My first funeral

We continue to be surprised by new experiences, even after living here for 2 years. The other day I went to a funeral of a man I never met.

I had heard about the death of a friend's dad, but never entertained the thought of going to the funeral. The other morning I showed up at another friend's house and asked what he was up to. "I'm on my way to the funeral, want to come?", he asked. My initial thought was that was the last place I wanted to go, but then I thought why not? I'll learn something new. I thought it odd they were still dressed in their work clothes. We jumped on our motorcycles and off we went.

As we rounded a corner I saw just ahead a procession, people mostly walking behind VW bus that had a casket hanging out the back. We joined them, half walking, half riding our motorcycles. I soon realized we were heading for the cemetery (makes sense, but I was prepared for anything). The procession reminded me of a New Orleans funeral, minus the pageantry. I was surprised that the normally boisterous and expressive Brazilians chose to honor their dead with solemn reverence and awe, much like we do back home.

The freshly hand-dug hole was waiting for the casket. One interesting difference with the casket was the sky light. Really, I'm not kidding. They don't embalm here, so all caskets are closed, the window allows the mourners to see only the face of the deceased. After a few songs and a prayer, the casket was lowered by ropes into the hole. The gravediggers immediately started covering the casket and the crowd slowly dispersed.

My first Brazilian funeral reminded me again of the paradox of experiencing a different culture. In so many ways the people here seem foriegn, in every sense of the word. And yet, the more I get to know them and their customs, I see they are so much like me.

Chicken Foot and Clean Water

This past weekend we traveled with a team from Ohio to a couple communities by road. Pé de Galinha (or "Chicken Foot") is a community where one of our Brazilian pastors has been working for a few years. Agua Limpa (or Clean Water) is a community where Keith, a fellow missionary, has been working for 2 years. I had never been to either of these places, but was eager to give my new truck a workout.

In addition to the team from Ohio, we took about 10 Brazilians who have been working with the church plants in Pé de Galinha and Agua Limpa. Although it looked like rain the whole way, we never felt a drop. I was thankful because our luggage (and some passengers) where uncovered in the back.

A quick photo-op as we stop to look at some monkeys in the trees overhead.

After arriving at Pé de Galinha and having lunch with some locals, we went out in groups and visited some neighbors, inviting them to the evenings program. Like many of the communities in which we work, the houses were spread out and remote.

Much of our time was spent just sitting around chatting. One topic included was the American presidential race. One of the locals was interested to know who each of us were planning to vote. It seems everybody knows Obama's name, but I've been asked several times "who is that other guy? John somebody?"

Two ladies were baptized at Pé de Galinha. Her husband attended the baptism and was visibly moved, but when asked, he said he wanted to wait for another day to be baptized himself.

Our girls were glad to have some other brazilian kids who went along. Pictured is Mia eating breakfast (crackers, chocolate milk, home-made cheese and corn meal) on a wooden cart.

It was nice to get back out into the interior after being away for so long. It was not without it's challenges though. After two nights with no electricity, running water or bathrooms, we were ready to be back home.

Our first couple weeks

The view out our front door. Unfortunate for my neighbor, candidate 15 lost the election (read on for an explanation).

I've been struggling to write a blog for the last several days. Not that we haven't been doing anything, it's just nothing that noteworthy. We've been trying to get back into the swing of things here, and for the most part we've been enjoying it. I'll try and give some highlights (or lowlights, as the case may be)...

• We came back to the hottest month of the year. I don't remember it being this hot before... maybe it's just the contrast, or maybe it really is hotter than normal. We have one room with an A/C that never really got much use during the rainy season. I'm not looking forward to seeing our bill for this month.

• The fans have been working overtime as well. The other day at lunch Brin realized that she had to compensate for the wind from the fan when shaking her pepper. Moving the shaker about 6 inches upwind seemed to do the trick.

• Ava and I (Josh) have really been the only ones unscathed by illness. Brin had an immediate bout with a weird rash (I say weird in the sense that for you and I it would be weird, unfortunately it has become somewhat normal for Brin). Ella and Mia both had a virus, but seem to be over it now.

• Global warming and international political pressure seem to be taking it's toll in Altamira, lumber is nowhere to be found. What used to be abundant and cheap is now quite the opposite. Most of the sawmills in the area have been shut down by the government. Most likely it's just a temporary show of power, but it makes buying furniture difficult. While pricing wardrobes I found prices had more than doubled since when we bought furniture when we first came. In my attempt to save money I went to a cheaper furniture maker and I'm getting nervous that I'm going to live to regret it.

