“Mom, why did God have to call us to be missionaries?”

That was what Nathaniel said to me through his tears on Tuesday night after he said goodbye to his grandparents.

I wish I could say I had some great devotional answer for him about God’s call to missionaries.  I wish I could say I shared great examples of how God has already used us in the lives of people here in Brazil.

I had neither.

I don’t know why God called us to be missionaries.

In all honesty, sometimes I wish He hadn’t called us to be missionaries.

Its hard to be away from family and friends. Its hard to be a foreigner.  But God never promised our lives serving Him would be easy, did He?

(I know, that’s super honest.  But, when I started this blog, I made a promise to always be honest.)

So, I shared with him the verse that God has used over and over and over in my life over the last 3 years.  The verse that my dear friend had engraved on a bracelet for me that I wear everyday.

Psalm 18:30

“As for God, His way is perfect.”

I may not know the “whys” of things.  I may not always like the “extras” that come along with God’s call for our life. But I DO know that…

“As for God, His way is perfect.”

He promises me that.  He promises that no matter where He has me living, no matter what He has me doing, no matter how much I don’t understand…

“As for God, His way is perfect.”

God wants us here.  God has a plan for us HERE.  We don’t know what it is yet, but we know that if we walk with Him, He will lead us to fulfill His plan for our lives here.  If we walk in the Spirit and allow Him to lead us, He will use us.

God’s plan for us right now is to be in Gravataí, Brazil.  And His plan is PERFECT.

In that I can have confidence.

In that I can rest.

It is in that I pray Nathaniel will find rest and confidence.

It is an awesome truth.

“As for God, His way is perfect.”

We knew today was going to be a little emotional, but it has ended up being a little rougher than we expected.

Saturday, Julia left to go back to the States after living with us for a year. The boys were crushed.

Early this morning, Grandma and Papa Bair left to go back to the States after a crazy 2 week visit (More about their visit in another post).  The boys were crushed, again.

Yesterday, I introduced you to Cenourinha.

Today, she is no longer our dog.

Talk about adding sadness to an already sad day, actually, sad week!

Here’s what happened…

Last night we let her sleep on the floor next to our bed on Lucas’s side. This morning, Nathaniel came in our room and she growled at him. A few minutes later when he went to pet her, she bit him!

As the morning went on, everytime she was near Lucas, she growled at the kids.  That’s just not cool.

So, we had a decision to make.  It was an obvious one, but difficult because we knew how the boys would feel.

She has been returned to the streets where she came from…just in a different part of town so she can’t come back to us.

The boys are, needless to say, devastated.  One rough event on top of the other.  Please pray for them.

We had already been contemplating a puppy for the boys for Christmas.

Maybe Christmas will have to come a little early this year…

We’ve been adopted. I think the standard way of getting a new dog is to go to the rescue league, pet store, or breeder, pick out a dog and take it home.

Not so for the Bair family.

Meet Cenourinha.

3 weeks ago we came home, opened our gate, and out of our garage came this dog.  She was wagging her tail as if saying, “Oh yea! You’re finally home!”. She acted as if she had been living with us for years, yet we had never seen her before.

A couple of days went by, and she continued to let herself in and out of our gate (she’s small enough to fit through the slats).  She even let herself out to go to the bathroom!

Soon enough, the boys had named her Cenourinha, which means little carrot in portuguese.

Well, Cenourinha has made herself at home.  She barks at any visitors until we let her know they’re ok.  She does not let any other dogs even come close to entering our garage.  She loves the kids, especially playing tug of war with them.  The neighbor kids have even started asking if she can come out and play on the street with them!

She is definitely not your run of the mill street dog.  I wouldn’t expect anything else for this family. Of course we would have a dog that chased a cat into a tree…and climbed 8 feet into the tree herself to get it!! She is definitely an escape artist and finds ways to get through the gate, despite extra fencing and being chained up.

I guess you can take the dog out of the street, but you can’t take the street out of the dog!

Anyway, who could resist this cute little face?