Blumes in Brasil

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2012-02-14T20:21:00.001-02:00

Today was another hot day in Porto Alegre. It's 8:00 at night and still 88 degrees.

We just got home from taking the 3 smallest kids to a nearby swimming pool to cool off.

On the way home my girlfriend and Carys had a conversation. It was a bit one-sided really.

A little set up before we get to the conversation:

I've always wanted to have a big family. Always. I didn't come from a big family but I always wanted a bunch of kids. My girlfriend was the same way. Her family was not huge but she wanted a big family as well. She and I always talked about having 4 kids. It was never a discussion. I guess the day we started talking about it we both said we wanted 4. No discussion, just unity. To be honest, I don't even remember having a discussion. It's like God just wove that into our marriage thread and we both knew that's what we wanted. The desire for 4 kids was always there between us. Always.

So we weren't sad at all when God surprised us with baby number 5, surprised for a day or two because we thought we were done with but never upset, nor were we upset when we felt the Spirit telling us to have one more to round it out at 6. It just seemed right to continue growing our family.

There have been times since then were there have been conversations in our house about having one more and what that would be like. Not ever real serious conversations but "what if?" conversations.

Bronwyn is 100% against it. She said she will never know another baby or have a tight relationship with him/her. I can see her point. Ansley isn't really for it as well but she's never been as adamant as Bronwyn. Garrett has also 100% against it but he doesn't really count. Why? Because he's been embarrassed by the bigness of our family(even when we just had 4 kids) and our loudness. Us? Loud? Absurd! His biggest fear is that we all show up to one of his soccer games with big signs and scream his name. This petrifies him. We haven't done it yet but we will, we will. Anderson has always thought it would be cool to have one more so that we could have our own tv show. It would be called "Benay and Kevin Plus Seven." Kind of catchy.

Carys is our "one more baby" kid. She really wants us to have one more baby.

In two years she will turn 15. That's a HUGE deal for girls in Brasil. Big blowout birthday bashes for 15th birthdays.

She informed us the other day that instead of having a big party here she would love it, if it were possible, for us to all go to Disney World together. She went one time in her life but she was 2 and doesn't remember much.

Anyway, back to the pool conversation today, she and my girlfriend were leaving and this comment came out of her mouth, "I'll trade in going to Disney World if you and dad have one more baby."

So what do you guys think readers?

Disney World or one more baby?

I don't expect as many votes as American Idol but your help is needed. (And Bronwyn, Garrett and Grandmothers can't vote.)

P.S. The conversation really happened but the voting is not serious........or is it? Now you really don't know what to think do you?

Today

2012-02-12T21:18:00.001-02:00

Twenty four years ago today I asked my girlfriend to marry me. She said yes and became my permanent girlfriend. I am blessed.

Also this same day twenty four years ago we found out that my cousin and his wife lost their little boy Ryan. Feel free to pray for my cousin Andy and his wife Jeanne on this day as they remember their son.

This morning we awoke to an email from my parents letting us know that a friend of ours, LeDon, died last night from a heart attack. Please pray for his wife, Nita, and ask that she be able to feel God's peace and comfort in this terrible time.

A few hours after we read the email I got a call from my dad letting me know that my cousin, Vicki, had also died last night. Please pray for her family as they deal with this loss.

We had our first Disciple Making Movement meeting today with a small group in our house. We had a study and taught our brothers and sisters how easy it can be to reach out to our friends. We feel this is the best, most exciting thing that God has asked us to be a part of since we moved here almost 10 years ago.

Our brothers and sisters shared from their hearts today. Sharing requests, pains and blessings. Tears were shed. It wasn't always easy. We were family.

During our worship time, we got a phone call from a sister about a brother in Christ, a recovering drug addict, who had a moment of weakness last night. Another brother and myself went to his house this afternoon to remind him of the love that we have for him, to listen to his heart, and to remind him that we, as his family, are here to hold him accountable. It was a good, tough first step. Lots of mentoring and prayer to follow. Please pray for this man and his family and pray that he allows God to crush his addictions.

My girlfriend, Freitas and Auristela had a skype call with our new sponsoring church this afternoon during their worship time. I missed out on the call because of our visit mentioned above. It's the Monrovia church family in Huntsville, Alabama. We are encouraged by this body of believers who want to wrap their hands around this ministry and get their hands dirty with us. First visitors from this body of believers will be with us in May. We are blessed.

We got calls from Bronwyn, who thinks she broke her finger, and Ansley, who isn't feeling well.

It just turned 8:00 and I'm just sitting on the couch hanging out with Giovanni watching Veggie Tales. I don't have much energy to anything else.

God definitely did not make me to be a daily counselor. Days like today, spending the 1+ hour at our brother's house, wear me out mentally, and surprisingly physically, more so than any marathon I've run in. I don't know why but deep, heavy talks just wear me out. It's been that way since we moved here and I really don't ever see it changing.

God has given us strength to deal with everything today and that is exactly what He's promised right?

We'll let Him take care of our tomorrow.

We are part of God's family, warts and all. Sometimes it's pretty. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it just flows. Sometimes it feels like we only paddle upstream. Sometimes it's full of great joy. Other times it's full of great sadness. Sometimes we suffer and sometimes all we can do is praise and it feels like suffering is far away. We are learning to do all of it together. We are learning to be family.

I'm tired but it's what we call a "good tired" and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world right now or change my tiredness for anything.

Birthday Video

2012-02-10T15:05:00.000-02:00

You guys have probably already seen Ansley's birthday video that she made for my girlfriend and posted on her blog. If not why not? I've already told you before to regularly check out her blog and leave her encouraging comments. It's your homework remember?

If you haven't ever done it or if it's been awhile go ahead and do it now. Read her blog and leave her a comment. Go ahead, it's okay. I'll wait for you to come back. Just click here now to read her latest post.

Okay you guys back? Did you leave a comment? If so, you get an A. Nice job.

Now I wanted to show you the birthday video that she made and posted a couple of days ago.

Thanks Ans! You made her smile.

Birthday Girl-Choices

2012-02-09T10:14:00.003-02:00

Warning: Tons of birthday pictures and too much birthday information, listed below, for most of you. It's okay if you walk away now. Remember, we have two kids away from us on two different continents who missed being with their mom yesterday. The info overload is mainly for them. We won't be offended if you leave now and come back tomorrow.

For those of you who stayed....here we go.

We have a tradition in our family. Whoever has the birthday gets to choose what we do for the whole day. My girlfriend has the only summer birthday so kids are out of school and we have more free time so she literally gets to pick stuff for the whole day. As Anderson reminded her yesterday, "It's your day mom, you get to do whatever you want!"

One of the traditions we have is that the birthday person gets to have a special breakfast. This was picked out by Carys yesterday. Over the years she's had good big sister examples and yesterday she was super excited to do this on her own. On Tuesday we had to make a special trip to the grocery store to get what she needed. I was then instructed to wake her up at 6:30 yesterday morning so she could begin.

About an hour and a half later we were all enjoying her creations. As the kids brought the goodies in they sang happy birthday because Carys put some candles on three of the muffins. Benay got to enjoy breakfast in her BDAY QUEEN hat that Anderson made for her.

Carys made blueberry muffins, they were awesome and we killed them all.

Carys also started this thing.....

.....which turned into this.

Very cool right? Amazing how tangerines, blueberries, kiwis and bananas can turn into a tropical "edible" paradise. We killed this fruit plate as well.

Carys is our party nut. She loves them and she had breakfast planned for about a week.

Anderson then showed her our birthday blog about her.

And then she opened up some presents.

This is always fun but even more so with Giovanni around.

After all her hard work Carys needed to just chill for a little while.

My girlfriend then chose to just hang out with the kids and play. The big kids played Monopoly.....with loud outbursts of funny accusations of cheating.

The little dudes asked my girlfriend to play with play-doh.

She made this.

As this was going on she began receiving phone calls.

This happened throughout the day. The first came from my parents who have a tradition of calling on every person's birthday to sing happy birthday together. I wouldn't say they are ready for a record contract (sorry guys) but I will say that it's become a tradition and everyone waits for that singing call.

She literally had different people calling her just to wish her a happy birthday. She got to talk to Bronwyn and lots of our Brasilian friends and family. One of our favorite calls was our brother Elinton who called and said, "May God bless you with many more birthdays in your own country.......which is Brasil."

The last call she got was from her parents but they missed us as we were out eating supper.

She then got to talk to Ansley on skype.

Ansley prepared a birthday croissant complete with candles and sang happy birthday.

Throughout the day she also got several emails and notes of facebook wishing her a happy birthday.

She made the kids happy and chose hamburgers for lunch. No picture needed for that.

After lunch she chose to go swimming at a pool just down our street. It's close enough to walk.

She had fun getting to hang out, talk with a new friend and enjoy some "cool down" time with Quigs as it was again in the 90's yesterday.

The kids also got to hang out with their buds that they haven't seen since October.

We all came back, took showers and got ready to go to one of my girlfriends favorite restaurants. A pizzaria.

My girlfriend, her birthdays and pizzarias seem to be a common theme. Here were are a year ago, on her birthday, in São Paulo state (city of Tatuí if you want to look it up) with some of our best friends. You get the picture. My girlfriend LOVES pizzarias.

Anyway, we got there around 7:30. You need to understand that Brasilians eat late. When you go to a restaurant at 7:00 there is usually no one there. Here are a couple of pictures of our place at 8:00.

Here it is at 9:15.

Anyway, at our pizzarias they keep bringing pizza around. All kinds of pizza. You eat until you say stop and bring out the dessert pizza. So we tagged the regular pizza for a while. The cheese was, well, cheesy.

And then made a dent in the dessert pizza. Carys and Anderson wanted to take a couple of "rub it in" pictures just for Ansley who is our family ice cream freak.

We had a great time. Actually, the whole day was great.

We got home close to 10:00. Everyone stripped down (it was 90+ in our house) and got ready for bed.

After the kids got in bed I plopped down on the couch in front of a floor fan trying to stay cool. My girlfriend came over, gave me a little kiss and thanked me for her great day and then she went to bed.

After she went to bed I started thinking about how many people love my girlfriend, how many expressed that today and how cool it is to have family, real family, on two continents. All these people know what our family has always known. She is a special person.

Birthday Girl

2012-02-08T08:59:00.002-02:00

This is my girlfriend (holding one very cool little dude).

Yes, I know she's super cute. I've been telling you that for years. Today is her birthday.

If you don't know, our family is pretty fond of her.

We have a blog tradition on birthdays of allowing the rest of the family to share what the birthday person means to them. I'm blessed that our family loves each other, really loves each other, so on days like this it's easy to share our love for each other. No love is easier for us to share about than the love we all have for my girlfriend. She's pretty awesome.

Here we go:

Bronwyn: "Happy birthday mom!! Thank you for always being so helpful and for praying for me. Like this week with my exam. You called me before and after and helped me stay calm. I love you and I wish I could be there with you today!! (and it has nothing to do with the pizza) I love you!"

Ansley: "My mom has taught me more about showing compassion to EVERYONE than ANYONE else I have ever known. She has also shown me, especially in these last couple of years, what kind of mom I want to be like if I have kids- a mom that is sweet and always smiling, but that is also tough and expects a lot of her kids. A mom that doesn't cry when you leave home because she knows God has a plan for your life- a plan bigger than any plan she or dad could ever dream of for you. And, most importantly, a mom that teaches you that God loves you more than she ever could. Thank you mom, for literally being THE BEST MOM in the world. Driz bid driad. Dridz bziadrz. (Happy Birthday in the voice of "m"), I love you and miss you soooo much!"

Garrett: "Mom is the best mom in the world. She is sweet, and nice, and pretty and she always helps me with everything i need. And she always encourages me! And I love her so much!!"

Carys: "She is so pretty so smart and she is the the best mother i could ever wish for!"

Anderson: "She is the best mom in the world. I wouldn't trade her for the White House or anything in the world or in the universe. She makes the best food in the world. Especially the lasagna! Happy Birthday!"

Giovanni (as translated by Carys): "I love her so much she plays with me and takes me to the swimming pool.Happy birthday mom."

Me: "My girlfriend is my girlfriend. We've been married for almost 25 years and I find myself sneaking peeks at her beauty just like I did when we were dating. She's the most beautiful person I know. She is so beautiful on the outside. Everyone can see that so that's kind of a "duh" statement but she is even more beautiful on the inside. I love her inside beauty as much as I love her physical beauty. This sounds like a broken record for me when I share what I feel about her but she has shown and demonstrated to me more about grace and love and peace than anyone I know. I've seen people mistreat my wife, she keeps on loving them and giving grace to them and living peacefully in the Spirit. I've wanted to choke them and she always just wanted to be Jesus to them. To choke them with the love of Jesus. Her example has changed my life in how I treat people. She's also the most amazing mom and wife that I've ever seen. Just amazing. I know, and anyone else who knew me before I met her knows this as well, that I am a better person, Christian man, because of my girlfriend. That's just fact. I'm a better dad because of my girlfriend's example and advice over the years. I'm blessed because I know that all of our kids have a mom they can say is their role model. We all know how hard it is to say that in this day and age. My girlfriend prays with our kids, reads Bible stories with our kids, counsels our kids and, almost as important, laughs with our kids, is goofy with our kids and tries new things with our kids. She also knows how to discipline in a Christ like way. It's rare these days to find someone who can blend all of that the way Jesus wants. My girlfriend does it. The Jesus light that you see coming out of our kids comes from my girlfriend and her example. She is a super, super cool mom. I really love that she not only listens to the Spirit but follows Him when He says to do something. Think in your head right now, how many women do you know with 4 kids that would leave a very comfortable life in the U.S. and move to another country, with a different language, to live (not visit but live) and tell people about Jesus because the Spirit told them to do it? And then be willing to die in that country if the Spirit asks and/or to stay until the Spirit sends them back to the U.S. or even to another country? My girlfriend did it/is doing it. How many women do you know in their 40's with 5 kids try to get pregnant with a 6th because the Spirit tells us that we are supposed to have one more even though, we know, some people think it's nuts? My girlfriend did it. She listens to the Spirit and then she acts. Fear, staying in her comfort zone, traditions, whatever don't rule her life.....the Spirit does. As a Christian man, I can't tell how attractive that is. And, as you all know, she's my girlfriend. I can't stand being away from her for even a day and I would love it if God blessed us with 50 more anniversaries together. We'd be old, no teeth, maybe in diapers, maybe not remembering much of anything but I would be willing to bet that when I look into her eyes I would remember my love for my girlfriend because that love is, literally, a part of me. God has burned everything about her into my heart!"

Happy Birthday Benay!

In the Streets

2012-02-07T11:16:00.002-02:00

Last night I spent about three hours with two of my most favorite brothers in Christ. Their names are Elinton and Everton and they are part of our house church family.

Here is a picture or Elinton, with Everton in the background, right before Elinton baptized his mom last October.

