4 Year Update and BIG NEWS!

I can’t believe it has been almost four years since the last post. I can’t wait to fill you in on the BIG NEWS.

Without rehashing the past too much, Covid shut our trip down and sent us home, having visited 42 out of 50 states. We came home and life went on. We put the boys back in school, but we realized we hated being tied to a strict schedule. So after a year we pulled them back out and continued to homeschool. We did it on the road, we could certainly do it at home. Over the past four years, we have traveled to Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, and South Carolina; close familiar places, but nothing big. The housing market looked good so we sold our house, with the plan being to move in with my mom while we renovated Trevor’s grandmother’s house, which we had purchased, to live on a little farm. Well, after demo was done, we started wondering if being tied down to a farm and animals was what we really wanted.

So the renovations stopped and we starting brainstroming. We decided that while we were thinking, we would take another trip and try to get in at least some of the states we missed. A trip to Yellowstone was planned for the fall of 2022. Hotel reservations were all made and the route was set. The route would take us through Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorada, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, with the sites we wanted to see planned out along the way. Nothing was left but to pack and head out. What’s the Robert Burns’ quote? Something like – “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” That was the summer of 2022 when gas prices skyrocketed (and I mean really skyrocketed) and Yellowstone flooded. Reservations were cancelled and disappointment set in.

Amid the disappointment, I turned my attention back to homeschool. The boys were working on learning Spanish and a light bulb went off. We should learn via immersion. So I took to the internet looking for immersion programs. I settled on a 3 month program in Costa Rica. Sure it wouldn’t get us fluent but it would give us a jump start as well as a multicultural experience. Surely, this would be a much more fun way to learn. I presented my research to Trevor. Although he wasn’t against it, he wasn’t totally for it. He felt it needed tweaking. The little wheels in his head started turning. Stay with me, this thinking leads to the big news I promised.

Trevor felt that we needed to show our boys that not everyone in the world lives like we do in America. He wanted to instill in them the responsibility and value of service, which I am all for. His thought would be for us to move to Bolivia for a year and serve with a mission organization there. Service- check, Spanish- check, a different country- check. Also, the area we were considering is one we were at least familiar with, Trevor has been before and I have been a couple of times. It’s a very rural and extremely poor area. With our new plan, Trevor approached our friend, Kevin who runs MOYO Missions. Kevin was concerned with the drastic change in environment and lack of opportunities for our boys to flourish. Besides, they no longer operate a ministry at that location. His suggestion was for us to go to Brazil. They have a child sponsorship program in Brazil that we could help with and the transition would be easier for the boys as they would be around kids all the time instead of just weekends and sports camps in Bolvia. It is also a more developed nation.

Trevor and I took a fact-finding mission in September of 2023 to see if Brazil would be a good fit our family and if we would be a good fit for the Brazilian organization there. The organization serves at-risk children by way of an after school program that offers mentoring, Bible, tutoring, music, fun, etc and a meal. You’ll learn more about this wonderful organization as we go along. We would be serving as a family as volunteers, not missionaries there. We loved it. The people are so friendly. We got along well with the staff, interns, and their director. The town has a mix of rural and city so we felt it was a better fit for our family than Bolivia (at least for now; who knows with us). After a lot of discussion and prayer, we felt like this would be a wonderful opportunity for our kids to serve kids their age and to expose them to another culture.

So, the BIG NEWS is that we are moving to Atibaia, Brazil for a year!

Upon arriving home, we had a family meeting and talked to the boys about the plans. They were totally fine with it.

Tucker was fine until I dropped the bomb that Brazilian’s speak Portuguese and we would have to stop learning Spanish and start learning a brand new language. This, he wasn’t excited about.

Mason’s only concern was the dogs. We have two Boston Terriers that are like family. However, Boston’s are a brachycephalic breed, which means that they have short noses and their windpipes and nostrils are often narrowed causing less oxygen to be taken with each breath, which can lead to strain on the heart. Why do I tell you all this? Well, because this makes them high risk for flying. So high risk, that I can’t find a way to get them to Brazil with us. Boston’s are a restricted pet on most domestic flights and I couldn’t find any that would fly them internationally. I even contacted about a dozen international pet shipping companies to no avail.

We are now working on finding a foster family for them while we’re gone, which is harder than we thought. Sure people will take them short term but long term is a different story. We have a our fingers crossed and I am praying regularly that we can find someone who will foster them. No one in this family wants to get rid of our dogs permanently.

After we made sure things were good with the boys, we told our family. Some were excited, some were not. I’m hoping they come around.

The boys’ passport applications were completed in October and arrived in November. In December, we worked on getting all the paperwork gathered up for the visas, which was slow due to the holidays and a preplanned trip to Universal in Florida. But finally as of January 10th, the Brazilian Consulate has all our information in hand. Now we wait. The goal is to leave in March but it all depends on when the visas get approved.

As before, our Instagram account, of the same name, will be updated more frequently than the blog. If you read this for USA travel information don’t worry, we are already discussing travel plans for when we return. But for now and for the next year, the focus will be on travel and serving in Brazil.

Uma nova jornada começa.