A Week in the Life of a Team

Go grab a cup of coffee and get comfy for this post. There’s some good stuff in here. We are well into the semester now. Trevor and I have been working on photos for Moyo child sponsorship and putting all the new Imperial location kids into the system. No need to bore you with a picture of us sitting at a computer doing so.

English classes are going well. Mason is a huge help translating when I can’t find the words. He also taught the class when I had to go to Campinas with Tucker and Sarah for more visa paperwork stuff. He did an amazing job. Mason and I were also in charge of devotionals one week. We taught on how we are made in the image of God and what that means for us, how it affects our daily interactions with ourselves and others, how we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and how God knew us before we were even born. The kiddos loved seeing baby pictures and trying to guess who each was.

April brought another Moyo team. This time the team was from Buford with a bunch of high school students.

Ever wonder what it’s like to come on a mission trip here or on a mission trip anywhere? Well, they’re all different. Each group is different, their talents, their heart, their personalities. And sometimes we have different events happening and teams come to help with those.

Here’s a glimpse of what a week long trip here looks like.

If you’re coming from Georgia on a direct flight, it will take you about 9 hours. There’s a morning flight and an overnight flight. This team left late Friday night and arrived Saturday morning. We pick you up at the airport, load the luggage, and the team gets into the van. We provide you with water and a snack, and you try not to fall asleep on the hour long ride to the property.

You unload your stuff, get your room assignments, put your bags in your room, and head straight back for lunch and orientation.

This team wanted to have a soccer tournament for the kids, so we prepared for that by inviting the kids and their families. With this being Brazil, soccer, and a tournament, kids started showing up 30-45 minutes early. Tucker helped Liandro pick the teams and with translating. The winning team was awarded large Hershey bars and couldn’t have been happier.

These kids love soccer.

They feel all the feels on the field. Big wins. Big loses.

This pic of Tuck made Trevor think of a pic he had seen on a meme. Pretty close. I’m dying. Ha!

While the kids were playing soccer, Marcella and I were in the kitchen making some chocolate cake, lots of chocolate cake. We are having some issues with our oven on property, and well, lets just say that the frist cake burnt to a crisp in less than ten minutes. It was trashed and we started over making five more. No worries. We watched the next ones like a hawk and they turned out great.

During the middle of the tournament, we took a break and Matt, the Youth Pastor, used an Eball (evagaball) to present the gospel to the kids and parents.

After the tournament, the team got cleaned up and we headed out for dinner and açaí. Mason and Tucker helped with translating and ordering. Then back to property for something called Stretched and Blessed. This is a time when each team member talks about one thing that stretched them and one thing that blessed them. Then bedtime.

Sunday morning starts with breakfast and then church.

After church and Sunday school, we head back for lunch. With bellies full, we clean up the kitchen and rest until 2, when it’s time for home visits.

The team visits the homes of some of our kiddos, delivers food baskets to them, and gets to pray with and for these families. This is also when child sponsors can meet their sponsor child and family. Such a precious time.

This is the reality for many of our kids in the program.

But they love to welcome us into their homes.

After home visits, we have Sunday evening church service on property. Dinner, stretched and blessed, and bed follow.

Monday starts off with a trip to a local coffee shop for breakfast and where we go over the week’s service schedule. Then we go to the store to grab any snacks the team might want or for goodies to hand out to the kids. Then back on property to prepare for the arriving kiddos.

The team hangs out with the kids before the formal introductions of the group are made and kids flock to them. Sometimes it’s hard because you don’t know the language but the kids don’t care. Just smile, play, and pay attention to them and you’ll make a friend before the week is up.

After praying over our meal, the team serves lunch to the kids, and then the seemingly never ending task of dish washing begins. But the team jumped in with big smiles.

The next two hours are the highlight of each day of the team. They get to present their testimonies and their devotional for the day.

Moyo means heart in Swahili. This is what it’s all about. A heart for the kids’ spiritual needs, their physical needs, and their educational needs. All this is done by having a heart for God and a heart for people. We show our heart, our good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, with others so they may know God’s heart for them.

The team did an amazing job sharing their testimonies and devotionals at both locations. They worked hard prepping for this trip before they arrived and it showed.

This group was constantly praying too. Before every testimony, before every devotional, they prayed.

Each morning, the missionaries here give their testimonies to the team. It’s a great way to know who you serve with. They prayed over the staff. It was such a blessing to see everything bathed in prayer.

Everyday the team shares their stories of how they came to know Christ and how God changed their lives and then they present their devotionals.

What a beautiful thing to see kids worship, pray, and be in the Word of God. Planting and tending to seeds everyday.

Activity time follows devotionals. These activities are chosen and planned by the group based on their talents, gifts, and abilities, and it’s different for every group. The boys never complain when a group wants to play soccer. The kids loved making bracelets with the team a lot too. They wanted to skip free time to make more bracelets.