You may or may not know but our house church is really involved with a drug and alcohol rehab facility just outside our city. It's a Christ centered, manual labor kind of place. It's way out in the country and it's rustic. We got to know about the place a few years ago through our teammate Matt and his friendship with our brother Paulo Renato who is a recovering alcoholic and spent time at this facility.

Our bond is deep with this facility because not only did Paulo Renato go there to allow God to heal him from his addiction but Elinton and Everton did as well. Through the years we've had many men worship, work and pray with us who were part of the same facility.

Alcohol, crack cocaine, cocaine, marijuana and others are some of the drugs that these guys have used in their past. They didn't all use all of those drugs. Some were addicted to only one, some more than one....you get the picture. They had addictions.

I share their past because they share with everyone. I'm impressed with how open they are about their past. I think I might be too proud to confess "everything." These guys aren't. I remember before we went to the states I asked Paulo if we could share that he had a relapse last year and was back at the facility to be freed once again from his alcohol addiction. He looked me in the eyes and said, "Please share because I need their prayers and they need to know that through those prayers God is going to heal me from this."

Last night as we were talking I said, "When you guys were addicted to......" and Elinton stopped me. He looked me in the eyes, put his hand on my shoulder, and said, "We are still addicts and we will always be addicts." They teach me so much. They know this battle will be for the rest of their lives. The battle to stay clean. They also know how important family is and how good our church family is at taking care of everybody.

Addictions and family. We all have our addictions. These guys have just realized the power there is in asking for help, being open about their weaknesses, having a support system and relying on God for healing. They are my family.

These guys want to see lives changed by the power of God and so last night we spent some time on the streets together.

Why? There is a brother (André) who recently left the drug/alcohol rehab facility and is living on the streets again because his family won't accept him back at home. Elinton and Everton know that if you live on the streets it's just a matter of time before you fall back into your addictions. So we hit some places where our brother told us he might be. As I type I am remembering five different places we went.

Places, to be quite honest, where I wasn't real comfortable. My girlfriend and I grew up in strong Christian homes. Had strong Christian families and friends. Neither one of us spent any time at all hanging out with cocaine addicts, prostitutes and alcoholics. We were in the middle of all of that last night.

As we all got out of the car to ask these people if they knew our brother there was an initial hesitation to share anything. They told me later that the people on the streets thought we were either the police or drug dealers and they did not want to give us any information. After we shared that we are a church family and we wanted to take care of him the information began to flow. We followed the information to lots of different places but came up empty.

The brother we were looking for has our numbers and as we said our goodbyes we all agreed to call the others if he reached out to us.

We aren't sure exactly what we are going to do when we get in touch with him. We are a small church family with not much money. We can't buy him a house or pay for monthly apartment rent and, honestly, he isn't asking us for that. He just wants help in finding a safe place to be. We want to do everything we can do to keep him off the streets to make sure he doesn't fall into those easy temptations again. We also want him to be a part of our church family. Family and addicts. Our group is both.

After we abandoned our search I confessed to the guys that I didn't have a warm fuzzy when we got out of the car and were in the middle of all the different kinds of people. I shared that I just have never spent much time doing that but that I wanted to. A little ashamed to admit it but these guys have taught me way more than I've ever taught them about being open and honest.

My confession led to a discussion. A discussion about how our small church family can minister to people on the streets. I said nothing. I just listened as the Spirit began to move in my brothers' hearts and gave them ideas of what a ministry like that would look like. In a matter of minutes we agreed to begin praying about how and what it would look like and where God would want us to start.

There are no easy solutions to this massive problem in our city but we have a group eager to rely on God to provide everything we need for this ministry.

I ask you to pray with us as we follow the Spirit's leading.

One time Elinton got out of the car to talk to someone about where we might find André. Everton and I stayed in the car. We began talking about his past addictions. You would be amazed at what his life was like before Jesus. I looked him in the eyes and said, "You are a miracle of God! You know that right?" He looked me in the eyes and, with a huge smile, said, "I absolutely know that brother."

We want more miracles like Everton, Elinton and Paulo Renato in our city. Pray with us that God just blows us away with opportunities for Him to heal.

Machado and Juliana

2012-02-06T09:37:00.001-02:00

We all have friends that we just love to be around. Thankfully, God has blessed us with many friends like that in Brasil and in the United States.

These guys are some of our best friends.

It's Machado, his wife Juliana and their kids Lucas and Lara.

We met Machado a few years ago when some friends of ours told us about a soccer school where Garrett could train. We took Garrett there. Machado was the coach and we immediately liked this guy.

We found out he and his wife used to live in the states. He liked to come over to us at practice and speak English to us. We liked that but what we really liked was the fact that he was a great coach for Garrett. We still like that as he is Garrett's personal coach (more on that later).

About 6 weeks after Garrett started at this soccer school, Machado left. Garrett stayed the year at the school but when the next year started he wanted to go somewhere else. We tracked Machado down and found out where he was coaching. Garrett wanted to go there and we were okay with that. Like we said, Machado is a great coach.

As our friendship grew we found out that he and his family lived about 3 minutes away from our house. About the time we found that out they moved to a city about 30 minutes away and he also took a job in that city as well. We helped them move and in the process of our friendship growing we got to meet the rest of his family. You can't help but love every one of them.

It always seemed that as our friendship grew the physical distance between us grew as well.

But a funny thing happened as they moved further away from us. Our friendship grew even stronger. We drove out to their house for a bar-b-que. They came to our house to eat or hang out. We call on them when we have a big purchase to make (like a new stove) because we know they will fight to get us the best price (Once our American accent comes out the prices has been known to jump up a little). Just last Friday Machado spent 2 hours walking the streets with me in 97 degree weather as he helped me look for the best price on a purchase we made.

They even invited us to drive to Uruguay with them to celebrate their 10 year anniversary. We drove to a duty free city to buy cheap things. We spent one night with them and came back so that Machado could go to work the next night. Did I mention that Machado is a great husband/dad who works his rear end off to provide for his family? He is and he does.

All of that to share that we look forward to being with them.

We have fun, laugh together, our kids play great together and, because of the fact that they lived in the states for a while, our conversations just flow smoothly between English and Portuguese. In fact, many of our sentences will be a combination of both languages.

We love these guys.

Last night they asked us to come to their house for a bar-b-que. We love going there because it's much quieter than here in the big city and it's nice to escape all the noise and movement at times. They have a yard and the kids always play soccer. They are laid back, like us, and we just enjoy our time together.

Yesterday the kids played in the pool while it rained.

Machado helped Giovanni work on his upper body strength. Apologies for the blurriness.

We ate, as always, an awesome bar-b-que (For Bronwyn and Ansley....we had picanha and chuleta)

We raised the trunk of our car and turned on the radio to listen to a soccer game between the two biggest teams in our city. We like one team and Machado likes the other. The kids liked hanging out in the trunk. The game ended, by the way, 2-2.

And then we did what we love to do when we go to their house. We moved the chairs to the front yard and hung out eating ice cream (sorry Ans).

The Brasilians have taught us Americans a lot about slowing down and just hanging out.

And we love just hanging out with our friends.

Scott Hamilton

2012-02-03T05:45:00.000-02:00

This week seems to be the week of me posting 8-10 minute videos so I'll continue with this video by Scott Hamilton.

Yesterday I was on facebook and I noticed that my cousin Jon liked and shared the video below. Another person said you need to get some kleenex if you watch it. They got me curious. I saw that it was an "I am Second" video and I've always loved listening to the testimonies on those videos. This one is from Scott Hamilton.

It's an amazing video about Scott's life and his faith walk. It's so worth 10 minutes of your time.

I promise that you will be blessed and encouraged and you might need that kleenex.

Interview

2012-02-02T08:09:00.000-02:00

This afternoon Ansley will have a scholarship interview (the Presidential Scholarship.....Yeah, I'm going to brag) with some people at ACU.

She's a little bit nervous about it and I know she would love to have your prayers for her today and during her interview.

Her interview time is 3:30 central time.

So read this and pray for her. When the Spirit puts her on your heart throughout the day pray for her. And if you remember at 3:30 central time that she will be in the middle of her skype interview then feel free to pray for her again. My girlfriend and I will be right there with you in prayer and I know Ansley will feel the Spirit's comfort through all the prayers.

Thanks, as always, in advance for praying.

And Ansley, during my run this morning I listened to your favorite artist and the song below and I thought you would love to hear it right now. And you even get the plus to hear Louie Giglio during it as well. Enjoy and be filled with God's peace as you get ready for the interview. You are going to do GREAT!

Furlough Video

2012-02-01T07:38:00.000-02:00

A little background story before we get to the video.....

About a month before we went to the states last year I asked Ansley if she would make a DVD for us to take with us to give to people who support our ministry and to show to different groups when we felt like it would be a good thing. I told her I would get some pictures together for her DVD and she could video as many people as she wanted and just splice the two together. She said she would do it and I asked if she could have it done by the end of September as we were leaving the middle of October (and she stayed here in POA for a few more weeks for those that remember).

Anyway, the first of October rolled around and the video wasn't done. Our first stop in the states was at a missions conference in Dallas. We were invited to be a part of the conference to look for a new sponsoring church as well as more financial support. We thought it would be a great opportunity to meet people and, if the Spirit led, give them information about who we are and what we do. My girlfriend, on the advice of MRN, made up a little one page, folded twice, brochure about everything in POA (who we are, about our church family and where we feel the Spirit leading our church family) and we thought a DVD could also be a good thing to put in peoples hands.

We also wanted to have it when we visited new church families as well as show to our closest friends and supporters.

The hard thing about furloughs is knowing when and how much to share about what we do. We realize not everyone wants to know that much about what we do and that's okay. We also realize that it's hard to show pictures of people here to people in the states and there be a "real" connection to what is going on here. We realize that the best way to really get involved here is to come here and work with us for a few days but we also realize that not everyone can do that. So we try to share only when the Spirit tells us to share and to zip it when He tells us to zip it. We, mainly me, don't always listen correctly but we try.

All of that to say we usually try to take something back (pictures and/or videos of our ministry, our brothers and sisters, our lives here) to show those that are interested.

So we are getting closer to the date to leave and I ask Ansley why the DVD isn't done. My tone set the tone and this leads to a lovely dad-daughter discussion (sorry Ans!). I'll be honest, she hadn't even started yet and I'm starting to get a little anxious. My 18 year old daughter, as is so often the case, showed more maturity than I did during the discussion. She calmly assured me that it would be done.

The next night her video was done and, I thought, it was incredible. Ansley has a gift for stuff like this but I admit it freaked me out how quickly she put together an awesome video.

The video was perfect and it's a true representation of what our life is like. Yes it mainly shows the warm fuzzy, good times we have but I'll admit that we have more good times than bad in our church family. And when we have bad times we are learning to deal with them head on. To have those tough conversations when we need to. We are trying to learn to not "play" church but to "be" church.

I could not have asked for a better video to show to people. The first 10 times that Benay and I showed it to people/groups/church families we cried. For me it was always at the scene of our sister Marcia's baptism as she calls out to Jesus. Gives me chills every time. You'll see what I'm talking about as you watch it.

Enough sharing. I need to show Ansley's video and let you see what God is doing here in our city. I apologize that some of the video gets a little messed up. I uploaded this thing a couple of times and it keeps having the same problem. It's not enough to keep you from seeing and hearing everything.

Enjoy and thanks again Ansley. It's so very cool and I know many people have been blessed by watching it!

Birthdays and Fans

2012-01-31T09:18:00.000-02:00

We have a friend who celebrated a birthday yesterday. Take a look at the goober on the far right.

His name is Dee and he, his wife Laura, and their kids moved here last June. They are also missionaries. They actually live in the house we used to live in that the Baptist Mission graciously allowed us to live in (RENT FREE) for two years. They moved in and our families immediately hit it off.

Our girls babysit for their little boys. Their family has worshipped with our house church. Dee is a part of the men's morning prayer group that was started a couple of years ago. We've double dated with them before. Our kids get along great and we really enjoy being around Dee and Laura. They are goofy like us and we like that.

Anyway, yesterday was Dee's birthday. We all hung out at a nearby pool together for a little bit and then we came to our house for a birthday dinner. Nothing fancy. Just a meal and a cake.

Told you, he's a goober.

Our brother and sister Freitas and Auristela and their son were here as well.

Freitas was here to not only celebrate Dee's birthday but also help us install some ceiling fans. Right before we went to the states we bought 3 ceiling fans. When you move into an apartment or a house it comes with nothing. No closets, no kitchen cabinets, and no light fixtures. When we lived in the Baptist house they had light fixtures and fans so we put all our stuff in storage. After 2 years in a hot, humid storage unit, only one ceiling fan worked so we needed to get some new ones.

If you know me you know I have little to no "fix-it-up" capabilities. I can learn stuff and do some things but if I know someone else who can do something and likes to do it I have no problem asking them. And that's what I did before we left. I asked Freitas and Dee if they would mind coming to our house and putting up our fans. They said they would, but they got too busy and time got away from them and it just wasn't able to get done while we were gone.

So they came to celebrate and to work (sorry about that, Dee) last night.

While we were eating Freitas called his father-in-law to come help. His name is Sidney. He knows how to do almost everything. I can't tell you how much I love that guy. I love being around him.

Anyway, they put up 2 of our 3 fans and started trying to figure out the third when I told them to go home and go to bed. It was after 10:00.

We laughed and cut up the entire time and I thought, for the 10,000th time since we moved here almost 10 years ago, how much the Brasilians (and last night my American brother) are teaching me about selflessness. I could ask any of my Brasilian friends to do anything at any time of the day and I know they would do it. I know because I've seen it. These Brasilians are helping to flush my selfishness out.

I apologized to Dee last night for his boring birthday party. He smiled and said he was having a good time.

God's family was in our house last night and there is nothing better. Here are the guys in action last night and, yes, me holding a flashlight was about the extent of my helpfulness.

Happy Birthday Dee and thanks to you, Freitas and Sidney for allowing us to sleep with a fan over our bed last night. We've been thanking God for you guys even more since we saw the forecast for the next few days of 95 degree weather.

I'm pretty sure Anderson already enjoys the fan in our room.

Re-start

2012-01-30T11:01:00.000-02:00

I met my girlfriend over 25 years ago. In all the years since she's never been one to be athletic or stick with any kind of hard exercise regime. She talked about it a lot through the years and tried different things but nothing seemed to stick with her for very long.

That changed last year. My sister knew we would be in the states in December and asked if we wanted to run in the St. Jude half marathon in Memphis. She asked in August of last year. I told my girlfriend that we should do it together. She had never run more than 5km before so she had some serious doubts about her ability to do it but she found a training program on the internet and was willing to give it a shot. The program was for 14 weeks.

Once she started the program my girlfriend turned into someone I had never met before. The training schedule called for running 5 days a week. She only missed one day in 14 weeks. She never looked for an excuse to not run. She ran in cold (25 degrees F). She ran in heat. She ran in rain. She ran in cold and rain. She never quit.

