Busy, Busy Catch Up Post

Soccer, fire, Florida team, a hurricane, Monte Verde, more leaks, a death of a fish, a dog, a broken laptop, and trips to Botucatu, Igaraçu do Tijetê, and Barra Bonita. It has been a busy several weeks and I got a little behind in posting, so let’s get caught up. Grab your coffee and a blanket.

So we will start with a fire. You could see and smell the smoke for miles. This fire was very close to our community and power was out for hours. Luckily, no one was hurt.

We said good-bye to Meredith, one of the interns, with a pizza and game night at our house.

We traveled to neighboring Bragança, which when we go is usually pretty chill, but this time it was busy with people and traffic in order to see this…

Our very first soccer game; Palmeiras verses Bragantios. It’s different down here as far as going to watch a game. Here you can go to Bragança in this smaller stadium or you can go to São Paulo and watch the same two teams in the big Corinthians Stadium. So we opted for Bragança.

Brazilians love soccer.

At one point, a player was hurt and an ambulance was sent to the field. Not knowing what was going on, Anna pulled up the TV coverage on her phone to get a better view. So we watched on the phone and on the field at the same time. The player was ok but it was kind of surreal.

Mrs. Sonia invited me to go with her ladies group to watch the movie Forged. It was dubbed so I didn’t understand a lot of the movie. Thankfully, I watched the trailer beforehand, since it’s an American movie, and had some idea about what the movie was about. But let me tell you, watching a dubbed movie is not for the faint of heart because when you’re trying to understand a foreign language and the mouth movements don’t match the sound it is extremely difficult. I wouldn’t recommend it. Subtitles, yes, dubbed no. Sonia’s friends were so sweet and talked slow so I could understand them better. Brazilians are the nicest people. All smiles and hugs. They want you to feel like family and these ladies made me feel very welcomed to be part of their group for the night, despite the language and age gap.

But the excitement started way before the movie did. Unfortunately, it was dark and pouring rain. Sonia and I rode with her friend, who almost hit a parked car and was inches from hitting a tree, all while still in Sonia’s driveway. After those moments, I started praying, Lord please let us get there safe. My “amen” was quickly followed by the sound of a boom and the force of us hitting something as we backed out into the street. There was a lot of fast Portuguese being said so I had no idea what was going on or what happened. The driver made a 360 degree turn in the car to see if she could see what she hit but didn’t see anything so she just left. No one got out of the car to check. It was the craziest thing. I just sat silent in the backseat as they discussed the events. When we got out at the movies, I checked the back of her car but didn’t see any damage where she might have hit anything. It made for an interesting evening.

We made plans for the Florida team to arrive and then Hurricane Milton arrived and the airports were shut down. So all plans were scraped and remade on the fly as we waited to see if the trip would still happen. With much prayer and some scheduling changes, most of the team was able to make it, once the airports opened back up.

Adjustments were made and the trip was a success. This group is from the same church that came in June. They got off the plane at 1:25am and they got to Vinde around 3:30am grabbed a couple hours sleep before they loaded up in a van to head to Monte Verde at 9am. They were troopers.

We partnered with a church there to help with their children’s event. The event was successful and the team liked the town and they definitely liked the town’s chocolate stores.

Since some team members were unable to make the trip due to the aftermath of the hurricane, the boys stepped up and filled in with some of the teams skits and activities.

Brazil has a holiday called Children’s Day, or Dia da Crianças. The actual holiday is October 12th, but events are held throughout the month. We postponed our event a week for the kids at Vinde so the Florida team could still be a part of it. The kids had a blast.

We made a few home visits to deliver food baskets and pray with the families. I find the home visits to be an excellent opportunity to love on the families and to get a glimpse into what it’s like for some of our kids.

The father in the top right picture is the dad of two of the boys that go to Vinde. These two precious boys have some serious anger issues and behavioral issues. The father and the older son were involved in a car accident in which the other driver died. Although, the accident was not the fault of the father, he has some post traumatic stress type issues stemming from it. He hears the man talking and screaming in his head. To make matters worse, the other driver was part of a gang. Fellow gang members know where this family lives and they drive by shooting shots in the air and taunting the family. The dad is worried about the safety of his family and is having problems keeping a job now. He is very emotional and it doesn’t take much to get him worked up. It makes it much easier to see why the boys behave the way they do. It helps me to extend grace and love. And, yes, I am very aware that they deserve grace regardless of their situation. I’m just being real about how it has effected my interaction with these boys.

Other times, home visits, give us an opportunity to love on the family and let them know that they are prayed for and cared about.

Once the team left, we were asked to pet sit, Lola, for a few days. Look at that face, how could we say no?

Lola was also Mason’s school buddy. Here she is teaching Mason how to learn geometry by osmosis.

It was bittersweet having a dog again, albeit, if for only a few days. Multiple times me and the boys called her Lewy or Bella. I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be but it was. The days passed and we dropped Lola back off with the owner.

Later that week, we found out that back home in Georgia, Simon, Tucker’s fish, died. What terrible timing.

There’s no rest for the weary, as they say, as Vinde camp was the following weekend. This camp was just for our older Vinde kids and they had a blast!

