Birthday on the Boat

Last week, during our boat trip, Ava had her 5^th Birthday. She had been looking forward to this day since March, when her sister had a birthday. This was the 4^th Birthday our family has celebrated here in Brazil. Each one was unique, but Ava’s was by far the most distinctive.

The last couple of days, since we’ve been home, we’ve been setting up Ava’s new home school desk. She has been looking forward to going to school (a privilege she received when she turned 5) almost as much as her birthday party.

It appears Ava will present a new challenge for Brin. She is much more of an active learner, and seems to be behind in some areas as a result of her speech delay. Ava has struggled with ear infections that have affected her speech. While it has been somewhat of a concern, it has also provided some entertainment as well. Today, as I was going over flash cards with Ava, we came to a card with spaghetti on it. She knew we were practicing the “S” sound, but she thought the word was noodles. So she created a new word (as she often does) and said “snoodles”.

A Short Video

Click here for a short video we shot while on the boat, during our last trip.

Sights from Laranjal

We learned 70, 000 people inhabit the town of Laranjal. The working poor live in this city. Many people come to this city in hopes of acquiring a job at one of the two industries in town. There are more people than jobs. It appeared very needy.

Pretty much the entire town was built on stilts over swampy areas. We were told it is pretty much that way year round.

This is a view of the Laranjal riverfront. Directly across the river is another town where the more wealthy people live.

Another survey trip

Every night we slept on the boat with hammocks. The gentle swaying was comforting; eerie sounds of howler monkeys in the distance were not. One night Josh took his hammock and slept in the bamboo with the Brazilian pastors. The winds blows past the bamboo leaves and makes a crackling sounds and the flexible bamboo stalks slightly bend and creating gentle snapping noises as the hammock swings back and

forth. They risked a possible torrential rainfall at 2am and hungry bugs but none of that paned out so it made for a comfortable rest.

As many interesting things as there were to see, there were equal interesting things to hear. One night, we went to bed to the roar of frogs on the shore. So loud it was hard to believe they were only frogs. Another sound, one particularly distressing night, was the buzzing of ambitious mosquitoes. At midnight everyone awoke to put up mosquito nets. I did not have one and went half-loony until Pastor Clenildo gave me his hammock and then got up and started fishing early. The next morning I found about 20 bites on my rear. The mosquito had gotten through my hammock, pj’s and underwear. See what I mean about ambitious?!

Once in Laranjal we stayed the night tied up to another boat that had the misfortune of being parked right next to the “water taxi” launch. So all night long we heard the motor of the boats as they backed up to take their passengers to the other side of the river. For only 25 centavos. About 11 cents in American currency.

The next night we slept within close view of utterly majestic waterfalls. Surrounding us. Stunning us. It was such a treat. If God calls us to Laranjal, I’m there. So what did we think of Laranjal? The reason we traveled there, along with other missionaries and Brazilian pastors, was to scope out unreached areas and the potentiality of planting another base there. We discovered the area around Laranjal did not have very many people living in the interior (in the jungle, outside of a city), which is where Xingu Mission wants to make an impact. There were church’s in Laranjal, however there was not a lot of outreach happening outside the city simply because there were not many people out there. I did get to visit two hospitals and a health outpost where Tim (the mission MD) evaluated the health needs of the area.

View from the top of the boat as we traveled on the canal

It took around 3 days of river travel until we finally reached our destination. Throughout the way we took in the sights (and sounds). A particularly interesting part was a “shortcut” canal. It was narrow and shallow and put us up close to the jungle. We caught glimpses of parrots, toucans, and monkeys. Most interesting were the small family groups that lived along the river, children lined up at the window to watch our boat float by.

See more pictures of our trip here

Back from the River

Wondering where we were? We were out on the river with the two other missionary families and some Brazilian pastors scouting out unreached areas. The city we traveled to took us 3 days to get there in our boat, stopping at a leadership retreat in Porto de Moz, another city that sits at the Xingu river and Amazon river junction.

We’re tired. So we will write more tomorrow.

