Mia

Mia said something very insightful at the table the other day. I had mentioned doing something “when we go home”, referring to our furlough in July, and she stopped me saying, “Dad, you have to stop saying ‘when we go home’ because I don’t know what that means because this is our home.” Brin and I remember learning in our training about how missionary kids feel like that have no home, being stuck between two cultures. For us, we have a lifetime of memories from “back home”, but for Mia especially, it’s just a blur. She even refers to America as Africa. We’re not sure where she picked that up, but we usually just laugh when she says something about “when we go to Africa”. It can be scary thinking about all the future struggles we’ve brought upon our kids by choosing to live here. But in the end I realize I can’t shelter my kids from the pain of the world, all I can do is teach them where to turn in the face of it, and trust God with them.

Speaking of trusting God and Mia. After talking to my friend Dan who is an orthopedic surgeon, we’ve decided that Mia’s leg probably has a fracture. About a week ago she injured it while jumping on a trampoline and since then hasn’t been able to put weight on it. X-rays came back negative, but that doesn’t necessarily rule out a fracture. She has not been in pain, and seems to be bothered very little by it. It’s been a little bit more stressful on her parents, but we’re learning to trust God like she trusts us. I just wish this came as naturally for us as it does for her.

Furlough Calendar

I've just added a link, at the top of the bar to the right, to our official "furlough calendar". I will keep this calendar up to date, so check back as we are continuing to add to it. Just a note, I've only added our schedule for the dates when we will be in the States (July - Sep) so you must navigate to the correct month on the left side of the page.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

a pleasant run-in

This was a slow weekend, at least at the start of it. Now on the tail end we have different thoughts. The first story involves a spontaneous trip to a village called Grota Seca. It starts out when Josh was at a store and ran into “Mr. Z” from the village of Surubim. If you remember, he is the community leader that, after spending some time with him, Josh recognized that he would probably make a good pastor. At the time, however, he had not put his faith in Christ. (See this post for a refresher)

Josh offered to give Mr. Z a ride to where he was staying while in Altamira and on the way he jubilantly announced that he had accepted Christ. The conversation progressed to a plan to visit his mother in Grota Seca right after lunch. So the whole family, along with Alison, Ronaldo and Mr. Z jumped in the car for a trip. Even though calling Altamira a city is a stretch, it feels like it when you get out into the surrounding villages. It was tranquil really.

We met Mr. Z’s mom and explored her jungle homestead. She gave me a tongue lashing for not having boys, or at least that is what we understood. Our conversational Portuguese is improving, yet we still have moments where we think they could not have just said what we think they said. Mr. Z’s mom told about her 16 children and how one died because of “piun” bites. Yes, piuns are a nasty little bug whose bite often draws blood, but we hadn’t heard of a death by piun. So, who knows what she actually said.

We traveled to other people’s homes where Ronaldo prayed, listened, chatted and invited them to a service the next weekend. We are back to pioneer days where you actually have to go to someone’s house to inform the family of a meeting. The girls played everywhere we went, ate wild passion fruit and listened to the distant sounds of a troop of howler monkeys. Like I said, it was tranquil.

This morning we woke up to the sounds of Mia yelling to use the toilet. Why? Because she can’t walk. On Friday she was playing on the homemade trampoline at the Bergen’s when another girl sent her flying higher than was comfortable. She landed with a scream and hasn’t walked since. Pain has been controlled but she refuses to bear weight on her knee. We even threatened that if she didn’t try to walk we would have to take her to a doctor, and she remembers with horror her last trip to the hospital. But she simply could not walk, so now 48 hours later, we immobilized her leg and will take her for an x-ray tomorrow morning. It might be a growth plate injury or just a hairline fracture, but lets all pray that it is nothing at all.

Ronaldo shows Mr. Z's mom photos of her family in Surubim (where Mr. Z lives). Most likely it has been years since she has seen her family, even though they only live about 4 hours away.

Brin carries the injured Mia.