That weekend, Ms. Sonia and her husband Bartz, came over for dinner. She taught me how to make stroganoffe de carne and feijões. Sorry, I don‘t had any better pictures. This picture is actually of the leftovers. We were too busy chit chatting to take pics.

Plus, Trevor wasn’t in the best of moods, as earlier that day I broke his laptop. Actually, the cabinet door that came flying off the hinges landed on it, broke it but I’m sure he thinks I was being too rough opening the door. So that stinks. We are trying to get him a replacement laptop from the States soon but for now he is having to use Mason’s laptop.

Also, the dry season is over and we had a couple of rough storms. Normally, that wouldn’t be too bad, if only our roof didn’t leak. This time the storm was so rough, that it even leaked in Mason’s room, and all over his desk and computer. Luckily, his rain soaked laptop and Switch were fine but his mouse didn’t make it. So we moved his desk over to the other side of the room. We left some pans on the floor to catch any water while we’re not at home. It doesn’t leak every rain just when it’s heavy.

Then we packed up to head out to Botucatu, which is about 3 1/2 to 4 hours away, to help set up for a kickoff party for a new location. We passed through Mairiporã which has a pretty lake, if you want to get out on the water.

The weather did not cooperate with us during our drive. We saw some amazing cloud formations but they didn’t look the same in pictures. At times, we could barely see in front of us. But the storm passed and left behind some beautiful skies. We found out on the way that we would be staying at host homes. Trevor and I in one and Sarah and the boys in another. At first, I wasn’t happy with the split but it worked out great, as our hosts were quiet early risers like ourselves, and the boy’s host had kids so it made sense.

When we arrived in Botucato, we dropped off Sarah and the boys, the only good Portuguese speakers, at their host home and then headed to a random house in the middle of the night, to stay with a family we didn’t know, and that doesn’t speak English. But Brazilians are so hospitable. They gave us a gate opener and the code to their house and told us to make ourselves at home. Thank heavens for cellphones and translator apps.

The city is similar to our city, but with way more hills in town. I felt like we were in San Francisco with all the ups and downs.

The next day we went door to door canvassing the neighborhood in Vila Formosa, handing out invitations to the Festa da Dia da Crianças, which was happening the next day. I was a little skeptical because I didn’t feel like we were able to talk to a lot of the neighbors. We, also handed out flyers to parents at three of the nearby schools as the kids were released for the day. At the last school, which let out at 6:30pm, we didn’t have lots of interactions because a student was struck by a car in front of our car during the release. Thankfully, the student was fine but his leg was hurt. With it dark and so many kids walking the streets to get home and with all the cars and motorcycles everywhere on these tight streets, I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often.

After the events of the day it was time for dinner at 9pm, otherwise known as my bedtime. We tried to move it up to 8/8:30pm, but only half the table made it there by then.

Giovanny, took us to get fried pizza, which is their local specialty. Think more calzone, but with no pizza sauce and then fried. With our bellies full and our bodies tired, off to bed we went.

The next day we were up bright and early setting up for the event. The place where this Vinde is located was donated and needed a good cleaning.

The boys set to work cleaning the nasty bathrooms and shoveling cow patties, as this location is out and away from the city.

Trevor was in charge of changing out light bulbs as he needed no ladder to do so, and helping Giovanny move furniture around for set up. Me, Sarah, and Giovanny’s wife were in charge of the kitchen making popcorn, cotton candy, and hot dogs.

Despite the lack of initial enthusiasm, the event was a big success. We had nearly 100 kids show up with well over 200 people in attendance.

To start off, this location will start the program at 9 years old instead of 4 like at our location in Atibaia. But they hope to be able to quickly get their volunteers and infrastructure up to where they can registrar about 30 to 40 kids.

We were so beat after all the clean up was done, but it was a good kind of tired.

We said goodbye to our host families early the next morning. (I didn’t get a picture of us with our hosts Elton and Celia but trust me they were so nice and Celia is an amazing cook). We had a few stops to make before heading home.

First up, we stopped by Icaraçu do Tietê to see their “beach.”

Then we took a short walk to the dam.

And another short walk to the Gruta Nossa Senhora de Lourdes.

Giovanny encouraged us to drink the water but we all politely declined, except for Tucker, who has the more sensitive stomach of the bunch. Good grief. It was fresh flowing from the rocks so thankfully he didn’t get sick.

Of course, there was time for some root swinging.

Afterwards, we headed right down the road to Barra Bonita. It is a little tourist town along the main river, Tietê, which crosses the whole state of São Paulo. Interestingly enough, this river also flows northward instead of south towards the ocean. The river itself, is one of the most polluted in Brazil, especially around the city of São Paulo but water quality is better in this area. We still chose bottled drinks to water. Ship locks allow navigation and much cheaper transportation on the river, when compared to road transportation.

The city has a nautical theme and has many river boat tours; some included lunch in the price.

We didn’t have time for a 2 or 3 hour boat ride so we settled for lunch overlooking the river instead.

After a walk around town, we headed home with much better weather.

We passed by an Outback and stopped for their weekend rodízio, which consist of endless drinks and appetizers of ribs, wings, nachos, blooming onion petals, and cheese fries.

The boys were happy. We were full, excuse me, we were satisfeito, as they say here. It’s rude to say you’re full, as that refers to your bowels. Who knew? Well, us and you, now. Until next time, tchau.