Hangin' With the Guys

Thomas (on the left) and his band

We've been busy.
It's not easy to keep up with all the young "folk" here
but we certainly do enjoy trying!

We were invited to go see Thomas' band play at a local book store.
Of course we met up with some of our friends from the church
for an evening of good music,
food and laughter.

watching the band play: Brad, Doug, Laura, & someone we don't know!

As we were leaving at the end of the evening I commented to Warren
that I had realized that our friends were young enough to be our kids.
And yet, once again, we had hung out with them the whole evening
and they had treated us as one of them.
We were blessed. We are blessed.

We have made such good friends here.

The wire opera house.

Then last week we spent a day with Ricado and Marcela.
They showed as around the town, looking at all the beautiful parks,
having coffee & the best carrot (rabbit, as Ricado called it
in trying to explain in English!) cake ever,
spending time at their house (working on Portuguese and English together),
and then out for a soup dinner.

the ceiling in the wire opera house

We had the best time with them.

Now you must consider the fact that when we met them
neither of them could speak English - at least not much.

Then Ricado kind of got pushed into the learning process when he
drove me around to doctors,
helped Warren with the painting at the church,
came to the church to oversee the electricians, etc.

We saw a lot of the two of them
and they began to carry around a Portuguese - English dictionary.

Or we always made sure there was an English speaking person around!

Now we communicate with a mix of English, Portuguese and hand & body motions!
(I must admit, they do better with English than we do with Portuguese)

Curitiba has a lot of natural beauty and beautiful parks.

We have laughed together and cried together.
(well, at least the women have cried together!)

They have become wonderful friends to us.

A rodent that is common in the parks.
I asked if they would hurt a person and Ricado
just told me if they turn and start coming after me to run.
Then he laughed. I still don't know if they would hurt a person. :)

Marcela

a Ukrainian church made out of 10" square timbers

Jardim Botanico

We arrived at the gardens just as it was getting dark.
It took my breath away to come up over the hill and see this sight.
Amazing.

Someday we want to go back when everything is blooming.
We are in the middle of winter here, ya know.

inside the greenhouse

A couple days later

(after they both made sure we had everything we needed
while they were gone - Marcela even arranged that our sheets would be
washed since she usually does them!)

they left on vacation.

We're happy for them. But sad for us.
We really do miss them.


And now to show you one of the projects
we worked on while John
was gone:

Stripes!!!!!

We love how they turned out.

Side note: Please continue to pray for my knee. Although it is better
I am still under the direction to stay off of it and limit the use.
I know God has a purpose it's just hard to see it sometimes.
But then, that is why we are to walk by faith and not by sight.

We also have decided that God would have us stay in Curitiba
for much of our remaining time in Brazil this year.
Much prayer went into that decision and truly our deciding factor
was peace.

We are hoping to visit several of the churches for short visits
before the leadership conference in Oct.

Please join us in prayer as we seek God's heart in this.