• After 2 weeks of looking for a car we finally found one that I'm in the process of buying. A '95 Toyota pickup will be our upgraded ride. Ella threatened to not let me buy a truck unless she approved of it first. As for me and the other 2 girls, we're still missing the old Bandeirante.

• During our first week back we experienced Brazilian Election Day. Let me just say, for all of you that are sick of political adds right now, maybe you would prefer they advertise on your neighbor's house (see photos above). That's right, for a small compensation, a politician will paint their advertisement all over your house, or your car (which the person did who bought my Bandeirante, much to my horror).

• For the most part, the highlight of our first two weeks back in Brazil has been the realization and acceptance that we're home.
  

The blessing of lost luggage

On one of our flights to Brazil, a flight attendant asked Ava where she was from and she said “I don’t know”. The flight attendant told us about it and was laughing about the preposterousness of it. Brin and I laughed at the time, but in hindsight we could relate more with Ava than the flight attendant.

It was a long journey back to Brazil, we left on a Saturday and got to Altamira on the following Friday. In-between we spent a few days in Manuas and a few in Santarem, applying for our permanent visa (ironic, considering the lack of permanence in our lives). We weren’t sure how we were going to feel when we arrived back “home”, but to our relief it has truly felt like home. We got busy unpacking our boxes, the ones we brought as well as the ones we had packed up before we left. During our time in the States, the Hanson family (whose house we are renting) came for a visit and sold all of their furniture and belongings. We returned to a much emptier house, but what remains is now ours to make our own home. Our first in Brazil.

One small way that God provided on our journey back was with our luggage. We were returning with 10 pieces of luggage (6 of which were actually rubbermaids). Two years worth of homeschool books, clothing and ministry supplies. When we arrived in Brazil, 7 of our pieces were not with us. Six of the pieces were left in Panama City at our previous connection but the 7th was supposed to be there Manaus. Hmmmmmmmmmm? The six rubbermaids would be coming, we were told, and hopefully someone accidentally just took the wrong suitcase out of the airport and would return it as soon as they discovered their mistake. We hoped it was just a mistake but the thought did occur to us that it would be a lucrative move for a thief to steal a huge Rubbermaid from an overseas flight. Bummer for him though because as it turns out that suitcase was filled with used clothing and a bunch of books in English. It did not include the laptop, monitor, ipod, tools or computer that were in other suitcases. So we had to chuckle at that one. Haha, the jokes on you! But actually there was no joke to be had because the suitcase showed up the next day; it was indeed a case of mistaken identity. But we still had the headache of dealing with the other late luggage. The upside of the whole situation was that we didn’t have to take them through customs; the downside was I was hoping to put those 7 pieces on a flight to Altamira the day we arrived in Manuas. We didn’t want to haul them around to our hotels in Manuas and Santarem, and we would have paid an overage fee for them anyway on our flight to Altamira. After many calls back and forth to the airport, our airline agreed to send them as cargo to Altamira. We still weren’t sure if we were going to be charged, or when they were going to arrive, but amazingly, four of the seven were on our flight when we arrived in Altamira. The other 3 are another story. After more calls and even some trips to the airport, they finally showed up yesterday, 8 days after we arrived in Manaus. However, we didn’t have to pay a cent, a savings of around $500.

If you’ve made it this far you deserve a conclusion. In the midst of our luggage debacle, we felt stressed and worried that things weren’t going as we planned, but in the end it worked out much better. Late luggage is typically a bad thing, but God in His provision and sovereignty placed 350 pounds of luggage in Altamira without us having to cart it around and without paying a dime. This was just a little thing, but in bigger things we need to trust God all the more that His way is better than ours, even when we can’t see it at the time.
-JTP

During our time in the States, Ella struggled with knowing that we were returning to Brasil. She wanted to stay close to grandparents and go to public school and be with friends. Ella is about as social as a 10 year old can get if you don’t know her. So I sorta resorted to a bribe to sweeten the deal; she would get her own room. For most of you, it is probably the size of your closet. But she loved it and for the first few days we set it up and helped her decorate it. In penguins. So yes, you can now find penguins in a tropical rainforest.
-BZP