Home Sweet Home

Well, I am finally back on American soil, although I think I left my heart in Brazil. (Not to mention one of my suitcases.) To make a long story short, one of my suitcases didn't make it on my plane from Brasilia to Sao Paulo, so it is still somewhere in Brazil, hopefully on the way home to me via snail mail. We'll see how long it is before I view the contents of that suitcase again!

Other than that small fiasco, my trip was amazing. Thank you for all of your prayers. They were surely felt! My passion for missions has been renewed, and I also believe my call has been reaffirmed, so I am now praying for God's will in my future ministry. I can't wait to see what He has in store!

When I have recovered more from jet lag, I promise I will get around to posting some pictures! Until then....

Coming Home

Sorry, gente, that I have not posted as much as I planned to while in Brasil. I kept hoping to be able to post some pictures from the trip to my blog while I was in Salvador, but my first attempt failed, and then I never got around to trying again until the last weekend when I could not because the Internet was down at Randy and Jenn´s apartment!

Anyway, my stay in Salvador was WONDERFUL!!!! I did not want to leave. I have been gone less than twenty-four hours as of right now and already I am dying of saudades (not a good translation in English...basically I miss my friends really bad!). I had a great time catching up with the team and hanging out with them. My two weeks there gave me a pretty good idea of what life is like for settling missionaries, and that is exactly what I had hoped to get out of my visit. Plus, the trips to the beach and neat restaurants and the Mercado Modelo were nice, too! I could definitely see myself spending more time in Salvador. I just hope that´s in the Lord´s plan for me too!

So, right now, I am killing time at my friend´s house in Brasilia until I can get on another plane to Sao Paulo to catch my overnight flight back to the States. I am sad to leave Brasil, but now that I have said goodbye to all of my friends, I am just ready to get home. And besides, when I get home, it will be time to move into my new place with Laura! I am very excited about that!

When I get home, I promise I will post some pictures from the trip. Until then, gente! Tchau!

Phase 2 of Brasil Trip

Greetings from Salvador!! The rest of the Highland mission team left Itu on Monday, and I arrived in Salvador last night. It is so hot here!! Too bad I left all those nice summer clothes at home....

The team was really glad to see me, and I think it's going to be a fun two weeks getting to catch up with them and checking out what the life of a new missionary is like. Randy says he does have a card reader on this laptop, so soon I hope to get pics of the mission trip posted.

Anyway, the last few days of the trip were really great. Marketplace ended beautifully, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it. The campers came back all fired up and full of the Spirit. Over the last three days of the campaign, we had eleven people baptized!!! Praise the Lord!! Eight of them were Brazilian teens, two of them were Brazilian adults (one the husband of a woman my mom studied with on our last campaign) and one was an American from our group, Andy Perkins. His story is especially sweet, but I'm running out of time for right now.

Please post some comments and let me know about what's going on in the good old U.S. of A! Miss you guys a lot!!!

More later.....

Brazil Update 2

We have survived two days of VBS so far!!! I am exhausted from being in charge and from trying to lead VBS in a foreign language, but all things considered, it is going really well. We went for four hours today, and it was a little too long. We had too much down time, and that was difficult because not every group had an interpretator. We decided to not go for as long tomorrow and see if that works better. Thank you for your prayers...I can definitely feel them. The Holy Spirit really is working because I am surprised at how much I can communicate with the children. Please pray for me especially tomorrow because I am going to close VBS by telling the story of the resurrection.

Hopefully by the time I get to Salvador, I will be able to post pictures here so you guys can see some of what went on before I actually get home. If not, I will share pics when I get back to the States.

Miss you guys a lot!!!! Keep praying for us....More later....

Brazil Update

Okay, everyone! I am typing on the world's most difficult keyboard and am paying for my Internet time, so this will be kind of short.

We made it safely to Brazil and immediately jumped into the work here. On Saturday, we had a gospel concert at the mall, and lots of people came to hear us. A few of them even came to church yesterday! Our church service was a very neat time of reconnecting with the Brazilian Christians we had met before, and after church we had a barbecue to visit with them more. Then we sent the campers off to camp, and I spent most of today with my VBS team shopping and setting up for VBS tomorrow. I am getting really excited about having those little kids show up tomorrow, but I am also a little nervous. Please pray for me tomorrow morning as I am going to kick off VBS by telling a Bible story in Portuguese. Also, please pray for my roommate...she is sick (cold or something) and right now is having to miss out on camp. ;(

I need to go get ready for our Fourth of July celebration at one of the elders' houses. Please post comments because I would love to hear from you! I miss you and love you all very much!

More updates to come.....thanks for your prayers!