There were many days when the training run was over that all I could do was laugh, give her a high five and ask who she was. I had NEVER seen that side of her before and let me just say, I loved it.

The half marathon was on December 3rd and she nailed it. She didn't stop one time and when she ended she wasn't winded and said she felt like she could have gone faster but she wanted to make sure she had enough gas at the end. I was so proud of her!

I told her, as she trained, that the hard part would be to continue running after the big race day was over. Being in the states with family during the holidays didn't help either. She had a big drop off in running days after race day. Today she began a new running/strengthening schedule.

We went to a nearby track where me, Anderson and Giovanni played with Giovanni's cars from Cars 2 while my girlfriend made her laps. As she passed by on every lap they would go to the track to clap and give her high fives. She cracked off an easy 30 minutes.

Anyway, her re-start today reminded me of a video that Ansley made. I had talked to Ansley before the half marathon about doing a "documentary" of my girlfriend's big day.

She, as always, made a great video. It's full of bloopers and running and other stuff. Two of my favorite parts are the special music she puts on when my dad shows up in his "special" hat. I also like the beginning of the video when my girlfriend, who has some pre-race jitters and doesn't want someone in her face, gets mad at Ansley for always being in her face with the camera.

If you want to catch a brief snippet of my girlfriend's awesome weekend then just watch the video. Great job Ans!

Different Schedules

2012-01-28T19:54:00.000-02:00

If you know our family you know we like to go to bed early and wake up early. That's just who we are and we like it that way.

Ever since we've been home we've been dealing with some crazy jet lag. If you keep up with my girlfriend's blog then you already know about it. If not then you can click here to read her take on it.

With the jet lag we've been sleeping at weird times......

.......and even in weird positions.

That's right. My girlfriend walked in to check on Giovanni while he was taking his nap and found him in this position. It was like he woke up and started to get up and then fell asleep again as he was getting out of bed. And his feet just dangled off the floor.

Some people handle jet lag differently than others.

Little Guys, Big Sisters Update

2012-01-26T17:38:00.000-02:00

Hey B and Ans,

I thought you might be missing your little brothers' summertime activities.

Giovanni has picked up the Blume little kid tradition of enjoying walking around in just his underwear. It's been pretty hot here and it didn't take "clothing boy" long to change his ways. He still prefers clothing but is getting used to the coolness that underwear only provides.

Here is a video of some recent dancing by your brothers that we thought you'd enjoy.

We also thought you would enjoy some reading pics we took of them the other day.

You also have another younger (although now bigger than both of you) brother who has been pretty busy since we got home. Guess what he and I did last night?

Lucky! (Hear it in your brains as Garrett would say it in his best Napoleon Dynamite voice.)

More Mooching

2012-01-25T19:01:00.000-02:00

We have some really great friends (more on them later) that are missionaries in the U.S. and they have a blog.

If you want to be stretched and challenged in your daily walk then you need to click here and read a recent blog post they did. You will be blessed....and stretched.....and challenged.

If you don't want to be blessed or stretched or challenged in your Christian faith then I guess my question to you is why not?

P.S. After you read this specific post spend some time on their blog and check out what God is doing through this family. It's pretty cool. God is really growing them in His image and through them His kingdom is growing here on earth. Then feel free to leave them an encouraging comment. Everybody likes those.

Mooching

2012-01-24T16:35:00.001-02:00

We are trying to get readjusted to our time zone. It's been hard.

It's also hot. Sweat in our house hot. We are trying to get readjusted to our Brasilian summer which is even tougher after coming from the cooler U.S.

Honestly it's been hard for me to want to sit down and blog for all my faithful followers. Okay, so it's only about 3-5 but they are still faithful.

Because of my lack of brain power right now (some might say, "What do you mean right now?" as if my lack of brain power was a common thing......I'll choose to ignore them) I'm going to do some mooching off of other people. I've done it before and I''m not ashamed of doing it again. I'm doing it now.

First mooch is off my girlfriend's blog. She shared a little about our jet lag and our first days back.

Click here to read it.

POA

2012-01-21T20:27:00.001-02:00

We made it home today. It was a relatively easy trip as God blessed us with good flights that were as close to being on time as we've ever had. We also got home in probably the fastest time ever for taking 3 flights from Memphis. Our layovers in the Miami and Rio airports were short.

I'm sure we'll share more about the trip and some of favorite people coming to meet us in Miami for a quick visit, as well as the welcome home gang that met us at the airport here in POA, but for now we wanted to thank you for your prayers for our safety.

We also wanted to leave you with a new (to us......old to the world) song we heard for the first time on our furlough. Our parents both have satellite radio in their cars and they graciously (thanks moms and dads) alllowed us to use their cars for the entire 3 months, except for the first week in Dallas when we had the "Man Van." Anyway, one of our favorite stations was music from the 40's.

It was there where we heard our new favorite song about Brasil.

Give it a listen. You can even read the words and sing along if you want to. Enjoy:

You've got to love Sinatra!!

Going Home?

2012-01-19T21:57:00.002-02:00

Tomorrow we leave the U.S. and head home to Brasil. In June we will celebrate 10 years of living in Brasil. It's gone by super fast.

We love Brasil. Anderson cried when we left in October because he didn't want to leave his friends. It's hard for all of us to leave to come back to the states. Imagine picking up your entire family and living out of suitcases for the next 2-3 months, visiting different people and cities and states, asking people to share their money to support your ministry, taking your kids places where they may or may not know people, etc. and you get an idea of what our furloughs are like.

Don't get me wrong. We love furloughs. We get to hang out with grandparents and aunts, uncles and cousins. We get to see friends we've known for years but haven't seen for the last 2. We get to eat food and go places we don't have back home. We get to make new friends. It's always good and always tiring. We call it a "good tired."

We've spent the last 3 months here. It's been our longest furlough ever. We normally stay 2 months but this time we stayed 3 because we need more financial support to be able to stay in Brasil and we needed to find a new sponsoring church. God has blessed us with a great new sponsoring church and He's still working on our financial situation. We have faith He will do something cool to help us stay in Porto Alegre. We still have peace that He is calling us to be there.

The extra month allowed us to hang out with our best buds more than we've been able to do in the past. It's allowed us to spend more time with people instead of feeling like we were rushing through visits. It's been good.

And so tomorrow we leave for Brasil. We leave for home.

Home.

It's a strange world we live in. Our home is in Brasil and our home is here in the states. It's tough to leave our life in Brasil to come here. It's always tough to leave here after 2 months and go back to Brasil. Even more so after being here for 3 months this time.

Garrett and I just came home and as we walked into the house he was sharing how he wanted to go home tomorrow (he greatly misses his buds, playing soccer, etc.). He's been talking about it for a few days. But he also shared how he's going to miss being with grandparents and having big yards to play in and seeing lots of trees and not just buildings.

He's got a foot in two worlds. We all do and sometimes it's not easy but I don't think any of us would trade it for anything. We, literally, have families on two continents. Not many people can say that. We are blessed to have people hugging us here when we leave and those waiting to hug us when we get home. It's hard and really special at the same time.

Our conversation and our feelings reminded me of one of our most favorite people. Her name is Dottie. You may remember her from a post we did in October. Click here if you missed that one. She was a missionary to the Netherlands for 15 years and now her job title is "Director for Missionary Care" at MRN. I couldn't think of a better person to take care of missionaries. Anyway, ever since we've known her she has posted a quote to her facebook, her blog and even her emails.

The quote hit me today as I talked to my son. Here it is:

"If you came back, you wanted to leave again. If you went away, you longed to come back. Wherever you were, you could hear the call of the homeland, like the note of a herdsman's horn far away in the hills. You had one home out there and one over here, and yet you were an alien in both places. Your true abiding place was the vision of something very far off, and your soul like the waves, always restless and forever in motion." -Johan Bojer, "The Immigrants"-

This blog post was typed from the United States. Our home.

The next blog post will be written (Lord willing after safe travels) from Brasil. Our other home.

Very cool!

New Post

2012-01-18T11:06:00.000-02:00

Our daughter has posted something new on her blog about life in Ecuador.

You know what to do. Click here to read the blog and then post a comment to encourage her.

It's more homework for you but it's homework that will bless and encourage you.

Why not go there right now? You know you've got 5-10 minutes to read it, watch a video and post a comment.

No pressure but do it now and nobody gets hurt. We know where most of you live.

Back to School

2012-01-14T15:56:00.000-02:00

This morning we put this goober (the one on the left.....not the college age looking super hot girl on the right)...

...in a car with my cousin's son (Andrew) as they made their way back to Texas to start the spring semester of college.

It's never a super warm fuzzy fun thing to put your kids on planes or in cars and then go live 5,000 miles away but it's part of growing up (for both parents and kids). And Bronwyn is so blessed to have so many good buds at college.

It's one of those deals where she didn't want to leave us but she also wanted to get back to her buds and school life. We understand. It's life.

We would appreciate your prayers for safety for Bronwyn and Andrew as they make the 10+ hour drive today.

We'd also appreciate prayers for all of them to have a great spring semester.

Thanks.

T.T.

2012-01-13T18:18:00.000-02:00

Hey Ans,

Thought you'd like to read a very cool article about your boyfriend.

Just click here.

I like the fact that he puts Jesus first. He also seems to be a man of great character and that's harder and harder to find these days. You have my permission to marry him if he asks.

Love,

Dad

Mexican Food

2012-01-12T02:47:00.007-02:00

Ans,

The other day Bronwyn was craving guacamole so we took her to this place.

The best guacamole ever and Bronwyn definitely fed her face with lots and lots of it.

She was happy.

While there, Quigs got the camera as you know he likes to do.

Here are some of the pictures from his restaurant photo session. Every time he pointed the camera at one of us, he would say, "Be a weirdo." We did our best to obey.....

He has a gift.

Thought you'd like to see his handy work. Have a good day.

New Posts

2012-01-11T12:45:00.000-02:00

My girlfriend (thanks for the reminder Brian.....guess I had a brain lapse) has started blogging again.

She's been sharing about blessings from 2011.

Just click here to go there. Once you get there just keep scrolling down to read the last couple of posts.

P.S. You guys did a good job with your homework. Ansley was really encouraged by your notes to her on her blog. Thank you and keep it up. You don't want detention do you?

Homework

2012-01-09T13:49:00.001-02:00

Your homework for today:

1) Go to Ansley's blog. You can click here to read about her first week in Ecuador.

2) After you read her blog post go to the bottom and post a comment for her. You have no idea how encouraging a simple comment can be.

3) After posting your comment go to the right side of her blog and type in your email on her "SUBSCRIBE TO MY BLOG!" section so that you'll get an email letting you know when she blogs so you'll always be able to read what's going on and leave her those encouraging comments we just talked about.

4) Go back to number 1 and click on the blog right now and do those things.

None of what we've asked you to do takes very long. In 5 minutes you could do everything we asked. You'll then be blessed to know what God is doing in Ecuador, you'll get to laugh from time to time with Ansley (she's funny.....stay with the video on the blog and the ending will make you chuckle), you will have encouraged our daughter and you'll be signed up to always get her email.

I'm expecting that to be done by the end of this day. Remember it's your homework.

My wife taught school for 10 years before we moved to Brasil. She knows how to discipline when it comes to school work. Don't make me call her to deal with you because you didn't do your homework. She will pop your knuckles with a ruler and you don't want that.

Just do your homework and no one gets hurt.

2012-01-08T11:48:00.001-02:00

If your sinful nature controls your mind, there is death. But if the Holy Spirit controls your mind, there is life and peace.

Romans 8: 6

A long distance ARRRRRR!

2012-01-07T19:39:00.000-02:00

Hey Ans,

Pirate Pete says hi.

If you miss Quigs then just click here and your homesickness will go away.

Alabama

2012-01-06T14:18:00.001-02:00

Ans,

As you know from calling us during the trip (we love the Magic JACK) we drove to Huntsville yesterday.

Here's what you missed:

Anderson saw a small airplane and asked if it was a dragon.

Anderson had his camera ready because he said, "If I see Bigfoot I want to have my camera ready because then we'll have proof that one really exists."

Never dull with that boy.

Giovanni had to wear his new hat and gloves and wouldn't allow anyone to take them off even though it was a warm day. He even took a nap with them on (until Bronwyn took his hat off before his little head started sweating).

Just thought you'd like the travel update.

P.S. Thanks for making mom laugh hard, as only you can do, when you called during our trip. Glad you had a good day and are getting settled in.

Today

2012-01-05T12:47:00.000-02:00

Ans,

Stephen just left to go back home. He's going to have a long day. Pops just took him, with Bronwyn for the ride, to the Greyhound station where he will take a bus to Little Rock. Then a taxi from the station there to the airport where he will fly to Houston. Then his dad will pick him up and take him back to College Station. Like I said, a long day for him.

We took our goodbye photos as we told him bye. First with the grandparents.

Then with your brothers and sisters.

As I walked back into the kitchen after telling him bye in the garage I found these two goobers doing this:

That, of course, morphed into more and more goofiness.

Don't worry, while you are in Ecuador your family will still be goofy.

For Ans

2012-01-04T17:17:00.000-02:00

Just in case you were missing your Headbanz buddy today.

Made It

2012-01-03T17:29:00.001-02:00

We got a call from Ansley around 11:00 last night letting us know she made it safely to Quito.

We woke up this morning with an email letting us know that she had made it safely to the school/orphanage.

We wanted to thank you loyal readers who have been praying for her safe travels. You blessed us and our daughter.

First thing this morning we got to talk with her on skype.

Seeing Giovanni helped calm a bit of her nervousness.

My dad and I left to go to his weekly Tuesday morning prayer meeting with the "Memphis Guys" (and the group has grown since I posted about them almost 4 years ago) and when we came back people were still talking to Ansley.

As her nervousness grew again her 7 year old brother took matters into his own hands. He pulled up a chair and began reading page after page from his "Diary of a wimpy Kid" book as she started to unload her suitcases.

When she got nervous about her new surroundings, new people, new food, etc., we would hear Anderson speaking calming words to her and encouraging her to allow him to read some more. She allowed and he read some more.

When I got home my girlfriend said he had been reading to Ansley for about 30 minutes.

I love our kids and how they take care of each other.

P.S. Please keep praying for Ansley. That God's peace would just overwhelm her and that she would love her new apartment, new friends, the kids, Ecuador......just everything. Thanks.

Ecuador

2012-01-02T01:15:00.000-02:00

Today Ansley gets on a plane heading to Ecuador. What she needs right now is your prayers for God's peace to cover her up.

She's felt some anxiousness over the last couple of days. We've told her that feeling is normal. We've also prayed over her, read scripture of God's promises over her and tried to help her laugh as much as possible.

