Focusing » Just For Fun

Heart Melting

micahandmarla — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:26:40 +0000

Every now and then, we all encounter moments where we wished we had a camera. Moments that we wish we could freeze in time. Not having a camera at the time, I now want to paint a couple pictures for you of the last two I’ve experienced.

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

Filed under: Family, Just For Fun, Silly Kid Things

Lar Betania (Bethany House)

micahandmarla — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:17:38 +0000

There is an orphanage here in town that is sponsored by the church that we work with. Many of the short term mission teams that come to Brazil spend time doing work projects around the property. But mostly they love to come and play with the kids. There are about 30 kids there now and they live divided in 5 houses with house parents/mothers. The kids are from 10 months to late teenage years. Few are true orphans the others have parents who are incapable (drug addicts, in prison…) of taking care of the child. We have spent time at the orphanage when work teams are here and lately I’ve been taking the girls over on Saturday mornings just to play. We usually show up as the kids are finishing up their chores. As we start to play on the playground kids wander over and before I know it Noelle is in the charge of three or four “mothering” 8-12 year olds and Samara is giggling and testing out her growing Portuguese vocabulary. I love to just sit and watch the kids play, to have Elle come and hold my hand and, to have Erik ask me to take pictures of him doing “stunts”, to hear their laughter and to have a pocket full of candies to hand out. Below are just a few pictures of these sweet kids.

getting dizzy

Erik the stunt man

Who says that carting off piles of leaves isn't fun?!

Samara and her new friends playing house

Crutches smutches...I cruise pretty fast with my plastic chair

Finger fencing championship of the world!

A little help

Filed under: Just For Fun, Ministry

National Tragedy

micahandmarla — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 15:11:40 +0000

Why they lost? Well, from my point of view… they lost their cool. Could this meltdown have been avoided. Hmmm, I don’t know. You see, what makes Brazilian soccer fun to watch, as I have seen and as it has been explained to me by others, is that you can see that they are having fun when they play. This wearing of emotions on their sleeves opens the game up to creativity and experimentation. Brazilians like not just to win, but play beautifully with finesse. Theirs is not a game of cold and calculated play, it is a game of emotion and creativity. To ask them to play without emotion, would to make them un-Brazilian. Do I wish they had won… yes! Do I wished they’d have calmed down put their emotions in check and played their game…yes. But I guess the show goes on, and our flag at least for a time, is at half mast.

Filed under: Just For Fun

Making the transition

micahandmarla — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:40:22 +0000

I guess in hindsight, it was a good thing when I called Marla with some bad news from the Sao Paulo Airport. My flight out of Chicago (I had spent the previous week in OMS meetings in Indiana) had already been delayed 24 hours due to severe thunderstorms. When I arrived in Sao Paulo, I was informed that my connecting flight was already full. On the phone I told Marla that I was put on a later flight, and for a moment it was quiet on the other end of the phone. Then she said with obvious disappointment in her voice “if I come to pick you up from the airport when you get in, I’ll miss watching the Brazil World Cup soccer game.”

It wasn’t “I’m sorry Micah,” or “It’s already been a week since we’ve last seen you, I miss you and I’ll jump right in the car for the hour and a half drive to come get you:” it was “I’m going to have to miss the game!!”

I won out in the end and she loaded up the girls and tuned in the radio for the drive. In truth I was/am happy that she’s enjoying this World Cup season and she can now talk intelligent soccer with the ladies at church (yes I’m serious… this is Brazil after all).

Below is a picture of Noelle’s latest feat. We call it “hey, I can look out the window now all by myself!”

Filed under: Just For Fun

FRIENDS

micahandmarla — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 01:55:02 +0000

Definition of Friend according to Webster’s:

Person one likes

We have recently been thinking a lot about friends. Those people whom we like and think about and spend time with and pray for and miss. Being that we live in Brazil and most of you reading this do not, you fall into the pray for and miss category. So recently when the pastor from the church that we worked at in Londrina called and said that they were bringing a group to Maringa for a holiday we were thrilled! Here in Brazil there seems to be many holidays, city ones, state ones, national ones. Most of the time were not even sure why there is a holiday, but try to enjoy it nonetheless. So just over a week ago Micah met this group downtown and played tour guide for them on a drizzly afternoon that eventually brought them to our home for “café da tarde” the afternoon coffee and snack time that Brazilians have every day. The girls and I had made cookies and ham and cheese sandwiches and of course we had coffee. They stayed and visited and we laughed and talked and thoroughly enjoyed our time together!. What a blessing for us to feel like we were not only among persons that we liked, but friends that we love.

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

Filed under: Family, Just For Fun, Ministry

All in a days Walk

micahandmarla — Fri, 28 May 2010 18:45:53 +0000

The girls and I often take walks around the neighborhood in the afternoons when they wake up from their naps. I thought I’d “take” you along with us today…

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.

