A couple days ago, I got home from about 5 days of meetings at a camp 45 minutes outside of town.  When I got home, the idea of “daddy” was once again a novelty, and I got to play dolls, push little girls on swings and everything else I had been missing for the previous days.  Then, at bath time, Noelle came tearing down the hall, naked as could be, yelling “papai, papai” (Daddy, Daddy).  After Marla took her back into the bathroom, I followed her.  When she saw me again, she jumped from Marla’s arms into mine.  Then she put her arms around my neck and squeezed for a long time saying quietly “papai, papai, papai.”

Then on Sunday, after church was over, Marla and I went to pick up the girls from their Sunday school class.  As their class is in an old converted house, we could look in the room from one window, and see what was going on.  Posted at the other window like a sentinel was Samara waiting to catch the first glimpse of us as we rounded the corner.  I could see that clutched in her hands were the two gram crackers that she had been given.  She had broken each cracker in two separate pieces, so that she clutched four equal sized crackers in her hand.  As we picked her up, she carefully distributed one cracker to daddy, one cracker to mommy, one cracker to Noelle and one cracker for herself.  Her teacher later told us that she had been saving those crackers during the whole class… just so that she could share with us.

How I wish a picture could fully capture such moments

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Group from Belo Horizonte Church in Londrina

Samara and Isabella

Then we got another phone call from Andressa and Marlon and Wesley and Rosianne saying they wanted to come visit for the weekend.  These are two couples that were in Micah’s discipleship group and became some of our closest friends in Londrina. Marlon and Andressa are married and expecting a little girl in August. Wesley and Rosianne are getting married in October.  So again we were blessed by time with special friends who we love and who love us and really love Samara and Noelle.  

Tooth brushing buddies

Wesley and Noelle

"decorating" Rosianne's hair

breaking in our Churrasco (bar-b-que)

Telling us the story...The directions said to "mix by hand" when Micah turned around Marlon was doing just that!

SUPER special people we like

The biggest reason that Samara and Noelle like to go on walks is to visit all the neighborhood cats and dogs

This little puppy is their favorite, he's not yet been trained as a guard dog so he loves our visits

overflow seating at the bus stop

It’s very normal to see large fancy homes

next door to not so fancy homes

The sidewalks here are pretty uneven, full of tree roots, broken concrete and holes, so pushing a stroller can be quite a workout.

In the five block radius that we normally walk I believe that we are one of three houses that does not have a dog (some have four or five). Here dogs are much more than the family pet, they are an important part of people’s security systems so you never hear someone tell their dog to “be quiet” or “stop barking.” I understand this but at 3am when the whole neighborhood chorus gets going…well you can imagine how understanding I feel.

We often see people going door to door selling things

Broom vendor

Corn on the corner, unfortunately not like the sweet corn we love in Oregon.

taking a rest on a brick

headed home

barbed wire, razor wire and an electric fence

beautiful poinsettia growing on the gate next door

Thanks for taking a walk with us this afternoon, hope you enjoyed this little taste of the neighboorhood

Lately Samara has discovered a new phrase which she uses any time that she can.  That phrase “no way Jose.”  We’ve been trying to teach he portuguese, and some how she’s come up with Jose?  I don’t know.

Two prayer requests today.  The first is for Noelle to get better.  We just took her to the doctor yesterday after she had a pretty high fever.  The doctor took one look down her throat and nearly jumped when she saw how bad her strep throat was.  She’d on antibiotics now, and should be feeling better soon.

The second prayer request is for Samara.  I was in her bedroom talking with her the other night.  And she explained that she was keeping all the ants that would crawl up her wall at night beside her bed.  “They are my friends” she said.  “I don’t have any other friends besides the ants and my sister.”  The way she said it was so matter-of-fact that it made me laugh.  But at the same time it was kind of sad too.  So if you all could pray that she’d make a little friend, that’d be great!

Yeah, things have changed for us this time around. It takes us longer to get out the door, but shorter to get where we are going. We haven’t had to fight against the inconveniences of leaky roofs, jimmy-rigged stoves and not knowing how to communicate, and we eat a much more balanced diet. However we have become responsible for more things, have had to let our friends here know that we will not be staying in this city, have had to see people that we have poured love into not walking with Jesus, had to learn to balance work and family and have a little girl who is really starting to test her limits. Just yesterday in the car Samara said “Daddy loves me… even when I’m having a hard time. Mommy, I love you… even when you’re having a hard time too.” God is good, and we are thankful that He remains the same.

Pictured here is Andressa holding Samara at dinner last night

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this picture ought to be worth at least one and a half of my group emails.  There’s been a lot of prayer that has surrounded our moving down here to Brazil.  There was the logistics of luggage, bags, transportation, flight schedules and seat assignments; but in my mind all of those prayer requests paled in comparison with the adjustment of our kids (particularly Samara).

Samara was really little when she left Brazil almost a year and a half ago.  Being a VERY verbal little girl, she only remembered a handful of Portuguese words, and we know will struggle to communicate.  Going to Brazil, we knew she’d be leaving not only most of her toys (a very big deal to a 3 year old) but every one she’s ever remembered.  To put it mildly we were concerned for her adjustment.