We know she will have a great time and will make such an impact on the kids in Ecuador as well as be so blessed herself but from where she is right now, just hours before her flight, it's a bit nerve wracking.

So your prayers for God's peace to overwhelm her would be cool. For her to feel, really feel, the Spirit's presence in her life right now would be a huge blessing. For her to give all her worries to Him.

Your prayers are important to us and especially to her right now. Thank you for lifting up our daughter.

We are excited to hear how God answers your prayers.

New Post

2011-12-28T21:41:00.000-02:00

Ansley posted on her blog again.

Go here to read it.

Ecuador

2011-12-26T17:22:00.000-02:00

One week from today this goober....

......will get on a plane to go to Ecuador.

She will be working with an orphanage/school and will be there for 5 months.

She is a little bit anxious, as any 18 year old would be, about her trip but she knows this is will be a great experience.

We wanted to share her new blog. It's www.ansleyblume.blogspot.com

You need to go to that site and check it out. On the right side of the blog you can add your email address to her "subscribe to my blog" section to receive emails whenever she posts.

Feel free to also leave her some encouraging comments on her posts. Those are always good to get.

For now we ask that you just pray for God to cover her up in His peace as she gets closer to getting on the plane. I know that once she gets to Ecuador she will love it and everyone will love her but the leading up to that day can be nerve wracking. She needs God's peace right now. Thank you.

It's also not too late to tithe to her ministry if God puts that on your heart. Feel free to get in touch with us or with her if you would like to know how to help out financially.

We will, obviously, miss our daughter for the 5 months she won't be home but we are so happy to see our kids go to different countries to grow God's kingdom.

Ansley will be blessed by her ministry and we know she will also bless so many.

Christmas Kid

2011-12-23T19:30:00.000-02:00

I don't know of any kid that was made more for Christmas than Carys. All of our kids love Christmas. We all have a great time together and we love everything about Christmas.

But Carys......Carys LOVES Christmas and every little thing that is a part of December.

Last year we did a blog about her love. You can click here to read it.

You can click here to read what we wrote about our Christmas girl in 2007.

There are more blogs that we've done about her and Christmas but you get the idea. December is her month.

She, like any kid, loves getting gifts but she especially loves picking out stuff for Giovanni for Christmas. Last year it was all the guys from Toy Story. This year it's the guys from the movie Cars 2.

Right now she is alone with Giovanni in my parent's kitchen making gingerbread men and a chain out of construction paper. As I'm typing they just finished and it looks like this.

She found an app for her ipod that counts down the days/hours/minutes until Christmas.

She also found time to make a personalized video for me. One from Santa. She laughs every time we watch it.

If you are bored then you can click on this link to watch it.

We hope your house has a Carys in it.

If it does we know your Christmas seasons are always happy.

Wedding

2011-12-21T23:35:00.000-02:00

We haven't blogged in a while because we've been kind of busy.

I know it's time to blog again when Ansley asks me why I haven't blogged in a while and she has NEVER asked that question.

Lots to share since our last blog.

We drove 1,400 miles in 4 days last week as we burned our way through Texas and picked up Bronwyn from college. We could share some stuff from that trip, and probably will later, but we thought we'd share what happened last Sunday. It's kind of a big deal.

My sister, Melissa, got married to a goober named Gary.

The wedding was performed by my dad at my sister's house and it was super laid back with only immediate family invited.

It was very cool and very fun and very obvious to everyone that God brought these two together.

Ansley, our creative/gifted audio/visual child put together a wedding video that was shown during the ceremony.

It was, as always, very cool and she's already burned about 10 DVD's of it at the request of others.

I know some might not care at all about this video and others will love to see it. No big deal either way. It's my blog and I feel like sharing about my sis and new brother-in-law. Deal with it.

It was a great day and GT, we could not be happier that you and your kids are now part of our family.

Check out Ansley's work:

P.S. And while we're on the subject of things that last forever.... Benay's parents are celebrating their 49th wedding anniversary today. We love you, Granna and Grandaddy!

Back to Texas-Confession Time

2011-12-12T22:01:00.000-02:00

Tomorrow morning me, my girlfriend, Ansley and Giovanni will make the long drive back to Texas.

We'll spend one night with our good friends.

Then we'll meet with a pastor of a church on Wednesday morning followed by hanging out, praying and learning from our great friends at MRN.

Wednesday afternoon we'll go to Abilene and see some of our old friends, from when we lived there ten years ago, as well as hang out with our oldest goober until she finishes her last final.

We'll then meet with another church from west Texas and then we'll all come back to Tennessee.

Eight weeks ago today we arrived in Dallas to begin this furlough.

Every week since we arrived we have been speaking to different classes, small groups, prayer groups, friends, family and church families about what God is doing in Brasil as well as sharing our financial needs to be able to continue living in Porto Alegre.

To be honest, we are tired. Tired physically, emotionally and even spiritually. Every week of our furlough has been good and encouraging. God just keeps sending us new people and churches who want to partner with our ministry in Brasil. We know we are blessed and we are humbled by what God is doing.

At the same time we feel a little fried. We know this week is going to be good and we know we will be encouraged. We are excited to see our daughter, meet her buddies, see our old friends and meet with these two church families to share about God's family in Brasil.

We know it's going to be good but we are not excited about the eight hour drive to Dallas tomorrow followed by three more hours on Wednesday with possibly three to six more on Thursday. Then doing all of that in reverse order starting on Friday or Saturday. It's a long trip especially with a three year old and us being tired already keeps us from turning backflips at the thought of getting up at five to leave.

We would appreciate your prayers for our safety and that God would just give us an extra boost of energy as we enter this exciting week.

Thanks, as always, in advance.

2011-12-11T11:18:00.001-02:00

"James S. Stewart of Edinburgh, Scotland, said, "The real problem of Christianity is not atheism or skepticism, but the non-witnessing, non-productive Christian trying to smuggle his own soul into heaven all alone." This is Satan's strategy, and furthermore, he has worked so on that word "ye" (Matthew 28:18-20) until now not even all "clergy" are witnesses!"

Herb Hodges from his book Tally Ho The Fox (The Foundation for Building World-Visionary, World-Impacting, Reproducing Disciples)

Tis the Season

2011-12-09T11:04:00.000-02:00

It's Christmas time and we have a group of creative (mostly girls), like to do stuff together people in our family.

So the other day a few of them set out to make a gingerbread house. The two that spent the most time on it were Carys and my girlfriend but they got a little help from others as well.

We think it turned out great.

Even Frosty liked it.

And this goober liked it as well.

70 years

2011-12-08T15:30:00.001-02:00

I love history. As long as I can remember I've loved history.

When I was a physical therapist I loved my patients at the nursing home and in home health. I spent a year in outpatient orthopedic treating sports injuries and working with young people, but I wouldn't trade my time in the nursing home and in home health with my elderly patients for anything. Why? They were always just so honest and hardworking and I loved talking to them during their treatment about history.

You see most of my patients were of the age that fought, or were directly involved, with the happenings of World War 2.

I was fascinated by their stories.

I still remember helping one patient do exercises and walk in his home to get strength after a recent surgery. I always quizzed him about what the war was like.

One day he walked me to his desk and pulled out an album. He showed me a Japanese ID card and then a photo of a naked Japanese woman. They were obviously very old and I had no idea why he felt like he needed to show me these things. I surely wasn't expecting to be shown anything like that.

He then began to tell me a story of his time in the far east during the war and how he fought in different battles against the Japanese army.

One day he came around from behind a tree and was face to face with a Japanese soldier. They both went for their guns and my former patient got to his first and killed the Japanese soldier. The items he showed me were from that soldier.

As he shared, he didn't brag about those items like they were trophies. He was very quiet and humble and almost apologetic that he had been the one who did it but as he said, "It was kill him or he was going to kill me." You could see a sadness in his eyes as he relived that day. I can't even imagine being in a situation like that.

Why do I share all of that?

Yesterday, as I'm sure most of you are aware, marked the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. An event that took the United States into World War 2.

The men that fought in that war are now in their 80's and 90's, and each year that goes by more and more of these living history books die.

That generation has been called the Greatest Generation. From the patients that I treated who actually fought in that war, they would disagree. They will tell you they aren't any different than you or I but when their country, and the world really, needed them they responded. That's all.

So we don't mark the anniversary yesterday with joy. That war killed too many men, women and children to celebrate any day that marked the entrance into the war. Rather we celebrate the men who selflessly, and immediately after that bombing, volunteered to stand for freedom and fight against countries who, literally, wanted to take over the world.

They may not be the Greatest Generation of all time but I hope if you know any of those men who are still alive you will just give them a hug and tell them thank you.

They deserve much more than that but they would never say it and I'm pretty sure, from the ones I knew, they would prefer your hug.

Answered Prayer

2011-12-07T15:56:00.001-02:00

"Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done." Philippians 4:6

You may remember our blog from last week. If not you can go here and read it.

Anderson and Giovanni got to see snow for the first time in their lives last week. Anderson was so happy to see it. It wasn't much and didn't stick to the ground. The same day he decided he wanted to have enough snow to build a snowman and have a snowball fight.

He didn't worry about it. He prayed about it. He told God what he needed......

......and this morning he thanked Him for what He did.

They were in it for over 3 hours. If you read the blog from last week we thank you for your prayers as well.

We'll try to post more pictures and funny videos later.

Nashville, Tennessee

2011-12-06T11:12:00.000-02:00

On Sunday we spent a few hours with some of our most favorite people.

Quick story background: My girlfriend and I met at a little college in Arkansas. She actually transferred there for her junior year. Her first two years she went to a college in Nashville and Leigh was her college roommate.

Here are the two roomies now:

Leigh, and her husband Phil, are people that you immediately fall in love with. They are fun to be around, funny and their easy going nature make it so easy to strike up a conversation or start a new friendship.

Over the years, unfortunately, we haven't been able to be around them as much as we would like but it's another one of those really cool friendships where years seem like days. We won't see them for 2 years but when we do it's as if we had always lived next door to each other.

Our kids also love to go hang out with Phil and Leigh because of their kids as well. Olivia, Lillie Grace and Barr are three of the coolest kids I know.

We all laugh and goof off when we are together and I think that's why our love for them is so deep. They are a bunch of goobers just like us.

Seeing all of our good friends on our furloughs is one of the best things about furloughs but it also reminds us of the toughest things about living in Brasil. We are far away from our closest friends but that distance makes us really enjoy and appreciate the times when we are together. We definitely don't take those for granted.

We are so thankful for this family and what they mean to ours. I can't tell you how much we love them.

P.S. As of today, if my math is right, Leigh's mom has been in the hospital for 50 straight days and Leigh has been there every day with her. I know Leigh, and her whole family, would appreciate your prayers.

St. Jude Half Marathon

2011-12-05T15:18:00.000-02:00

13.1 miles, no stopping and she got stronger as she went along

Her time?

2 hours and 23 minutes.

Here she is 2 minutes (look how good she looks!) after crossing the finish line and holding her medal:

I told you faithful readers that she was going to nail it didn't I?

I could not be more proud of what she's done over the last 3+ months.

I think a lifelong runner has been created.

More details, from her or me, will come later.

I intend to brag on my girlfriend some more.

2011-12-04T02:40:00.000-02:00

"For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. "

Ephesians 2:10

D-Day

2011-12-03T04:01:00.001-02:00

After fourteen weeks of training five days a week this super,super cute girl (who just happens to be my girlfriend)...

....will defeat, crush really, a half marathon today. I could not be more proud of her.

Details to come later.

Traditions

2011-12-02T12:08:00.000-02:00

I'm not a huge tradition fan. I like new things.

There are some traditions I like. Like what our family does at Christmas time in Brasil. Like what we do on special days (birthdays and anniversaries) but other than those things I really don't hold to many traditions.

We only get to come back to the states every two years and things always seem to be a little different each time.

There is one thing that happens every two years, one tradition, that we all love and always look forward to.

Going to eat at the Adkins' house. Joey and Angie and their kids Abigail, Madeline and Joseph.

We went to college with Joey and Angie. Joey was my best friend in college. I haven't had many best friends in my life. I can probably count on one hand people I would consider my "best friends." God has blessed me with so many good friends throughout my life but only a handful that I've felt some deeper kind of bond with. A "best friend" bond. To this day I still consider Joey one of my best friends.

Joey and Angie are the kinds of friends that we won't see for two years and when we see them again it's like we were just together yesterday.

Our traditions with them consist of a meal. Angie always cooks for us and it's always good. We like that tradition.

We love going to their house because we laugh so hard. I think we laugh, and hard, more with them in one night than we do for the rest of the year. We always cry from laughing when we are together. It's a tradition I love about being with Joey and Angie.

Our kids LOVE each other. It's a hard thing living in another country and then coming back for a brief period of time and having to eat with people that we might know but our kids don't. They have to sit and try to make conversation with other kids they don't know. This doesn't happen with the Adkins' kids. When we are in Memphis our kids are always asking when we are going to Joey and Angie's house. They tell us their kids do the same.

When they are together they eat supper and then they play hide and seek. I don't know how this got started years ago but it's something they all look forward to and they all play it. From 3 year old Giovanni to 18 year old Ansley (and 20 year old Bronwyn when she's with us) and everyone in between. They will play for hours and they love it. While we grown ups are talking and crying from laughter at the dinner table the kids go all around the house playing their game. This is another tradition that I love about being with the Adkins.

Finally we have the tradition of the kids taking a group picture....

.....the parents taking a group picture.....

.....and then it morphs into stupid time. It's another tradition that happens every time we are with them.

And we all love it.

We love these guys because they've known us for 25 years. They really know us, warts and all, and we have a deep bond together. We can be ourselves and it's like, in some ways, we are still all 20 years old. I like that about these guys. I mean, come on, you have to have a pretty deep friendship to take pictures like our last one.

We were talking on the way home from their house last night that our 4 hours together seemed like 30 minutes. It's always like that with Joey and Angie. I like that tradition as well.

Now that I think about it I guess I do like traditions.

Guaranteed Laugh

2011-12-01T18:16:00.000-02:00

Over our almost 10 years in Brasil God has blessed us with lots of really good friendships with other American missionaries from the Baptist mission board.

I share those friendships today to tell you that I mooched the video below from our missionary friends' facebook account today. Thank you Keri and Diane!

Everybody needs to laugh, and this video had my girlfriend and myself in tears. We think it will do the same for you.

I promise it's worth the next 4 minutes of your time. You won't regret watching it.

Enjoy.

Prayers answered......more needed

2011-11-30T12:33:00.000-02:00

As you know, yesterday we asked for prayers for snow for our kids, especially Anderson.

Anderson and Giovanni have never seen snow and the rest, except for Bronwyn who now lives in the states, haven't seen it in almost 10 years.

So Ansley was 8/9ish when she last saw it, Garrett 5/6 and Carys 3/4. You get the idea, it's been a while.

Right after I posted the blog for yesterday the snow came. Granted it wasn't enough to cover the ground. It wasn't even enough to stick on the ground but it was snow. SNOW!