Noelle gets tired on our 5 block walk and sits down anywhere she finds a seat

taking a rest on a brick

headed home

Wherever there is a construction site you see these wooden frames on the street for mixing up concrete

People rely on more than just dogs for security

barbed wire, razor wire and an electric fence

Even though it’s almost winter time there are still beautiful flower and plants that we enjoy

beautiful poinsettia growing on the gate next door

Here we are at home sweet home

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

Filed under: Family, Just For Fun

Love is a big pot of Peanut butter

micahandmarla — Tue, 18 May 2010 20:10:32 +0000

For those of you who might be confused over the title of this post, at least 1 of 2 things are true.
1. You do not know how hard it is to find peanut butter overseas
2. You do not know how my wife loooooves her peanut butter

Of all the sacrifices it is to live in Brazil, perhaps none has been as great for Marla as living without peanut butter. They do have peanuts here in Brazil, but people here haven’t developed the taste for peanut butter so it is almost impossible to find. And when you do find it the in the import section of some supermarkets, the jars are small and so ridiculously expensive that we’ve never bought it. So until recently, the gift of good peanut butter was something only a visitor could bring.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I did try to make some. I’d first buy the peanuts, then I’d roast them. After roasting them in the oven, I’d take each one of those red papery skin things off of each peanut. Then I’d roast them again. After their second roasting, I’d put them in a mini-food processor and blend them up adding oil and salt. The process took about 2 hours to yield about 2 cups of peanut butter.

But then about a month ago, I saw in a health food store dry, roasted, salted peanuts, without the little red skins. Oh my goodness, how my heart jumped. Not only did this store have salted peanuts, but they had unsalted as well. Sooooo after trial and error, I have discovered that 1.3 kilos of unsalted peanuts (that I have to roast again) + .7 kilos of salted peanuts + a cuisanart + about 40 minutes of work yields almost 5 pounds of delicious peanut butter for about the same price as you can buy it at Cosco! Oh how God is good, and life can go on!

Filed under: Just For Fun

Gifts from the heart

micahandmarla — Thu, 13 May 2010 21:12:05 +0000

My mother’s day gift bags were many this year…Samara came scampering back and forth from her room her arms laden with gifts. As I opened each bag she explained why she had given me each present. Her dolly and doll blanket because “I love you so much, I want you to have her.” Her jewelry box filled with her jewelry “because you love jewlerrrery Mommy” Her pillow “because I love you so, so, so much Mommy” Item after item that she had picked out from her treasures, and wrapped up specifically to give to me. Then she sang an original Mother’s day song at the top of her lungs that went something like: “Happy Mudder’s day, it’s your Mudders day, Happy Mudders day…” and danced in circles. She presented me with a card that said Happy Mother’s Day. Micah had written the words in yellow marker and she had traced them in blue and was quite proud of herself. Later that evening when we were cleaning up she made sure that all the things she had given me were in my room. Dolly Isabelle was “sleeping” next to my bed and the jewelry box was on my dresser. I did convince her that it was okay if she “borrowed” her pillow back so she could sleep with it. I feel like I got the greatest gift ever. The love of my daughter, love enough to give to me her most prized and treasured possessions. As Micah was tucking her in that night she said “It made me wheeally happy to give all those things to Mommy, because it made her wheeally happy.” Well Samara, It made did make Mommy happy. So happy in fact that I don’t even mind when you “borrow” your jewelry back to dress like a princess.

Special card from a special girl

Filed under: Family, Just For Fun, Silly Kid Things

CAMP

micahandmarla — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:14:17 +0000

Start with two days, add 175 kids ages 5-11, mix thoroughly with 15 counselors, sprinkle in over 250 pieces of luggage, toss in a few handfuls of homesick tears, spice it up with a variety of games and activities, combine with Christ centered teaching and top it all off with a torrential, unrelenting downpour and you’ve got the recipe for an unforgettable time…

Getting groovy

one of my new buddies

clowning counselors

Filed under: Just For Fun, Ministry

My Girls

micahandmarla — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:18:35 +0000

Once a week between five and eight little girls would come scampering over to our house
To spend several hours with me. We would play games, do crafts, talk about life, read the Bible, giggle, bake yummy American treats, pray, talk about our families and just hang out. I taught some of them to sew, they were exceedingly patient with my bumbling Portuguese, and we all became, I believe, extra special to one another. So here we are one and half years later and my “girls” are growing up. I picked up four of them yesterday for an afternoon downtown eating ice cream, walking in the park and just hanging out. I saw lipstick and glittery eye shadow, boys are no longer completely icky, sixth grade is starting on Monday and time marches on. On one hand it was a delightful few hours together and on the other it pained my heart to hear of parents splitting up, teenager sisters who are pregnant and fathers who are abusing alcohol and drugs. I hold these young girls dear to my heart and I pray that the truth of God’s word will take root in their hearts, that other ladies in the church will invest in and mentor them and that these girls will choose a life surrendered to Christ. I do not know how many more times I will get to see them as we are moving to a new city on Monday, but I am thankful for them, for what God has taught me through them and I will continue to pray for each of these sweet girls daily by name…Gabriella, Giovanna, Leticia, Carla, Aleini, Nadialie. Deborah, Isabella.

for more recent pictures check out the pictures and videos page

Filed under: Just For Fun, Ministry, Uncategorized

Making Memories

micahandmarla — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:58:35 +0000

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

Posted in Family, Just For Fun, Silly Kid Things