ministry trying to directly think and influence our graduates. All 55 are at varying stages in this transition phase. Some are in their last semester, many are unemployed and the rest are settling into their new jobs. This could be huge for the future of our ministry... as these few get their gospel feet up under them and go out into their multiple fields as transforming agents.

rough draft finished

Just before the clock struck 12 on Thursday night I typed in the final lines of my 2nd novel... rough draft of a novel. I haven't put in chapters yet, but after some time off I'll go back and do that. It's about basketball, kind of a typical underdog story. The final total of words was 55,576, which came out to 118 pages in Word.