We awoke to Carys crying and saying she felt like she was going to puke.
We thought it might have been because she stayed out past midnight the night before as she went to the Harry Potter movie with Bronwyn, Ansley, Stephen and Weston. Sometimes when our kids get less sleep than usual they say they feel sick.
Her pain didn't go away so she stayed home and didn't go to house church. Bronwyn offered to stay to take care of Carys as well as to fix lunch and tackle the mounds of dirty clothes that we had.
The rest of us went to Everton and Daiana's house.
If you read my girlfriend's blog post last Monday then you know that going to their house was something that was already planned.
Our house church was divided three ways yesterday. Our family went to Everton and Daiana's to start planting a new house church there. Others from our house church went to Daniel and Miguelina's to begin a new house church in their neighborhood and Leni has been working on starting a new house church at her sister's house. Again, go back to read Benay's blog post for more details.
It's really cool to see these new things happening and to see our Brasilian brothers and sisters taking initiative and doing spiritual things on their own. It's the dream of every missionary to see real fruit and to see their church family rely less and less on them as they move towards full dependence on God. And God is blessing us so much we are see our family here thinking outside of the box and starting to get out of their comfort zone as they realize that God has equipped all of us to do His work, to be his family and to start house churches wherever He tells us to do so.
Our time at Everton and Daiana's was very encouraging. They were excited to have us in their home and we were excited to be there.
We sang some songs (some led by the children) and then Benay had us read some verses from Philippians 4. The kids and adults shared what those verses meant to them. It was very encouraging to hear the kids share what God's word meant to them. We then shared some prayer requests and had a prayer and asked God to bless Everton, Daiana, their kids, their house and their neighborhood. We prayed specifically for some people in their neighborhood that they had invited to come to house church but that couldn't. We believe that next time some of their neighbors will be there.
We had a blessed, fun time together.
We really don't have the money to call a repair guy to fix the problem and I'm really not a "do it yourself fix it guy" but I found myself getting aggravated that two little shoe laces were going to set us back at least $60 for some guy to come out and do what was probably going to be a quick fix. So what to do?
I kind of decided to take a piece of the dryer off to see if I could do the quick fix. One piece became two which became about seven. Before I knew it my girlfriend assistant and I had taken the door off, the back, the top, the side, the covering of the motor, the covering of the vent, etc. It looked like a jig saw puzzle and I was wondering if I would be able to get everything back on in the right place. Just as I was reaching the end of my patience level (me and fine motor stuff don't go well together) we saw the wire that had been cut. We were able to re-connect the wire, cover it with electrical tape and put everything back together. And it worked! Amazing. My girlfriend and I high fived when we were done. A definite, unexpected victory and money saver.
We got through with that job around 5:00 and by that time our teenage boy had ants in his pants about going to the Inter game. We left at 5:20 and made it to the game, that started at 6:30, in plenty of time.
We probably should have stayed home. It was cold, raining and our team took a 3-0 beating. But we went and made the best of it. Stephen and Anderson even got to take a picture with a gorilla. Come on, does it get any better than that? I don't think so.
We actually didn't get to see the whole game. We headed back home with about 20 minutes left. Why?
Anderson told us just after halftime that he wasn't feeling that great. He's done that before at lots of games but it turns out he was just hungry or tired and sleepy. We were planning on getting some supper after the game so I told him just to hold on for a little bit longer. Hoping it was the hunger bug. If you know Anderson then you know drama is his game. If he says he's going to puke 9.99 times out of 10 he doesn't. So we figured we were right in line with the 9.99. But I told him if he was going to puke to shoot it away from everybody else. Sympathetic I know.
About 5 minutes later we found out we were getting the .01 time out of ten as he, sitting right in front of me, begins to bend over. I watched him but couldn't see anything. He's quietly puking on the concrete between his feet. In between puke bursts he turns around, looks at me, doesn't say a word but points down to where he is ralphing to let me know what's going on. Poor little guy.
He finishes and we all jump up and head to the car (a 15-20 minute walk from the stadium) to try to get him home before the second wave possibly hits. About 5 minutes into the walk his big brother asks if he can carry him. Anderson agrees and for 5-10 minutes Garrett holds and takes care of his sick little brother.
Garrett gets tired and sets Anderson down. Anderson says he's okay to walk. So as we are walking along the street, he asks me if I could pray for him to feel better. I told him I was already doing it. He said, "You're going to when we get to the car?" I told him I was doing it right then in my head. He got closer to me, brushing me as we walked, and asked, "Could I get in on some of that?"
He felt a little better all the way home. We kept asking how he was doing and he kept saying, "Okay, but weird." He got home, took a shower and got in bed. He's slept peacefully through the night with no problems. Thank You God! Seems like he and Carys may have gotten some kind of bug together.
My kids have taught me so much about praying about everything and I literally saw God blessing and taking care of so many needs yesterday through simple prayers.
God is really doing some cool things here. It reminds me of two responses from two people I love and respect.
1) I read one time where people would often ask Mother Teresa what God was doing where she ministered to the poor, sick and dying of India.
Her response?
Come and see.
2) I know God does things in our lives that sometimes we just don't see because we don't have the simple faith of a child. He's waiting to do amazing things if we just allow Him access to our lives and souls. He's also, if we just look around, doing some cool things in our lives and we just need to be ready to ask the same question wise Anderson asked, "Could I get in on some of that?"
As you read about what God is doing here we would encourage you to "Come and See" for yourself because I promise you that God would be super excited to see you "Getting in on some of what He is doing here."
He is moving in our city. The invitation is open. Our house is open. Come see for yourselves.
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