Back to Brazilian Craziness

We made it back safe and sound to bombs, rain, humidity, and a plague of mosquitos…. But all these things we endure for the CHILDREN!

We have been back a little over three weeks now and we have been settling in and getting back onto a “normal” schedule. When we got in we came home to our house in the favela we quickly realized it was completely mosquito infested! We spent the first two days cleaning and getting our house back in order. We went grocery shopping and unpacked all the goodies our friends and family helped us obtain while we were in the US. Among those things was a screen, which we installed on the two windows in our room. We also installed the privacy stained glass window clings so the kids can’t hang on our fence and watch us.

We were welcomed with a party in our house along with a visiting priest from the Community of St. John. Lots of people came out and we were finally back in the mix of things.

The second Sunday we were here we had seven baptisms at church! With only about 50-60 members, that grew our congregation quite a bit! See the photos below – it was a grace filled event with so many new members to our small church here in Alto.

Although there are droughts in Sao Paulo here in Brazil, there has been no shortage of rain in Salvador. There hasn’t been ONE day here where there hasn’t been some rain and several times there were flash floods. See the video below of the rain while we were in church. Some other favelas here in Brazil have been washed away. Since favelas are often built on hills, when one structure washes away it knocks into others and it is like a domino effect and an entire favela can become ruins rather quickly. We are at the bottom of our favela, which could be scary, except our house is pretty structurally sound and so is our neighbors so that should help us with all this rain. Some locals told us it's the worst rain in 20 years -- which would explain why the sideways rain is coming in our shutters! A few nights we were up all night soaking up the water from the floor.

The other US missionary here with us, Gabriela, left last week. She has been here for a year and her time of service is up. This is very sad because she was fluent in Portuguese and a huge help with the children. In the traditional Brazilian fashion… we had a going away party for Gabriela (see below).

Also, this week Fr. Francis Therese, the priest in charge of our mission, left for at least 4 months or so (maybe forever!!!). This pushes us “into the deep” and will really challenge us. One of our English speaking Brazilian friends who helps out here, Gabriel, is also away (in France) and will be gone another two weeks. We are on our own in our little favela. Now, please pray for the grace for it to work!

Thanks to all of you for your support. We really appreciate it and are so happy to be back in Brazil!