Valentine's Day

Valentine's day in Brasil is actually in June. It's called Dia dos Namorados which means boyfriend/girlfriend day.

We decided this year to celebrate the American Valentine's day as a family.

My girlfriend and I usually have a date night on the American and Brasilian Valentine's days so the kids are used to that. In the past we've bought the kids some candy and done some special things for them but we've never had a fixed tradition with the kids on those days. This year Carys reminded us that we have as a family, in the past, made valentine's cards for each other. My girlfriend and I remember doing that maybe once or twice year but it's been a while ago. It's never been a fixed tradition. Leave it to Carys to remember something fun like that and wanting to repeat it.

So we repeated it again this year and it was fun.

As in many of our posts here we realize that it's mainly for our two girls that aren't in our house anymore. I apologize to the rest of you guys.

So B and Ans, here are some Valentine Day pics.

You know some people worked really hard at their cards.

Here are some of their creations:

We had Lightning McQueen.

 We had Office references.

 We, of course, had Nacho complete with attached poem.

 Garrett remembered Anderson's favorite American football player.

 We had awesome poems by a gifted writer.

Carys didn't forget my love for Gibby from ICarly. He's my favorite.

We had more of Carys' creativity.

She made a dog for Giovanni with a piece of red candy in it's mouth for a wagging tongue.

We had mom's creativity.

Then we had the creativity from Anderson's brain.

Star Wars for Giovanni.

 Special love note to Carys as only Anderson could verbalize.

He remembered the story of me and my girlfriend snorkeling when we were in Mexico a few years ago. In his version we were doing so with a big shark that also happened to have this shark bib on.

A personal note to mom to not work out so much for a couple of reasons: 1) some of her love might come out of her and 2) she is already skinny.

A personal note to Garrett in the shape of a giant T for Tennessee.

Some of our cards got sticky. Why? Because my girlfriend made Valentine's Day pancakes before we shared our cards. Heart shaped or hearts in the middle.....of course.

  
 
Other things also happened during the day. Day to day stuff. Like MD appointments or standing in a bank line for 30 minutes waiting to pay a bill.  Things definitely not picture worthy and not so fun.

But we got to end the day at our neighborhood pool which was awesome because it's been in the mid 90's and our house has no air conditioning so we enjoyed cooling off.

All in all we had a great time inventing our Valentine's Day celebration.

It was a great, fun filled family day and at the end of it we were all a little bit tired.

Some more than others.

I would say, if it's up to the kids, this will be a new family tradition. We like inventing those. You know it was good when even a 15 year old boy enjoyed making and getting cards.

If you want to check out what Valentine's Day was like for Ansley in Ecuador. Just click here.

Reader Survey

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

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

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

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.