And our kids were happy.

I thought Anderson would freak out when he saw it, and he did, but the other goobers had just as much fun getting out in the "snow storm" as Anderson did. They borrowed some warm clothes, hats, gloves, etc. from my girlfriend's parents and all went out to play.

We live in the coldest part of Brasil. We do have 4 seasons and it does gets cold in our city. Really cold. Our homes have no insulation so when the cold comes it stays in your house. Some winter days you can see your breath in your house. It gets cold. But it never snows in our city.

So here is a brief view of what a morning looks like when your kids aren't used to snow:

Now Anderson wants enough snow to build a snowman and have a snow ball fight.

Feel free to add that to your prayer list as well.

Prayers Needed

2011-11-29T12:15:00.001-02:00

This morning at 3:30 my girlfriend and I were woken up by a sound of one of our kids crying.

I got up, went out to the den and found this little guy......

......bent over a chair just sobbing.

I asked if he was sick? No was his answer.

I asked if had a bad dream? No was his answer.

I then asked what it was and he pointed out the window.

What I saw was this (except it was dark):

The back yard of my girlfriend's parents house.

He said, "No snow!" and began to cry even harder.

The weather forecast said that there was a "possibility" of snow here last night. Maybe one inch. Anderson never heard "possibility." All he heard was "snow" and that it was coming.

Anderson has never seen snow and is super excited about possibly seeing some on this trip to the states.

I tried to calm him down by telling him that we don't get much snow where our grandparents live and if we do it doesn't usually come until later in the year and that we still have plenty of time here until we have to get back on the plane to go home.

His crying slowed down and he went, one more time, to look out the window.

About this time a light came on in the kitchen. It was my girlfriends mom. She came over to me and said, "Because there's no snow?" It was more of a comment than a question.

We all know how badly Anderson wants to see snow.

Feel free to ask God to bless us with some snow while we are here in the states. That would be one of the best Christmas presents Anderson could get this year.

2011-11-28T14:21:00.000-02:00

We just put this big goober on a plane going back to college (I picked an awesome picture of you B. I knew you would love it. I love how you had your left eye looking up and the right looking straight ahead......How did you do that?).

We would appreciate prayers for her safety as she goes back to Texas.

Thanks.

2011-11-27T03:42:00.001-02:00

"Linger in my presence a while. Rein in your impulses to plunge into the day's activities. Beginning your day alone with Me is essential preparation for success. A great athlete takes time to prepare himself mentally for the feat ahead of him before he moves a muscle. Similarly, your time of being still in My presence equips you for the day ahead of you. Only I know what will happen to you this day. I have arranged the events you will encounter as you go along your way. If you are not adequately equipped for the journey, you will grow weary and lose heart. Relax with Me while I ready you for action."

Reference verses: Ephesians 2:10; Hebrews 12:3

From Sarah Young's book Jesus Calling (thanks GT for sending it to us in Brasil.....it's an incredible devo book that we read daily)

Thanksgiving Week-Part 4

2011-11-25T08:51:00.000-02:00

Yesterday, obviously, was Thanksgiving Day.

A couple things I'm thankful for.

First: These goobers with Ansley.

My mom and dad celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary yesterday. I could not have better role models of what a Christian couple looks like. The way they love, respect, talk to and treat each other is an example for everyone.

I'm thankful for the way they have continued to grow their faith. They aren't stagnant. I'm thankful for the way they look for ways to grow God's kingdom by being intentional in making new relationships and sharing about Jesus. They aren't stagnant. And I'm thankful for the way their relationship with each other grows deeper and deeper. They aren't stagnant.

I'm blessed that they are my parents and my family is blessed that they are the shepherds of the Blume family name.

Second is this guy:

His name is Freitas, he is our brother in Brasil and today is his birthday.

We've known him for a few years and were blessed to see him give his life to Christ last year.

He's an amazing man and we wish him "Parabéns" on his special day.

Te amamos Freitas!!

Thanksgiving Week-Part 3

2011-11-23T19:55:00.001-02:00

Today I am thankful for a couple of things.

First: I am thankful for all of our family being together.

The older the kids get the more spread out around the globe we get. Bronwyn lives in the states now, Ansley is getting ready to move to Ecuador for 5 months and then she will move to the states to go to college and we, obviously, still live in Brasil. We love where God is taking everyone and what He is doing with them but are thankful when we can all get to one place.

This week we are in Huntsville, Alabama where my girlfriend's parents live.

Bronwyn flew from Texas to Birmingham last night. There is an airport in Huntsville but it was too expensive for us to fly here directly here so last night we (Ansley, my girlfriend and myself) drove an hour and a half to Birmingham to pick her up.

Her flight was supposed to arrive at 9:40 p.m. but there was a delay in Dallas. Something about a problem with a window on the plane. After a long delay they moved everyone to another plane. She arrived at almost midnight.

It didn't matter what time it was, we were happy to see our oldest goober.

We got home around 2 a.m. and Bronwyn was met with Carys' handiwork.

She then just had to get her Giovanni touch before she went to bed.

This morning she got to see the other goobers and everyone loved it.

Anderson wrote her a story and she read it with her bed full of brothers and sisters.

Here is a brief view of what the first fifteen minutes of her day looked like.

We'll all be together until Monday when we have to take her back to Birmingham at 6:00 a.m. We will enjoy our time together.

Second: I am thankful for this cute, cute chick (not the caterpillar but the girl).

I realize no one but us will probably care but since it's our blog I'm going to share anyway. Twenty five years ago today we went out on our first date.

I still don't know why she said yes but am thankful she did.

She's the most amazing, Christlike woman (person for that matter) I've ever met and I'm thankful that God put her in my life.

Thanksgiving Week-Part 2

2011-11-22T18:59:00.000-02:00

This week I am also thankful that Giovanni is potty trained. He just learned within the last couple of weeks.

And as a guy he's also learned, without any training, where his throne is and what you do when you are on it.

You'll notice the pacifier in one picture. That's our next adventure.

The Bible tells us to be thankful for everything. This week we are thankful for our last child learning how to poop on a commode.

Thanksgiving Week-Part 1

2011-11-21T19:24:00.000-02:00

Since it's Thanksgiving week I thought we would share some stuff we are thankful for. God really blesses our family and we have lots to be thankful for and we could make this a month long theme but there are some specific things that we've been thankful for lately. No specific order of importance to any of them. Just things that God has obviously blessed our family with lately and we wanted to share our thankfulness to Him.

First up: Ansley

She received her first college acceptance letter from a school in Texas last week.

We weren't surprised. She's an awesome student. So far she's applied to only one school and was quickly accepted.

We are super proud of her no matter where she decides to go to college.

It's always a cool thing to get an acceptance letter in the mail.

Go Wildcats. Maybe.

2011-11-20T03:22:00.001-02:00

“I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: ‘Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God’” (Rev. 21:3 MSG). The narrator makes the same point four times in four consecutive phrases:

“God has moved into the neighborhood”
“making his home with men and women”
“They’re his people”
“he’s their God”

The announcement comes with the energy of a six-year-old declaring the arrival of his father from a long trip. “Daddy’s home! He’s here! Mom, he’s back!” One statement won’t suffice. This is big news worthy of repetition. We shall finally see God face-to-face. “They shall see His face” (Rev. 22:4 NKJV).

Let this sink in. You will see the face of God. You will look into the eyes of the One who has always seen; you will behold the mouth that commands history. And if there is anything more amazing than the moment you see his face, it’s the moment he touches yours. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 21:4 NCV).

God will touch your tears. Not flex his muscles or show off his power. Lesser kings would strut their stallions or give a victory speech. Not God. He prefers to rub a thumb across your cheek as if to say, “There, there…no more tears.”

Isn’t that what a father does?

Max Lucado

Check this out!!

2011-11-16T11:31:00.000-02:00

We are so excited and proud of our church family in Brazil.

Yesterday was a national holiday and they spent the day in service! They laid a tile floor in one of our church members' home. This is a family who lived in a favela (like a slum) near the airport. With the expansion of the airport, they were given a very small duplex-style house. However, it only had concrete floor and walls and the moisture was making the little ones in the house constantly sick with coughs. Our house church saved money, bought the materials and laid a tile floor for this family.

While the men did this, the women were busy putting together Christmas gifts to take out to the drug rehab center in a few weeks.

Check out our sister, Leni's blog here to see pictures and read more about the story. You can use the google translator on the bottom right side of the blog page to translate to English. The translation isn't perfect, but it will give you the idea.

We can't describe the pride and thankfulness we have for our Brazilian family. Come down and get to know them!

2011-11-13T06:02:00.002-02:00

Don't trust your own strength, but trust in your Lord who loved you from eternity, before you loved Him.

Fenelon

Finally!!!

2011-11-10T23:13:00.002-02:00

After a 24 hour delay in Brasília (the capital of Brasil), Ansley finally made it to Memphis.

She was met by a big, excited group.

The waiting was the hardest part but everyone made it. Giovanni got so excited when he saw Ansley that he fell on his bum. Take a look:

Carys decorated everyone's face to welcome Ansley. Everyone except a certain teenage boy.

I guess I can't complain about the teenage boy. On the way home he proudly told Ansley that he showered, shaved and put on deodorant just for her. That is probably the best present a teenage boy could give a big sister. He was glad she was back with us.

We all are.

One More Day

2011-11-08T10:10:00.000-02:00

We got a call from Ansley last night around 8:45. Delta had cancelled the overnight flight to Atlanta.

They claimed it was for maintenance but Ansley said only 30 people were on the flight so we are thinking they might have moved it forward one night to get more paying customers on the flight.

She's stayed in a hotel last night, with a couple of other stranded girls from the same flight, and then will get to do the whole deal over again tonight.

Whatever the real reason they cancelled the flight we are upset that we didn't wake up early today to go straight to the airport to pick her up.

We'll just have to be patient and pray that she will be back with us bright and early tomorrow morning.

We would appreciate your continued prayers for her safety and that she will be able to fill up her day today with fun stuff as her flight doesn't leave Brasil until around midnight their time.

Everybody is ready to be like this again tomorrow.

Even the teenage brother is excited to see and hug his sister again.

Side note that takes a little set up......Last weekend my dad had a guy weekend with Garrett and Anderson. He has done guy trips with my two nephews for years. We, because of the distance, the young age of our kids and the fact that we are only here for 2 months every 2 years and those 2 months are crazy busy, haven't been able to find time for a guy trip. Until this year. Dad took our boys to see the Vols play in Knoxville on Saturday night and the Titans play on Sunday afternoon. Garrett and Anderson had a great time and came home wearing Titans jerseys and told us how much fun they had. Garrett got home and asked about the score of our favorite soccer team on Sunday. So, over the weekend, he saw one victory (UT), one loss (Titans) and heard about our soccer team back home (loss).

Garrett, if you know him, only gets excited about a couple of things. Soccer and soccer (and he likes American sports when we are in the states) but he's also always been a compassionate guy and he loves his family. That showed this morning.

He went to sleep before everyone else last night (we played hard in the backyard yesterday) and had no idea about Ansley. This morning he got up at 5 to take a shower (we were to leave around 6:45 to go get Ansley at the airport). He got dressed up (nice shirt) came downstairs after his shower. He was excited. He came down and saw his grandmother who told him about Ansley's delayed flight. He couldn't believe it. He came into the room I was in and asked if it was true. I told him it was. He gave a heavy sigh and gave this deep, heartfelt comparison to what he was feeling:

"First Inter loses on Sunday. Then the Titans lose and now Ansley's flight gets cancelled."

To associate Ansley not being here today with sports is the truest form of an expression of love from our teenage son.

Pure, deep, brother-sister love is what came out of that simple comment.

And I just smiled as I heard it.

We have our share of scuffles in our house but at the end of the day our kids love each other deeply.

And I smile again as I type those words.

2011-11-07T10:03:00.001-02:00

Ansley leaves her home today. She won't be back for almost 7 months.

She arrives in the states tomorrow for a couple of months. Then she goes to Ecuador for 5 months. Back home for a month or two and then off to college.

It's been tough for her saying goodbye to all her friends but she's been making good use of her last few days at home.

Lots of people have come to tell her bye.

Dee and Laura (our new missionary buds in POA), even did a blog about how much they will miss Ansley. Click here if you want to read what they have to say.

Ansley has lived more of her life in Brasil than in any other place. It's her home. I know it's been tough for her to say goodbye to everyone but I also know that God has used her to make a kingdom difference in the lives of many of her friends. Go back and look above at all the friends that have come to tell her bye. Even one of her high school teachers (1st picture) came to our house to hang out one more time.

We are, obviously, excited to see her tomorrow but are praying that she is able to soak up and enjoy every minute she has with her buds back home. I'm sure she will have a group at the airport sending her off today.

Please pray for safe travels for our daughter and for a peace, that only comes from God, as she continues to follow His will for her life and steps out in faith. Thank you.

2011-11-06T04:00:00.000-02:00

Hold true to what is right so that no one will drag you back into sin. You will have an easier time of it when people know that you cannot be swayed from your commitment to God. If you leave yourself open to go astray, you probably will.

Fenelon

Prayers for ACU

2011-11-05T15:18:00.000-02:00

Last night, we got a call from Bronwyn asking us to pray. A bus carrying some agriculture students to a weekend mission work, crashed. One student died and several were injured.

Bronwyn later found out that the person who died was a friend of hers. She is upset, but doing OK. It is hard to lose a friend.

Please remember everyone at ACU in your prayers, and especially the families of the victims and the ones who are still in the hospital.

You can read more about the accident here.

The Lord is good. When trouble comes, he is a strong refuge. And he knows everyone who trusts him.

Nahum 1:7

2011-11-03T02:19:00.001-02:00

God is full of surprises. But it takes a sensitive spirit to see them, to be jolted by them. Too many Christians are lulled into languor. Some can warble all the Christian songs, recite all the right Bible verses, and quote this preacher and that teacher, but their Christian lives, down deep inside, are jaded. Are you in that condition? When that happens, you become calloused and insensitive, and you're in for a life of boredom and mediocrity. How tragic for that to happen! The walk of faith is designed to be a walk of adventure, filled with periodic and delightful surprises.

Watch for the surprises!

Chuck Swindoll

Memphis

2011-11-02T13:47:00.000-02:00

We arrived in Memphis on Monday in time for Halloween. Two years ago we were able to do Halloween with Benay's parents in Alabama. This year we decided to let my parents share some of that fun.

We don't really do Halloween in Brasil so when you say "dress up" and "free candy" to our kids it was like an automatic sugar rush before the sugar actually entered their body.

My girlfriend's mom took our kids last week to get their costumes.

Here is what they came up with:

Carys was Sponge Babe. Anderson was Cad Bane (bounty hunter from Star Wars movie). See the resemblance?

Giovanni was a steroid taking Tow-Mater from the Cars movie.