Party for Rabbit

The other day Ava woke up and decided that today was her stuffed rabbit’s birthday. Cleide (always willing to make a cake) and Ella made the cake and at lunch we celebrated the unnamed rabbit’s birthday.
I’m not just sure what Ava was thinking when she declared it her rabbits birthday. Maybe she decided that today was a good day for a party, if so, no one really argued with her (We did, however, have to lay down some party ground rules after the next morning when Mia declared it was her teddy bear’s birthday).I suppose a pointless party is good now and then. It gives us perspective on our little inconveniences and struggles throughout the day. -JTP

there and back

We all had a little break and are ready to hit the day. Josh and I got back from exploring Belem while the girls stayed with the Bergen family where there was no shortage of giggles and hugs. Belem provided new sights in the market where there was tons more fruit and vegetables than I had ever seen before. There were new smells, towels fresh from the dryer and new tastes; I accidentally ordered prune ice cream. It was named sensacao, which sounds like sensation so I thought it had to be good, and the prunes looked like fudge swirls. It was very mean of it to deceive me. And Belem provided a new friend. We met an Aussie named Henry who traveled back with us to Altamira and will spend some time checking out what we do here before continuing on his journey.

Now we are back and will be readying ourselves for the next boat trip in 5 days. I will be hitting homeschooling desperately hard, poor Ella.

A Milestone Reached

Today is our 6-month anniversary of our arrival in Brazil. Our family went to the river and built a fire and roasted hotdogs. We commemorated the event by talking about what we all liked and disliked about being in Brazil. Ava ironically said what she didn’t like about being here was “the weird people that talk funny”. If the irony was lost to you, Ava has been described, quite accurately, as both weird and talking funny.

A Garage Church

Tonight our family visited a new church here in Altamira. We usually go to the Central church, the largest of the 4 churches in Altamira. Ialton, the pastor of the Muturao church, has been asking me to come and visit his church and I'm glad we finally did. The church meets in Ailton's garage. It's a young church (the congregation looked more like a youth group, with a few parents mixed in). They have purchased a lot down the street and have begun construction on a building. The small meeting room was overflowing, at one point in the service it started to rain. I was part of the crowd that couldn't quit fit under the roof, so we got wet. At one point I saw a dog run down the aisle until he was shooed away by someone. The worshipers didn't seem bothered by the conditions. They seemed truly full of joy to be with each other, and in the presence of God. It seems garages are a good place to start churches her in Altamira. Our two largest churches started out meeting in garages, they now both have large buildings able to hold several hundred.

Little Irritants

We have a little mystery microbe invading the house. Started with Mia traveled through the Simon household and circled back around and caught Ella. Here she is on our bed watching a DVD sent to her by her cousin Emma. Ava and Mia, along with Cleide, joined her. Cleide started to sing along and Mia preferred she not.

prepare for arrival

Early on the girls were enthralled with the geckos that would get into the house and climb on our walls . They found them quite entertaining. I myself, did not appreciate them or the little lizards poops they left for me to clean up. Now almost 6 months later, the girls are not nearly as impressed as they once were. We are taking in the land and culture. Slowly and at times painfully. A few days ago I was in conversation with a Canadian visiting on a short-term team. I apparently used some Brazilian body language (the finger twitch to saying "no") during the conversation and she noticed. She congratulated me and told me I had "arrived."

That's Ava with the gecko. She is struggling right now with continued fluid and infections in her ear. She is also having some behavior issues that we are not always certain what to do with. She is homesick just like we all are so we are not sure when to show grace and when her behavior requires discipline. She is also very timid to speak Portuguese, probably because she knows we can barely understand her English sometimes. Can you see why ear infections with this girl might be a problem? In some ways parenting is much easier here because we have so much more family time. However, on the flip side, there are so many other factors that we have to take in to account. It can get tiring.

Josh went to his first Brazilian soccer game with Betu and Alisao. Like a real one where good players play other good players. He wasn't sure what to expect but is always up for a night out.