Three months ago today we arrived in Porto Alegre, Brazil…our new home. I still remember as the plane hit the runway turning to Lucas and saying, “We’re home???”. We both had looks of exhaustion, relief, and sheer terror on our faces as the words “we’re home” sank in. Never in a million years did we ever think that we would be living in Brazil!!! Yet, here we are.

The last three months have been filled with so many adventures. We’ve had many bus adventures. We’ve had many mini-bus, I mean, Kombi adventures. (BTW, I think I could be a bus driver when we come home on furlough in a few years…) We’ve had many, many language barrier adventures. Even going to the grocery store has been an adventure!

We’ve experienced some serious bugs and lizards. The really uneasy part about that statement is…we ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

We became students…again.

We experienced christmas in shorts and new years at the beach.

We’ve experienced the realities of being more than a quick plane ride away from those we love…but I won’t get into that.

We’ve watched our children make friends without the ability to communicate with words.

We’ve watched God use our children to build bridges between us and our neighbors in a way that we couldn’t.

We’ve worshipped with Brazilians in their churches and in their language. Its beautiful.

There have been days when we have asked ourselves, “What are we doing here?!?!?!”. God continually reminds us the He brought us here. He has a reason for us being here. We just need to patiently wait and let Him reveal everything. He will do it in His time. He’s already done so much!!

So, when our break from language school is over, we will return to being students. We will continue to study this new language. We will wait and listen to God and let Him lead us. We will wait and let Him do His work and try not to get in the way.

We will continue to have more adventures, of that I am certain…

Happy new year!! This year started off great…with an invitation to go to the park with one of our neighbor families!! We have lived here for about 3 months now and have really only gotten to know the kids in this neighborhood. One boy, Lucas, is over quite often and we will have the occasional “Hi, how are you?” conversation with his parents. Yesterday, Lucas came over to swim and his dad, Jiro, came in and chatted for a little while(as much as our portuguese will allow). As he was leaving, he invited us to go to the park with the 3 of them for soccer and snacks. Once we figured out what he was saying, we said sure! (shortly after he left, we went back over the conversation to make sure we had understood and were really invited to go!)

Off to the park we went!! It was a great time. Lucas, Jiro, and the boys played soccer while Miriam and I set up the picnic. We were there for about 2 hours getting to know each other. We even talked about doing it more often when they return from vacation next week! They also said their son Lucas can spend the night at our house sometime! That is huge considering 2 months ago none of the kids parents would even let them come in our house to play! We are so grateful to finally have opportunity for some relationship building and potential ministry! It’s been way too long!

What’s in store for the rest of 2010? Of course, we don’t know. Lord willing we will finish language school, learn where God wants us to serve, where He wants us to live, continue to build relationships with our neighbors and see fruit, watch our kids grow in the Lord, and grow our relationships with the Lord. We just want to continue to seek the Lord’s will for our lives and make Him the Lord of our lives daily! For some reason, society tends to focus on the new year bringing new opportunities and a fresh start-new year’s resolutions. But, God’s Word says we have that each day!!

“Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” -Lamentations 3:22-23

Praise the Lord for that, right? Instead of new years resolutions, I am going to seek to make Christ the Lord of my life each day and look at each day as a new start. I mess up way too much to only start over once a year!! Praise the Lord for Lamentations 3:22-23.

Happy new year!!

We have officially celebrated our first Christmas in Brazil. I think it was a success. It was certainly different. This was our first Christmas ever without our families. We most certainly missed them! Christmas eve was particularly hard for me, but, we were praising the Lord for technology as we talked with everyone on Skype-I don’t know what I’d do without it! It was also different because the temperature was around 90 degrees-that is certainly new! It made it very difficult to get into the “christmas spirit”. To be honest, I was a little bit of a grump. The constant sweating and lack of relief (we don’t have air conditioning) was really getting to me. I’m not supposed to be this hot at Christmas unless I’m sitting by a fireplace drinking hot cider!!! Then I woke up on Christmas morning and God reminded me, “Excuse Me Teresa, but why are you so concerned with feeling the ‘christmas spirit’ and not concerned with making sure the birth of my Son is being celebrated in your house??”. It hit me like a ton of bricks. While its a bummer, its ok that our families are far away, its ok that we’re hot-that doesn’t change why we celebrate this holiday!! It was such an attitude check for me and the day totally changed. We had a great time reading the candy cane story by Max Lucado to the boys and having little talks about what Christmas is. It turned out to be a great day. We tried to celebrate like we did at home-lasagna for dinner, cinnamon rolls and hot cider for breakfast (yes, hot cider in 90 degree weather!!), the sweet treats our mom’s make every year. The boys didn’t skip a beat, they had a great day. We are soooo thankful that our container was released from customs to the boys could have their christmas gifts. Their grandmas and grandpas were so generous, the boys were so excited!!! Santa surprised us with a pool for our patio so we can have some relief from the heat (there aren’t public pools here), it has been a great blessing the last couple of days!!!

Yesterday we had our first brazilian visitors for the weekend. We have made some friends with some of the teens (age 14-25) in Gravatai, a city nearby where some missionary friends of our serve. Yesterday, 3 of them took the bus and came to our house for the day! It was so fun! We hung out and spoke lots of portuguese since they don’t speak english. It was really nice to entertain again, and we were right in our comfort zone with college age people(except for the no english part)!!! It made me get an itch to get language school done and get on with ministry!!! Next fall can’t get here soon enough!!

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