We set out with the kids, my parents, my girlfriend, Garrett (who told us he was too old to trick or treat) and myself and we walked around the neighborhood. It took Giovanni all of one house to get used to the process. When the lady at the first house we went to put some chocolate in his bucket he looked at me and his face said, "Can you believe this? People are just giving me this stuff!"

From then on he ran from door to door.

On the Sunday before Halloween we worshipped with my girlfriend's parents home church family. During the worship time the kids were invited to be close to the man sharing the lesson at the front of the sanctuary. From time to time he would stop and everyone would sing. The songs were for everyone but directed towards the kids. They sang "I'm in the Lord's Army."

Anyway, after that first house, as the kids walked to each house, Giovanni would sing "I'm in the Lord's Army" loudly. He then took his candy, thanked the owners and ran back to us screaming something that we never could understand. Carys thought he was saying something about awesome. I asked him and he confirmed that something was "awesome" but we never could exactly figuring out what he said. He screamed the same thing after every house.

After walking on the streets for a more than an hour we decided it was time to go home.

Some people immediately looked over their haul.

We found out that Carys actually counted every piece of candy to help prevent against a sneak attack from her older brother (which happens frequently).

Not long after we got home the trick or treaters crashed. They were worn out from their night.

It was fun and we had a great time.

Staying in Porto Alegre

2011-10-31T04:52:00.046-02:00

Ansley stayed behind in Porto Alegre for a couple of reasons. She stayed to continue working to make money for college but her real reason for not going with us a couple of weeks ago was so that she could stay for one of her best friend's 18th birthday party.

She leaves home to head to the states next Monday. So she is finishing up her last few days of teaching and saying goodbye to her students.

The other day she sent a couple of pictures to us from her "goodbye" classes. The pictures of the kids have their faces blurred out (or wearing a mask) because the school can get sued if their images appear on the internet without permission.

Here they are:

The kids that she teaches LOVE her. She told us she's been crying a lot as she tells the kids goodbye. God has given her a real gift with kids and she's bonded with so many of them.

She really didn't want to teach English to kids when this year began. It was hard for her when all her friends were in college and making new friends and not working. She grew up a lot this year, took on a bunch of new responsibilities and really matured as a person.

She has grown to really enjoy teaching and she really loves those kids.

My girlfriend and I ran into her boss about three days before we left to come to the states. We had never met her before but my girlfriend recognized her from a presentation she had done about her English school at our kids' school. We introduced ourselves, and after the introductions she began telling us how much Ansley meant to her company. How she was a little concerned about Ansley's age when she started since they had never had a teacher that young before. How she started as an assistant but now was one of her best teachers. She shared how much she loved Ansley and told us she would take care of her after we left to go to the states.

Ansley called the other day and shared about her last meeting with her boss and fellow teachers. She was very humbled by the words that her boss said about her in front of everyone else as well as what some of her colleagues said. They gave her a gift and wished her well as she starts the next stage in her life. Ansley said she cried quite a bit. The words that were said about her were very kind and, even though Ansley would never say it, all very true.

Here she is with her teacher buds.

Ansley has a great personality, makes friends so quickly and easily and is very outgoing. I think she has realized this year just how much God has gifted her and it's been really cool for my girlfriend and I to see her use those gifts to grow God's kingdom.

We are super proud of Ansley and what God has done through her this year with her friends, her students and her house church. She understands that she doesn't go to church but she is the church.

We know it's tough for her to say her goodbyes but we are very excited to see what God does through her while she is in Ecuador and then when she goes to college next year.

We are even more excited to get to see her again in just a few days. Just seven more days!

We love you Ans!

Sick Andersonisms

2011-10-31T02:31:00.008-02:00

Since we've back in the states some of our friends have asked us about sharing some more Andersonisms. He always gives them out and he gave us some good ones from this past Saturday.

For lunch on Saturday he ate a hot dog and cheetos for lunch. You might already be able to guess where this is going.

My girlfriend, Garrett and I had an appointment on Saturday and as we were walking out the door my girlfriend told me she needed to stay at home because Anderson wasn't feeling good.

I went in and looked at him and his face had a greenish/beige glow. He did not look good.

Garrett and I left and came back a couple of hours later. When we got home we found out he was sleeping because he had puked a couple of times.

We heard the puke conversation went like this:

Anderson: (puking.........stop) "Hot dog." (more puking.....stop) "Hot dog."
My girlfriend: "It's okay Anderson you don't need to say what you are throwing up"

Anderson: (more puking.....crying) "Mom, are you sure this is God's plan for me?"
My girlfriend: "Hey Anderson you are just sick. Sometimes people get sick. Sometimes God teaches us when we get sick. When we get sick we can remember how yucky it feels and can learn how to take care of other people when they get sick."
Anderson: "So is the devil doing this to me?"

Even when he's sick he's funny.

Later his mean uncle and cousins scared him with Halloween stories and he got so scared he puked again. Fun day.

Positive side note: Pretty soon we'll be done with hot dogs forever. Bronwyn and Garrett already don't eat them from previous puke experiences. Now Anderson has also sworn them off forever. Can't say that I'm sad.

2011-10-30T03:54:00.001-02:00

Come before God regularly. Remember that you carry the gift of God in an earthen pot! Strengthen your inner life through reading, praying and distrusting your old way of life.

Although you have lived far from Him, you need not be afraid to come to Him like a child. Tell Him how weak and miserable you are, tell Him what you need and what bothers you. You may even tell Him that sometimes you are not exactly thrilled to serve Him. You cannot speak too freely or too truthfully to Him. He likes simple people and talks with them often. Put away all your grand ideas and just be honest with Him. Listen to what He tells you with an open heart. Turn a deaf ear to to the world and to your unruly passions.

Fenelon

Feliz Aniversário (We are staying in Porto Alegre for a birthday)

2011-10-28T13:36:00.000-02:00

Oi irmã. Não esquecemos.

Te amamos muito!!

Tenha um otimo dia!

Quick trip back home

2011-10-27T13:51:00.000-02:00

We've been skyping with Ansley a lot lately. She's doing great and winding up her last days at home in POA before heading to the states to hang with us for a couple of months and then heading off to Ecuador to live for a while.

In those conversations she told us about the rain they've been getting this week.

The bad thing about our city is that many people throw their trash on the ground. We also have quite a few people that live in the streets and it's easy for them to leave their trash on the ground. City workers try to keep all of it clean but too much gets down into the drainage sewers. When it rains real hard and real fast the sewers can't take it and everything starts backing up.

These were taken by our brother Freitas right in front of his hardware store a couple of days ago.

Thankfully the water didn't enter his store.

We have one family in our church that used to live in a not-so-good neighborhood and their home sat in basically what was a big ditch. Every time it rained their house got flooded. Thankfully the government bought out their neighborhood to be able to extend the airport runway to get ready for the World Cup. Now they have moved to government housing and no longer have the flooding problem. But many, living in POA, continue to live with the fear of constant flooding with any type of big rain.

Don't know why I decided to share about the rain back home. Guess keeping up with the day to day there helps to keep us tied in to our family.

Staying in Dallas

2011-10-26T04:34:00.001-02:00

We found out we were coming to the states at the end of August.

We sent an email out to Andy (yesterday's blog) and our other brother (also mentioned yesterday but not by name), Morgan letting them know we were coming their way.

Andy and Morgan used to work together. They both are always so gracious to us and, not surprisingly, they both offered up their cars for us to use during our stay there last week.

As I mentioned yesterday, Andy and Jennifer have always offered up their house and their big car, that fits all of our family, to use during our Dallas visits.

We usually get to see Morgan over a meal when we are there. I honestly didn't think Morgan even owned a car that could hold our family.

After we emailed them Morgan emailed a response first and told us that we could use his "Man Van." He then sent pictures for our kids to check it out and they thought it looked like a playground. We emailed back that we would love to use his van for the week. Ten minutes later we got an email from Andy telling us we could use their Suburban for the week. That's how they both are. Completely giving everything they have to our family. It didn't surprise me that both Andy/Jennifer and Morgan all offered up their cars. We never assume or expect anything from them and they always bless us so much.

Anyway, Morgan and a business associate met us at the airport when we arrived. Morgan showed us a couple of things that we needed to know and then we were off. No, "be carefuls" or "try not to scratch it" or "please try not to this or that." He just gave us hugs, dropped the keys off in our hands and was back to work. The Thomas' do the same thing with their house. Give us house keys and that's it. It's very humbling.

Morgan's van was the biggest car I've ever driven (other than a moving truck). It was amazingly big.

If you know Texas, you know they like things big. Even the Texans were driving by gawking at this van. We came out of the conference one day and two families were just staring at the van. People slowed down or sped up on the interstate to get next to us. We had fun trying to read people's lips when we stopped at red lights.

My girlfriend is horrible at remembering where she parked. She never had that problem the whole week. Not once. She just looked for the tallest vehicle and we walked right to it.

What I'm trying to say is that it was big. Understand? It was big!

How big? This big:

Crazy Big.

Morgan, once again blessed us during our time in Dallas. The sad part is we didn't even get to see him after he picked us up at the airport. He had a crazy busy week as he got ready to leave for Sierra Leone to work on the Mercy Ship. The same day we left Dallas to go to Alabama he left on his mission trip to Africa.

Morgan, just like Andy and Jennifer, always just "It's really no big deal's" us every time we go to Dallas. They act like it's nothing for us to come an invade their homes, use their cars, eat their food, etc., but it's a huge deal to us. They all show us Christ with each act of kindness.

The "Man Van" was fun to drive and opened up lots of conversations for us last week but at the heart of that beast of a car was a man who shares his worldly stuff with some goobers from Brasil.

Thank you Morgan!

Back to Dallas

2011-10-25T06:06:00.006-02:00

I have to share a little history to get to the meat and taters of today's post. It will take me a while to set it all up. Bear with me.

Many, many years ago I was a senior in college. My girlfriend had graduated already and was living 5 hours away. I was madly in love with her and so I, literally, lived for the weekends. I would leave every Friday as soon as my last class finished and would drive 5 hours to where she lived. Sometimes she would drive the 5 hours my way. Usually we met at my parents' house in the middle.

I would come in late on Sunday night and go straight to bed to make Monday come faster which, in my logic, would make Friday hurry up and get here.

Let's just say I didn't enjoy my senior year of college. I had lots of great friends and still had fun but I just couldn't wait until I got to see my girlfriend.

How does all of that play into today's post? Well my senior year I had a roommate named Andy. He was a great roommate and we got along great. We had known each other pretty much since our freshman year. His family even invited me to an A&M (Whoop shout out to my Aggie buds) game against Arkansas in Little Rock one year. I have to admit I liked the Aggie traditions.

Anyway, he, unfortunately, got me at my worst year but we still managed to have a good time. He had to put up with a lot of my grumpiness of being away from the woman I knew I was going to marry and he was really great to me. Better than I deserved actually.

We graduated and Andy and I, as is easy to do after college, got out of touch. In fact we didn't talk to each other or see each other for 13 years.

Then one day we got an email from an address that I didn't know. I thought about not opening it because I didn't know the address and I was afraid it might be some kind of virus. I stared at it a little bit and decided to open it. It was from Andy. He asked how we were doing and then shared that "they" would like to talk to us about our fundraising. We were leaving for Brasil the next year and still had a shortfall so it was a blessing to get his email.

We found out he received a Christian magazine at his work (one he had never received before). He was putting it in the trash when he looked at the cover. It was about a missionary to Brasil that had died. Andy decided to read about the man and as he looked through the magazine he saw an ad about our team. He saw me and he began to laugh (a common reaction from those that knew me in college).

Anyway, he reached out to us and I assumed that the "they" he was talking about was he and his wife. I was wrong. It was a business that he worked at. He and the owner (another guy that went to the same college we attended) asked us to come in and just share about our mission. They had been supporting some missionaries in Africa who had returned to the states and they were looking for new ways to use their tithe.

Since that day the company, and both of these guys, have been partners with us in what God is doing in Porto Alegre. Strong partners and not just financially.

Before we moved to Brasil my girlfriend and I went out to eat with Andy and his wife, Jennifer. It was the first time we had ever met her and we all just hit it off.

We come back to the states every two years and each trip back we go to Dallas to visit our buds. Every time we go back Andy and Jennifer offer up their house to us.

They have 4 kids. Caroline is the oldest and Jonathan, Sydney and Alexandra are triplets. Caroline is close to Carys' age and the triplets are Anderson's age. Our kids always have a great time when we go there.

We've come in and stayed a week with them on three different times. First time we had 5 kids (Giovanni wasn't born yet). Second time all 6 kids and this time 4 kids (Ansley is still in Brasil and Bronwyn is in college).

We invade their home and they always make us feel like it's our house. Even the kids don't complain about sharing rooms, toys or whatever. They even let us use their car to get around in. I don't know if most people assume our transportation is provided for us when we are stateside. It is not. We rely on the generosity of people in sharing a second or third car. These guys have always shared everything they have with us. Humbled and grateful are two words that come to my mind when we think of Andy, Jennifer and the kids.

One of the tough things about doing what we do is having a family in the states and a family in Brasil. You always have your heart ripped out when you have to say goodbye to one of those groups but that same thing also brings so much joy. As we said goodbye to our family in Brasil the Thomas' were welcoming our family and being our family at our first stop in Dallas.

They are an awesome family and are a great reminder to us of how good God's family is.

Thank you Thomas family for another incredible week! We can never repay your kindness to our family. We love you guys.

Big D to Huntsville

2011-10-24T10:36:00.001-02:00

We left Dallas yesterday. Many more blogs to come about our time there but today we wake up in Huntsville, Alabama. City where my girlfriend grew up.

Our flight from Dallas left at 8:20 at night. When we made our plans in August we decided to stay in Dallas on Sunday as long as we could to be able to worship with a church family. It worked out just as we had planned and we were able to worship with our brothers and sisters at The Hills. We were uplifted and encouraged by our time with God's family there.

Anyway, after worship, we ate lunch, went to Andy and Jennifer's (more on them later) to finish packing and then Andy took us to the airport around 6.

We ate supper and then waited to board.

It had been a long day and some people were tired when we got on the plane.

Like these guys.

Like this cute girl (if you couldn't tell she was on her way out from the picture above).

But not this little 3 year old.

The photo above is of him kneeling down by his seat watching a t.v. show on our itouch. He was worn out but he couldn't get still long enough to go to sleep.

It was a battle until about 20 minutes before we landed. He finally agreed to lay down in my lap and about a minute later he was out.

It was a long, good day.

We had an awesome week in Dallas. Better than we could've imagined. God put many new people in our lives and we were blessed to see lots of old friends as well. Some we haven't seen in 20+ years.

I'm not a big conference person at all but I would love to come back to the Global Missions Conference again in 3 years. It was an amazing, encouraging and Spirit filled few days for us.

We now enjoy some time with grandparents and a week in Huntsville.