But all of that was put to rest (but please don’t stop praying) when she got to Andressa’s house.  For some reason Andressa has always had some kind of magic when it came to Samara, even when Samara was a little baby.  Even though they don’t speak the same language right now, Andressa and a few others still hold that same magic for Samara.  In church, Samara grabbed her backpack full of crayons, paper and goldfish crackers to sit with Marlon and Andressa.  Through out the service as Noelle was being passed from person to person Samara was running back and forth between Andressa and Mommy (something that is very Brazilian) only to show us the pictures Marlon was drawing and to get more paper, preferring to sit with them over sitting with us.  Though she doesn’t yet know the language she knows very much that she is loved.  Thanks for your prayers.

1. Arrived at Portland International Airport with 17 bags to check (each packed almost to the 70 pound limit), 4 wheeled carry-ons, two backpacks, 1 computer bag and 1 double stroller
   • Arrived three hours before flight time
   • Though the United ticket agents we all there, no other passengers were
   • We had between 2-3 agents working with us for about 45 minutes to get us all checked in.  They were all very helpful, and even upgraded us to economy plus for our international portion of the trip.  We had also underestimated the number of checked bags by one (we checked 17 instead of the 16 we had thought) and they waived it through telling us not to worry about the excess baggage fee for that last bag
   • Ate lunch and said our farewells to our parents
   • Left on-time to Chicago

1. Arrived in Chicago
   • Had 40 minutes to get a bite to eat
   • Left on-time to Sao Paulo

1. Arrived in Sao Paulo
   • At immigration we were almost immediately directed to the short priority line (only used for airline staff, pregnant ladies and families with small children)
   • The guy who directed to the shorter line, was waiting for us at baggage claim with three of his friends
   • I showed them the yellow MTS Travel Agency bag tags that were on each of our bags
   • They pulled each and every bag off the conveyor belt and loaded them up onto the carts
   • Our trains of 5 baggage carts, lead by Marla and the stroller went through customs
   • We all got into a couple elevators, and went up to check into our domestic flight
   • Our baggage train pulled right up to the counter and we took about 30 minutes to check in
   • From stepping off of our flight, going through immigrations, baggage claim, customs, re-checking our baggage back through security into the waiting area took 1 and a half hours!
2. The flight to Londrina was delayed about an hour
   • The reason they told us from the cockpit was that there were too many heavy bags.  Some of them had to be transferred to another flight
   • All of our bags arrived.  We were greeted at the airport by several people who formed a sort of fireman’s line into the awaiting van.
3. The girls traveled great!  Both Noelle and Samara slept most of the first night, and they made friends with people around us everywhere we were.

Thank you for your prayers.  The whole journey was so much smoother than I had expected.

The girls are now awake and getting started on breakfast… I mean lunch, so I better run.

For the only cause that matters,

M&M

This is us at the Portland Airport infront of all of our bags

Noelle passing the time

Wake up to sunshine

Two hours to…

Feed girls

Pack lunches

Gather snacks

Scrounge warm layers

Fill thermos with hot chocolate

Find sleds

Hit the road

Two hours to…

Drive up to Mt Hood’

Pile on the layers

Hike to the hill

One glorious hour of…

Sled rides

Throwing snowballs

Watching spectacular crashes

Enjoying the beauty of the day

Before…

Samara was “fwozen”

Noelle was bleeding (and screaming) from a rogue sled accident

Samara had to go potty

Noelle was hungry

So…

We hauled everyone back to the car

Strapped crying kids into seatbelts

Filled sippy cups with diluted hot chocolate

Rubbed cold toes and hands

Handed out blankies and

Sighed as tuckered out little girls fell into sweet sleep

Two hours…

To drive home

One hour…

To clean up and put everything away

Memories…

That will last forever

I love this stuff

But it didn’t leave, it didn’t go, it just sat in front of me
A lump of goo gone cold made of rice and broccoli.
On my fork, here it came my Daddy’s special “yes bite”
There was nothing left to do but dig in for a long fight.

I reasoned, I explained, I turned my head, I cried
But nothing seemed to change, no matter how hard I tried
“Green eggs and Ham” is what they said trying to get me to open wide
“Sam I am” is what they called me trying to break my pride

They all left, the table cleared, and I sat there by myself
I stared at the goo, and it at me as they started watching “Elf”
Then finally at long last we had a big break through
Mommy said that I could go, if for breakfast I’d eat this goo

Free at last, free at last, my excitement made me spin
I grabbed my dolls, I grabbed my books and finding a chair jumped in
The next morning as the light peeked in, I came up with a plan
I’d tell Mom lunch was better for eating goo that came from a pan

But she didn’t budge, she didn’t buy it, I wasn’t off the hook
The goo was on my breakfast plate and I really couldn’t look
My eyes got red, they filled with tears, I tried to plead my case
Soon the room was empty and my future I glumly faced

How much longer could this go on? It’s time this came to an end
Maybe if I cry loud enough, they’ll give up, they’ll cave in and I’ll win
Three hours later, it’s 11’oclock and I still haven’t taken one bite
I’ve cried, I’ve reasoned, I’ve negotiated and I’m tired of this fight

Then in one last try my Daddy comes walking in
He reaches in the cupboard, and I begin to grin
In his hand is maple syrup, sugary, thick and golden brown
As he gets to my plate, a few delicious drops he puts down

The fork, the goo, and the plate too was covered with sugar so sticky
With tastes so strong, I couldn’t be wrong, it really wasn’t that icky
So remember all you people; grandmas and grandpas, moms and dads
Maple syrup is my secret for anything that might taste bad!

finding the perfect tree

Mommy's helper

decorating fun

bath buddies