Birthday Girl-Choices

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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.

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