Lots more to share and we've only been in the states for a week.

2011-10-23T16:34:00.007-02:00

Stole this quote from one of the conference speakers (Randy Harris) this week as he stole it from James Bryan Smith:

"You are a member of the kingdom of God and the kingdom of God is never in trouble."

North Richland Hills, Texas

2011-10-22T22:56:00.000-02:00

For those that don't know, our family is looking for a new sponsoring church as well as some supporting churches. This year has been a tough year for us financially as we lost about 40% of our support.

When all of that happened we turned to our friends at Missions Resource Network (MRN).

They have been an incredible encouragement to us as they've met with us weekly on Skype to help us learn more about the Disciple Making Ministry and how we can implement that when we return home in January. They've also encouraged us spiritually as we've begun looking for new support. And they've also helped us look for new support. They've given us names of people to get in contact with about becoming a financial partner. I don't know where we'd be if it weren't for MRN.

We were originally planning on coming back to the states in November and leaving in January. MRN encouraged us to come a little bit earlier. Why? Because they wanted us to attend the Global Missions Conference in North Richland Hills, Texas. They told us it would be encouraging to us and would be a good place for us to network and share about our needs.

This is a conference that is held every 3 years and it, literally, brings people from all around the world to share about missions.

I don't believe we could have done anything more important to us personally and for our ministry in Porto Alegre than to go to this conference right off the plane.

We were able to hear some great speakers from the states, from Kenya, from S. Africa and from Ghana. We worshipped in English for the first time in a long time. We got to see friends and fellow missionaries from Brasil. We ran into old friends of ours from college. Friends from A&M and friends from where we used to live. We had some good, deep conversations with people about what God is doing in POA and what our family needs are. The kids had great classes and made some friends.

We also got to spend some good quality, face to face time with our family at MRN. We can't share how much we love those guys and how much they mean to us.

The entire week has been a huge blessing to our family.

We wanted to share about a specific person today and we'll try to share more specifics later on about our week.

After two days of searching for her, we finally got to see one of our most favorite people in the world.

Her name is Dottie and we got to know her a few years ago when she came to be a speaker at a conference we were at. She stayed in our house after the conference and we grew a deep love for her.

Dottie was a missionary to the Netherlands for many years. She now works for MRN as their director for missionary care.

She is wise, loving, caring and, like I said, one of our most favorite people in the world and that is not an understatement. I can't tell you how she has blessed our family. When we see her somehow God just transfers His peace to us through her. She is definitely a woman after God's own heart.

This is a long furlough and it's tough being away from home for so long but being able to spend time with people like Dottie is already making it worth it.

Dallas, Texas

2011-10-21T00:55:00.000-02:00

Last night these goobers....

....drove in from Abilene to stay a night with us before going on to Austin.

Stephen got the Blume family welcome.

They went with us this morning to the Global Missions Conference and then we all went out to eat lunch before they had to leave.

We had a great, short visit with them.

Thanks Stephen for bringing our daughter to come see her family. Okay, we were glad to see you too.

Wylie, Texas

2011-10-20T22:50:00.000-02:00

So I've decided to title some blogs during our furlough based on where we are when it happens.

Yesterday it happened in Wylie, Texas.

We were invited to eat lunch and hang out with these guys:

For those who don't know we lived with these guys in the same city and did ministry together in Brasil for 5 years.

It's Sascha and Jennifer Terry and their little girls (Elisa and Kira).

They left Brasil in the beginning of 2009 but continue to keep up with and know what is going on with their church family there.

We had a great time, had great food and great conversations with them yesterday. I love how time and distance can't mess up God's family. It's been a while since we've been with them physically but it seems like they never moved away.

We will always be together in Spirit.

15-Part 2

2011-10-19T23:53:00.006-02:00

We burned through the birthday boys list yesterday.

Go eat donuts......

Check.

Come back home and open presents......

Check.

Go bowling.......

Check

Go eat hamburger and fries......

Check.

Go to FC Dallas soccer game (check out the cute girl walking next to my son).....

Check.

Everyone bailed on the game except me and my girlfriend which was fine because the little guys were tired from our trip and it was a little cold and windy at the game.

Even though Dallas got beat 3-0 and it was way different than the soccer we are used to,

we couldn't wipe the smile off of Garrett's face as he talked about how much fun he had.

He had a good day.

Oh yeah, I left out number one on his list. Working out together.

Well, you can't get everything you ask for you.

15

2011-10-18T11:36:00.005-02:00

Today our oldest son turns 15.

The 15th birthday is a big deal in South America. We wish we could have done something with his buds back at home today but God planned for us to be in Dallas, Texas on this special day.

Garrett has always been super laid back in just about every aspect of his life (except being late for soccer practice or an Inter game.....then he turns into Rain Man) and he's been like that about this birthday. I think we've been more worked up about him not getting to celebrate with his best friends than he's been. He's understood the mad rush that we had to do to get everything ready for our trip to the states and took it all in stride.

Anyway, we continue our tradition of allowing the birthday child to pick the day's activities. Here is what he has come up with so far for today:

1) Work out with me. (He wants to get stronger for soccer and I told him my PT background has been dormant long enough. We'll work out together on this furlough and he wanted to start today.)
2) Go eat doughnuts. (Always important to refuel with good/healthy food after a tough workout)
3) Come back and open presents.
4) Go bowling. (Not much bowling going on in Brasil. It exists but if we went to those places we would pay a fortune.)
5) Go eat a good hamburger, fries and milkshake. (More important refueling after stated workout.)
6) Go to the FC Dallas (professional soccer team) game tonight. (We love soccer.)

Jennifer, our friend in whose house we are staying this week, gave us good places to go for all the above.

So being in a super cool big city has helped to ease the pain of not being home with his buds. Especially when you can find tons of junk food to eat that we don't have in Brasil. I mean, come on, he is 15.

As is our tradition on special days we allow the family to share some stuff about the birthday person:

Giovanni (translated by his mom): " Garrett, thanks for taking care of me and especially for playing with me. I LOVE to play cars with you. You are an awesome big brother. I wuv you."

Anderson: "He is a Colorado doente. He plays soccer VERY good. He is younger than he looks. Sometimes he loses his kooks (mind). He's a very nice brother but sometimes he bugs me but he's still important to me no matter what."

Carys: "He is so cool and awesome. I love to play and wrestle with him."

Ansley: "I miss you Garrett and I know you are having tons of fun!! Eat a couple of donuts for me!! By the way... I am still taller than you. happy birthday!!

Bronwyn: "Happy birthday Garrett! I hope you have a really cool day. I wish I was there with you, but I'm so excited to see you in a few days. I love you, and maybe someday you can take me down. Maybe."

Girlfriend: "Garrett, I could not ask for a better son than you. I love you so much and am so proud of you in every way. I know that God is going to bless you and that you will be a great example for a lot of people in your life. And.... you give the BEST foot massages in the world (come to think of it.... isn't it getting about time for another one of those???) "

Me: "I remember going to the hospital for your birth and wanting another girl. From the day we got married mom and I always wanted lots of kids. Before you, all I knew were girls and I loved it. I remember, after Bronwyn and Ansley were born, only wanting 2-3 more girls.....and then you showed up. All Boy!! My little chubby baby who loved to put on the Batman cape and run around buck naked in the house. My sports buddy who likes any kind of sports (to watch and play). My army guy "set up" man. My wrestling buddy (even though you still CAN NOT take me down). My "want to read everything all the time on the internet about Inter" soul mate. My man that does all the "guy stuff" with me. I still love having girls and always will but God showed me, through you, how much more stuff he had planned for me through having boys and girls. I love that we do all the guy stuff together but there are things about you that are way more important than those things. You are almost as big as me now and have become my co-protector of the girls in our house. You protect your mom and sisters and I love that. I love your laid backness. That quality will serve you well in life. I love that you've always been compassionate and felt for those in need. I love that you've taught me way more about the importance of persistent and consistent prayer than I could ever have taught you. You have been my prayer role model. Thank you! Our family is very blessed to have you in it. I'm glad God gave me boys and that you are the example to the other little men in our house."

We Made it

2011-10-17T22:51:00.000-02:00

We arrived safely in Dallas this morning.

All flights were smooth and on time.

Thank you for your prayers for our safety.

We'd like to ask you to pray for Ansley who is still in Brasil and will be there for 3 more weeks before joining us in the states. Please pray for her to feel God's presence every day.

Also please pray for Bronwyn. We called her today after we arrived and found out she has a bad stomach virus. Please pray for her to have a quick recovery.

Thank you for praying for our safety and thanks, in advance, for praying for our girls.

Travel Prayer

2011-10-16T06:52:00.001-02:00

A few days ago a dear brother in Christ sent us an email. I would share his name but he is a man of humility and I know he wouldn't want that or feel comfortable with that. The only words on his email were a prayer that he prayed for our family about our trip to the states. We leave this afternoon and would be blessed if you prayed the same prayer for our family. Thank you, in advance, for praying for us. We look forward to seeing how God will work and move in our lives during our time there.

Here is his prayer:

"I ask you to give the Blumes a safe and joyous trip to the US. Protect them during their visit to the states and give them wisdom to know your heart for them during this visit. Show them the doors you have opened for them and the wisdom to walk away from the doors you have closed. Protect the house churches during their trip and may they meet in the power and anointing of Holy Spirit. Protect the Blume property while they are away and particularly bless Ansley and protect her by the power of the name of Jesus. Let this time be a time of renewal for them as they visit family and friends. I ask you to increase your anointing on them and speak through them the Ramah words for the time and place. I speak your peace to them during their travels. Provide for all of their needs according to your richness in Heaven. We love you Father and we worship you and in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen."

Last Days

2011-10-15T05:31:00.027-03:00

Yesterday was the kids' last day of school before we travel to the states.

Giovanni came home with a picture of him and his classmates and all the work for his school year.

He was blessed to have Janete (on the left) and Talita as his teachers.

Anderson had Janete as his first teacher 4 years ago and we love her.

Anderson had a great day as well as he came home with a book of pictures that his classmates had drawn just for him.

His teacher, Vanessa, gave him her email and asked for him to get in touch with her frequently, while on our trip, so she could tell the class what he was doing.

Here he is with Vanessa, some of his buds and the book they made just for him.

He also took a picture with his teacher from last year, Fernanda.

We had to wait for 10 minutes before we could leave because everyone had to give him one last hug.

On our walk home he said, "Dad, I can't wait to get back home in January. Imagine the kinds of hugs I'm going to get when I get back."

Carys' class had a going away party for her last night. Her whole class was invited to go to one of her closest friends house to tell her bye. She spent the night with her friend. I'm sure they stayed up most of the night.

Garrett came home from school and, with a smile on his face, said, "I've never been hugged so much in my life."

One of the things we love about Brasil is the affectionate way the teachers teach. They hug and kiss each student as they enter school each day and as they leave.

Yesterday Janete and Vanessa thanked us for the opportunity to be the teachers of our kids. This came from their hearts and they say it to every parent at the end of the school year and they really mean it. It's not just words, they teach and love on kids in a way we've never seen in the states (and my girlfriend was a school teacher for 10 years). It's a very cool thing to see.

After thanking us for being able to teach our kids, Janete, Talita, Vanessa and Fernanda all hugged and kissed us as well. It's how we greet people and say goodbye. My girlfriend and I were talking later about how just our normal greeting is something we really love about raising our kids in Brasil.

We are so blessed to have such good schools and good teachers.

Yesterday Ansley got a Typhoid Fever shot to get ready to go to Ecuador. She's been getting lots of shots lately to prepare for her mission trip.

My girlfriend and I spent a few hours on the streets (business meeting, canceling certain bills, telling people bye, grocery store, etc). We have more to do on the streets today and then we begin the fun chore of packing. We always laugh when people ask us days in advance if we are packed. That's not us.

Yesterday was a tough day to say goodbye to everybody but the great way everyone loved on our kids made it easier for us and for them to be ready to get on the plane tomorrow.

My girlfriend and I have had phone calls from friends telling us they want to come by our house to give us a hug before we leave.

Saying goodbye to your home for 3 months is tough but I guess Anderson's words are for all of us. "Imagine the kinds of hugs we are going to get when we get back."

We are blessed to have our family on 2 continents.

Andersonisms and Odds and Ends

2011-10-14T02:49:00.043-03:00

Couple of conversations between Anderson and my girlfriend over the last few days.

We know you have missed your Andersonisms so here you go:

Anderson: "Everyone says my teacher next year is SOOO mean!"
Girlfriend: "Well then, just remember what I told you. If you are nice to your teacher, she will be nice to you. You just obey the rules and she won't have any reason to be mean to you."
Anderson: "Yeah..... or I could just get used to her being mean, you know like I did this year. I just got used to my teacher getting on to me when I got in trouble."
(In other words, no need to worry about always obeying the rules, just get used to the yelling!)

Anderson: Mom, isn't it neat that our family is SO special?
Girlfriend: Um.... yeah. Like what do you mean?
Anderson: Well, I got Guinazu's (one of our favorite soccer players) autograph..... you have a cool blog..... we're Christians...... and we are German!
(Never mind the fact that we are Americans, and he is Brazilian..... Our last name is German, so we are German!)

Odds and Ends:

Our kids always find the best videos on youtube. Yesterday Garrett showed me the one below. It's only purpose is to make you laugh.

We leave in two days for the states. Garrett checked out of school mentally about 2 weeks ago after he found out he was going to be home schooled in the states by my girlfriend for the last semester of the school year (our school year ends in December). So the last 2 weeks of school here aren't counting towards his final grade so it's been bye bye school concentration lately. This school checking out would be a genetic trait he got from me.

This week Carys began checking out mentally with school as well. It's been interesting trying to get them motivated to go to school.

Garrett is counting down days until he gets to drink a Dr. Pepper. Carys is counting down days until she can eat a doughnut. About every 5 minutes (literally), she says, "Guess where I wish I was right now."

Anderson wants to see snow for the first time in his life.

Giovanni talks every day about riding on a plane.

Ansley is getting a little nervous about staying by herself for 3 weeks. She just finished an awesome video that we plan on showing to people on our trip. If you run into us you need to ask to see it. It's worth your time. She did a great job of capturing what God is doing here in our city. She has a gift for that kind of creative stuff. I'm not a crier and I've dropped some tears every time I've looked at it so far. It makes me not want to leave and gets me excited to return in January. God's doing some amazing things here and Ansley's video just nails what is going on. Thanks Ans!

Meanwhile, my girlfriend and I are praying for God to stop the earth's rotation a little to slow down the days just long enough to let us get everything done before we step on the plane.

Much is going on in our last few days here. We would appreciate your prayers for peace as we try to get everything done.

Dia das Crianças

2011-10-13T05:21:00.000-03:00

Dia das Crianças, or Kids Day, is a Brasilian holiday celebrated every October 12.

No schools are open and almost every business is closed.