This team taught jiujitsu, played four corners; red light, green light; duck, duck, goose; and taught dancing.

The little girl in the pink pants above was having a really tough day. She had been in trouble many times already in the few short hours she had been there and didn’t want to participate in any activities. As a side note, she doesn’t care for me much. I’m not sure why but I’m ok with that. I understand not everyone likes everybody. So we have had a hard time connecting.(Another side note, there’s another little boy that really doesn’t like me; mainly because I have to discipline him a lot unfortunately). But today, she and I had a bonding moment. Eduardo had told her to sit at the table away from the group; a fact that I was unaware of at the time. I approached her and she rolled her eyes. But I prayed as I walked over. I started to talk, surprisingly she slowly started listening. We talked about how she’s a great kid but sometimes she doesn’t do the right thing, sometimes she makes bad choices; just as I do. We talked about the rules we have at Vinde and I asked her which ones she had broken today. We talked about her knowing it was wrong to break them. We talked about deciding not to do them again. We talked about turning from that rule breaking and rejoining the group. It was empathy. She now knew that I mess up too just like she does and she knew that when we do we are still loved. We talked about sin, repentance, and forgiveness, all without using those churchy words; just simple things. She was ready to rejoin the group but said she couldn’t because Eduardo told her stay at the table (she didn’t want to disobey again). I assured her it was ok and that I would talk with Eduardo (which I did). She was a bit nervous about learning the Macarena. There are a lot of hand motions and she struggles in school with processing some information. So I started being silly and moving her arms for her and a large smile spread across her face. She felt safe. She felt loved. She was having fun. I couldn’t help but smile too.

Then hora do livre, also known as the kid’s favorite time; free time. This is the time for play. This is when you play hide and seek or tag or play in the sand or at the park. This is when you get to just love on the kiddos and show them you’re glad to be there, you’re glad God made them.

These are the sweet faces we serve. Many of which have very difficult home lives; heartbreaking home lives. But they come here and know that there are people who care about them and a God that loves them.

The new suites were finished right before the team arrived. So we have breakfast in the back now at our awesome new table. Each morning we go over the day’s schedule and address any questions.

Besides working with the kids, this team helped paint the building we are remodeling at the Imperial location.

We can’t wait to get into that space.

The work was hard but they never complained despite the ruined clothes and being drenched in sweat. They just worked and smiled. What a great bunch of young people.

And so the week goes. Except for these two. Liandro, the coordinator at the main location, received his black belt in jujitsu this past year. Jacob and Liandro decided to have a little match for the kids. I wasn’t there to know first hand what happened, and depending on which of these two you ask, the story changes a bit but Liandro was out most of the week with bruised ribs. This was a running joke all week long. Liandro has a great sense of humor, which helped him bare all the teasing from us, the team, and his family.

One night we had a dinner with all the staff/daily volunteers, and the team. It was great.

I don’t have lots of pictures of Trevor because he is usually somewhere else doing what needs to be done and making things happen. He truly has a servant’s heart. I don’t think people, even family, really realize how much he does because he quietly does it in the background without want or need of recognition. He is invaluable to our family.

We did stretched and blessed together and ended the night with s’mores and a bonfire. Things were harmless until Tuck found a frog and decided to show it to Marcella and Giovanna to scare them. That lead to Sarah trying to set it free, except the frog decided to jump, instead from the frisbee to freedom, into the fire. RIP Frog, RIP.

These students not only had a heart for service but a heart for our kids. Four of them sponsored kids before they left.

This team member even got to meet and pray with the mom before leaving. How wonderful!

What joy it brought to both, the team members and the kids.

To hug them, to pray with them was amazing. Sarah explained to them what sponsorship meant and the kids were so loving.

Most times the kids don’t know their sponsors personally or they are sponsored after the team returns home, but this time the kids now have a face, a memory, a friendship with their sponsors and the sponsor has the knowledge of the love and joy of their precious sponsored child. This creates beautiful bonds.

The kids ask about their sponsors. So if you’re a sponsor please remember, not just your financial commitment, but more importantly your commitment to pray for your sponsored child and their family. They remember you, please remember them. I think this group will.

Usually the last night before the team goes home, we take them to a Brazilian steakhouse; the kind where they just keep bringing different cuts of meat on spits the whole time you’re there and the famous fried bananas and grilled pineapple. We prepare dinners for them every night during the week, but this is usually a extra fun time for the team.

Like I said, each team is different, so each trip is different but at least you kind of have a little bit better idea of how the week goes when they’re here….hopefully.

Eli was here taking pictures but he is also training for the Boston Marathon coming up and he found out Tuck likes to run, so Eli took him on one of his runs. Tuck was stoked. I think he found a hero.

When we drop this team off at the airport, we are picking up some special people. We can’t wait to spend time with them. But that’s for the next post.