It's a day just to celebrate kids.

On Monday the little guys got to dress up for parties at their schools as they celebrated Kids Day.

Reggae Inter fan....

.....and of course Spiderman.

This morning Giovanni got his face decorated by Carys when he first woke up.

We started a tradition on our first year here and we've been doing it ever since.

The kids wait together to get their presents, just like we do on Christmas day, and then they usually open their presents from youngest to oldest.

This is a photo I found from that very first one in 2002.

This year Giovanni went first and then the kids let him pick the opening present rotation after that.

Chocolate was the theme this year, along with Hot Wheels cars for Giovanni. Everyone was happy because Kit Kat bars just made it to Brasil and they have 4 different kinds (I know not a big deal if you are an American) so they were the gift of choice.

Giovanni also got some Toy Story 3 gummy bears but he would not allow anyone to eat them because he just wanted to play with them as he drove his new cars around Woody and Buzz.

After presents we went and had a cook out at a place near our house.

Ansley entertained while we cooked and got lunch ready.

We ate and then.....

.....my girlfriend made home made ice cream and everyone seemed to like it.

Ansley wanted to know why everyone thought it was cute when a little kid spills ice cream all over himself when eating and takes pictures and talks about how cute it is and not when an 18 year old does it. She then posed for a photo. You can decide which "ice cream spilled on face" look is one you think is more picture worthy.

I personally am going with the 3 year old.

After a little while Dee and Laura (our new missionary friends who just moved here in June) and their kids came and hung out with us.

It was a fun, relaxing day and just what we needed in the middle of all the busyness and stress of trying to get ready to get on the plane on Sunday.

I love that Brasil has a special day every year just to celebrate our kids.

Last Game.....for a while

2011-10-11T03:12:00.036-03:00

B,

Ansley went to her last game before heading to the states and then Ecuador.

It was Ansley, Anderson, mom and me. Garrett bailed at the last minute which freed up a spot for mom.

We played against Vasco who was in first place.

We had a great time.

We ate food.

We got a good laugh at the direct hit a bird put on Ansley's jersey on the way to Beira Rio.

We got to hang out.

We got to see a rainbow (hard to see but Ansley is "holding" it).

We got to watch mom take random pictures like she always does.

And we got to see an awesome victory followed by a celebration.

It was fun and it's been fun watching Ansley making some good memories with her bros and sister before we leave on Sunday.

Oh yeah, Ansley got a new hat that she said she's going to wear on game days in Ecuador.

My favorite picture of the day:

By the way, here are your goals of our 3-0 victory. I thought you might like watching it from Bom Dia Rio Grande instead of the national news:

J.B.

2011-10-10T18:15:00.001-03:00

Right now Ansley and Carys are at our favorite soccer stadium.

Why are they there and I'm sitting here at home? Why am I, and the other soccer fans in our house, not watching our team play with them?

Because they aren't watching our team and it's not a game. So why are they there?

This is why:

That's right, Justin Bieber is in concert in our city and these two are there to watch it.

Garrett and I dropped them off about 5 hours before the show even began and the line of girls to get in was around the stadium.

They are sitting with one of Carys' friends and her mom so my girlfriend made all three girls the "Bieber Fever" shirts you see above. They added to the fever by painting "J" and "B" and their hands.

I'm sure we'll hear some good stories tonight about their first big concert. I just called Ansley and she couldn't hear me because of all the screaming and the concert doesn't start for 2 more hours.

I'm glad they are doing this together before Ansley heads off to Ecuador and then college.

They won't ever forget it.

Gotta get that "Bieber Fever!"

2011-10-09T14:10:00.002-03:00

Teaching is not effective without an example. Begin with acting right, then you can speak later.

Fenelon

2011-10-08T18:08:00.000-03:00

B,

Just to help you kill the saudades.

We are going to our last game of the year tomorrow (against first place Vasco). Even Ansley is going to go.

Should be fun. Wish you were here to go with us.

Countdown

2011-10-06T06:02:00.000-03:00

We leave our home next Sunday (the 16th) for a 3 month trip to the states.

Garrett, our child most like me in the "not a fan of school department" has been counting down the days for the last couple of weeks. Not a countdown of how many days until we get on the plane but of how many days of school he has left before we leave. That countdown doesn't surprise me. I would've had the same one.

Ansley, like we mentioned on Monday's post, is staying here at home longer. 3 weeks longer. She will be working more but the real reason she is staying longer is because one of her best friends will celebrate her 18th birthday in early November and Ansley didn't want to miss that.

Ansley has been working like crazy this year teaching English. What started out as a huge dread and burden in her daily life has turned into something she really likes to do. Her world has really opened up with working for someone other than mom and dad, making new friends, being on time to all her classes, etc. She is finding out that God has gifted her in teaching young kids. They LOVE her. Almost every night it seems like she is bringing home a new picture drawn from a different child that they made just for her. Her bosses have also praised her for her great work ethic and the way she deals with the kids.

None of this surprises us. She has so many gifts that God has given her and we knew she would do great.

It hasn't been an easy year for our 18 year old. Taking different buses to go to different places throughout the city, learning to deal with having a boss and obeying the boss even when it might not make the most sense or when you feel your way might be better, dealing with, at times, difficult kids, etc. But all in all it's been a great experience for her and she has grown so much over the year.

She has taken this year to work to make money for college and although she really loves teaching the kids she is ready to take a break in the states before moving to Ecuador in January where she will live for 5 months. After that she'll come home for a month or two and then go back to the states for college. She's excited about the future and what God is doing and we are excited for her.

She has really grown to love her job with the kids but now she too, like Garrett, has a countdown but of a different kind.

I went into her room the other day and found this post it note countdown above her bed:

Think she's excited about the end of her first real job?

Art Show

2011-10-05T05:47:00.014-03:00

Last Saturday we walked across the street to the kids school for an art show.

The school was displaying the art work from every grade level and every class. Carys gave us a guided tour as the boys said, "No way I'm going to school on a Saturday!"

We got to see Anderson's handiwork which consisted of worms....

...the names of all the kids in his class...

....and then they were asked to recreate the Mona Lisa but using someone else for the picture. Who did he chose? Mona Marta (the best female soccer player in the world) of course.

We had Garrett's art work.

And the kind of art work that goes with 14 year old boys. Soccer, surfing, Reebok, Batman, Google, a Gaúcho and of course, Black Sabbath.

Then Carys showed us some of her work.

And this is one of my favorite pictures. Obviously because of our cute daughter but also because of what she is holding.

Here it is more clearly:

It spells the word peace (PAZ) and with those three letters she wrote the following, "The Lord is my shepherd and I don't lack anything. Thank you for making me who I am today." Carys

We love our kids' school. It's a Christian school. It's a Lutheran school with a Lutheran church right across the street. In fact, sometimes they have classes/activities at the church. They are taught Christian values.

Big deal right? I mean a Christian school should teach those values right? You would think so but our kids have gone to Christian schools before where they were taught things like the Big Bang Theory as fact. It was more a school where being a Christian was just part of a hodge podge of religions. Part of the buffet that a lot of Brasilians want to partake in to make sure they have their bases covered.

Last year Anderson's teacher regularly lead the class in prayer or as Anderson said (emphasis his), "She did it every single day and she always did it with us."

Do you think my son will ever forget a teacher like that? Not likely. Do you think we will? Nope.

We loved our art show tour and we loved the fact that our daughter openly thanked Jesus for taking care of her and for who He is in her life.

Pum

2011-10-04T04:23:00.007-03:00

Bronwyn,

It's a shame we will be arriving in the states on the 17th.

Why?

Because we will miss this:

You know me, Carys and Anderson would have been all over that.

Maybe next year.

P.S. For our English speaking readers this invitation is to a kids play that is entitled: "Poots.....smelly stories."

Home

2011-10-03T02:02:00.000-03:00

Two weeks from today our family (except Ansley who will stay a while longer) will arrive in the states.

We are so looking forward to seeing family and friends and meeting new people, but it is hard leaving our home for such a long period of time.

Imagine picking up and leaving your life for three months. It's never an easy thing to do. As our kids get older and older, it gets harder and harder to just pick up and leave everything.

Our furloughs happen every 2 years and they are part of this life that God has chosen for us and, like I said, we love going back to the states (the kids are already talking doughnuts, Dr. Pepper, bowling with grandparents and other things that they don't get here) but it's a strange thing to try to explain.

(Anderson and Garrett with Papa at the Memphis Zoo in 2009.)

We have lived here longer than any place Benay and I have ever lived in our married lives. Going on 10 years. Two of our kids were born here and know no other life than the life we live in Brasil. Two of our other kids were 5 and 3 when we moved here so most of their memories of the states don't come from when they actually lived there but from our furloughs. Our kids' best friends are all Brasilians. Our church family, aside from one remaining teammate as well as other American missionaries that we worship with, are all Brasilian.

We love living here and know that this is right where God wants us to be right now. This is our home.

That was brought home to me last week in a big way.

We went to pick up Anderson from school and he was sitting on the bench with his buddies surrounding him and giving him hugs as he was crying. His teacher, Vanessa, looked at me and motioned for us to come in.

She began to tell us that he was sad about going to the United States because he was going to miss all of his friends and school and he was afraid everyone would forget him. He was going to miss his home.

Now, when we get on the plane to go to the states he will be completely jacked up. He's going to the land of candy we don't have, grandparents who play with him all the time and take him to cool places, food he can't get here, etc. but he cried when he thought about leaving his home.

(Anderson and Grandaddy at the beach in 2009.)

We understand. We are excited to see family and friends in the states. We are also excited to see what the Lord will do while we are there. But we will miss our home for 3 months. We will miss our family traditions that we do every Christmas. We will miss Christmas day in shorts and a t-shirt. (I can still remember our first Christmas here and how weird it was to be going to the mall in shorts. Now it's weird to think of wearing a big coat to go Christmas shopping). We will miss getting to experience our full spring. We'll miss the end of the school year excitement as summer approaches. We'll miss our annual dirty Santa Christmas party that we invite all of our friends to in our house. We'll miss our bible studies together and just hanging out with our friends. We'll miss home.

God isn't done with us yet and, in some ways, it feels like He is just getting into the real meat and taters of why He called us here. Exciting things are happening and, honestly, we just don't want to miss it.

This is home and we understand exactly how Anderson was feeling last week and yet we know he will probably also cry when it's time to leave grandparents and get on the plane to come back home in January. He will have a foot in both worlds.

It's a interesting thing to see and feel and it reminded me of a favorite quote from one of our most favorite people (Dottie for those that know her) who was also a missionary for 15 years in Amsterdam. She loves the following quote:

"If you came back, you wanted to leave again. If you went away, you longed to come back. Wherever you were, you could hear the call of the homeland, like the note of a herdsman's horn far away in the hills. You had one home out there and one over here, and yet you were an alien in both places. Your true abiding place was the vision of something very far off, and your soul like the waves, always restless and forever in motion." -Johan Bojer, "The Immigrants"

2011-10-02T05:00:00.000-03:00

We are often more convinced of our unworthiness than we are of His worth. Our inability takes on greater focus than does His ability. But the same One who called fearful Gideon a Valiant Warrior and unstable Peter a Rock has called us the Body of His beloved Son on earth. That has to count for something.

Bill Johnson

2011-09-27T20:31:00.000-03:00

There is a 20 year old in the states who has been bugging us to start blogging again.

So B, tonight these pics are just for you. Thought you'd like them. Enjoy.

2011-09-26T05:55:00.000-03:00

Trust me in your times of trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.

Psalm 50:15

2011-09-18T05:19:00.000-03:00

The best place to be is where God puts you. Any other place is undesirable because you chose it for yourself. Do not think too much about the future. Worrying about things that haven't happened yet is unhealthy for you. God Himself will help you, day by day. There is no need to store things up for the future. Don't you believe that God will take care of you?

Fenelon

Three

2011-09-03T18:31:00.000-03:00

Hard to believe it was three years ago today that Giovanni was born.

He was a pretty good looking little guy then...

....and we think he's even cuter now.

Grandparents+Technology=Fun

2011-08-26T02:57:00.002-03:00

A couple of days ago Ansley and I were talking to her grandparents. Which pair of grandparents isn't important because the story is the same for both sets.

You see Skype and computer things like that give the grandparents fits at times.

Yesterday as Ansley (off camera) began laughing at the technology challenged grandparents, she ran to her computer and found a video on Youtube. She showed me the video below. We then showed it to the grandparents and they couldn't stop laughing. They wanted to fight it and deny it but ended up accepting it as fact.

It's a mirror image of what we often see when we talk to any of the 4 grandparents.

We think you'll like it and will be reminded of someone in your family.

And grandparents, don't blame me. Ansley sent me the link and so I had to post it. Blame her.

Enjoy:

Bicampeão

2011-08-25T06:57:00.001-03:00

Hey B,

Guess who won the Recopa again last night?

We had to win by 2 to avoid extra time and then possibly the penalties.

What did we do? Won 3-1.

It's our sixth year in a row of winning an international tournament.

Independiente brought a big torcida from Argentina. They were loud and wild starting 2 hours before the game up until Damião did his thing.

Me, Garrett, Dee and André S. went and had a great time.

Here are your goals. I know you'll enjoy. You'll especially enjoy Damião's first goal.

And, of course, there was the Ruas de Fogo again.

Life or Death?

2011-08-24T10:52:00.000-03:00

Like with any sport, soccer fans can be crazy. Soccer fans also, like in any other sport, blame the refs if things don't go their teams way. I've learned lots of swear words in Portuguese just listening to the fans yell at the refs during games.

The video below is of an elderly man who didn't like the way the ref called the game against his team. It happened in the city of Oss, The Netherlands. After the game he decided to get onto the field to take matters into his own hands.

Take a look:

My question? How does an old guy on a scooter get that scooter, A SCOOTER, onto the soccer field with no security noticing. Maybe he slipped the security guy a 50 for the chance to run over the ref at 2mph.

At the end of the video you see that they both, the ref and scooter guy, entered the players' tunnel. I wonder if scooter guy swung back around and made another swipe at the ref or if they just broke out in fisticuffs?

For lots of people sports are definitely life or death. This guy definitely fits that category.

Andersonisms

2011-08-23T02:27:00.014-03:00

It's been a while since we've shared any Andersonisms. We know he has a following and so we share a recent one to hold you over until the next few come flying out of his mouth.

Yesterday Anderson was doing his homework. He stopped, looked at me and asked, "Hey dad, in 9 days and 3 months can I go with Lucas to play in a futebol championship? It's going to be against PROFESSIONALS, I'm going to be number 6 and it's going to be at Lucas' house."

I wish he could play against the professional players because I'd like to see who these "Pros" are and where they come from but I didn't have the heart to tell Anderson that in 9 days and 3 months we would be in the United States.

If only the tournament could've been in 9 days and 5 months then Anderson would've been able to play.

Maybe next time.