It's been a while...

Yes, it has been a while since I've written a blog post and I apologize.  So if there is anyone out there who stills bothers to check for updates, here's how life in Gama is going right now.

Sunday- We have sunday school at 9:30 and an evening worship service at 6:00.  I usually spend the rest of the day in my house because it's the one day that the family is all there.  My oldest host brother (who lives nearby) and his wife and daughter usually come to visit as well.

Monday- Monday is our day off and Dani and I often use it to visit old friends in Samambaia and Ceilandia or visist Ottis and Betty in Brasilia, or just hang out in Gama.  There's also a bible study that we attend if we have the chance.

Tuesday- English class at 10:00 in the morning, then another class for children at 7:00, followed by a class for adults at 8:00

Wednesday-Advanced English at 7:00, and I try to help Dani teach spanish to children at 8:00, (though really, my biggest contribution is just crowd control.  That and trying to explain to the younger students that they speak portuguese, I speak english, and now we're trying to learn spanish)

Thursday- The same schedule as Tuesday, with an evening prayer service at 8:00

Friday- The same as Wednesday with a prayer vigil from 10:00 to midnight.

Saturday- I give guitar lessons from 9:00 a.m. until 11:00.  The rest of the day is free.

And that's how I've been spending my weeks here in Gama, although after today we will have only two more.  We leave the Federal District on the 29th of June to start our trip to Paraguay.  That's really hard to believe.  It won't be easy leaving all everyone, but we'll see some of them in Paraguay and I'm starting to get excited for World Conference in July.

Last Day in Ceilandia

Last Saturday my parents arrived in Brasilia.  I spent most of last week with them, showing them around (with lots of help from Betty and Ottis) and trying to translate for them.  They left yesterday.  It was really good to get to see them and to connect with home, but now I'm back in my home in Ceilandia enjoying my last rainy day here.

     

The time has come for us to move again.  The team reunites tomorrow to take a bus to Goiania (a city about 3 hours south of the Federal District) to spend a week there.  When we return to the capital, Dani and I will be in Gama and Sheralynn and David will move to Ceilandia to begin our final two months here.  Dani and I have spent these past two months living with and getting to know the members of the church and the community here in Ceilandia, but now it's time to leave once again.

And I've decided that while it's not all that easy having to start over again every two months, just after I'm really starting to really feel at home, it is a sort of blessing in disguise.  It's nice that no-one will remember mistakes that I've made or their opinions of me.  It's like getting to start over, this time knowing more Portuguese and more about Brazillian culture.  Every time we've made the change, it's been difficult but in some ways always a relief.  I'll just have to keep trusting in God and look for ways to serve in my new location.

(This blog has not pictures, obviously, but I've put some new albums up.  The links are over on the right)

Sunburns, Dehydration, and Bee Attacks: Team Vacation in Recife (Plus the week spent in Goiania)

Once bible schools had ended, it was time to start our team retreat in the Northeast.  We spent the first few days in the MCC house in Recife, then left for Porto de Galinhas to hit the beach.  We spent about four relaxing days there, where we discussed how the program had been for us and how we had been seeing God in our time in Brazil.  Porto de Galinhas is a beautiful beach with a reef about two hundred meters out from the shore.  The reef is not only an interesting place to swim to to see lots of bright, tropical fish, it also acts as a barrier for the waves, leaving the water calm up to the beach.  The days were passing us by in the most uneventful and relaxing way, until we decided to enhance our time of reflection with an all-day fast on the beach (there may also have been a financial aspect to this decision.  The locals had been keen to take advantage of four naive gringos, and the team card had also stopped working).  As it turns out, lying in the sun all day while abstaining from food and drink is not really a good idea.  We discovered this later that night, when it was time to break the fast with some tradicional northeastern tapioca and everyone got sick.   Other than this, our stay at the praia passed without incident and we returned to the MCC house in Recife by bus.

We then had the opportunity to travel into the interior with a Brazillian MCC worker Andrea, and two SALTers from the States named Mike and Joel. (For anyone is confused by all of the acronyms in this blog, MCC stands for Mennonite Central Committee.  It's a Mennonite organization that offers social assistence to communites in need around the world.  SALT is a program that's pretty much like Radical Journey, but through MCC instead of MNN, which stands for Mennonite Mission Network).  We spent three days traveling in and around the town of Brejo da Madre de Deus, (in English this means Swamp of the Mother of God), getting to see the work MCC was doing there.  We slept in the apartment of Betty, the MCC volunteer who leads the work in Brejo, and spent the evenings playing Rook and watching soccer games.  It was a great chance to see another, more rural part of Brazil and to get to see how MCC is working in the Northeast, which is the poorest region of Brazil.  

On our last full day in Brejo, Betty decided to take us to see a friend of hers who was raising bees.  We were all eager to go and meet the bees, it just turned out that the bees weren't really all that happy to see us.  To make a long story short, I was stung four times, David twice, Sheralynn had at least six and also fell while fleeing the bees, and the MCC workers all suffered a few bee stings; only Dani was able to escape unscathed.   Luckily, no one was seriously hurt and the swelling in my face receeded after a few days (I don't think anyone got a good photo, though).

The following day we returned to Recife to spend the rest of our team vacation relaxing and exploring the city with Andrea and Mike, but too soon it was time to say goodbye.  Our retreat in the Northeast ended when our plane landed in Brasilia.  We then spent a few days visiting with our host families and staying with Betty and Ottis (retired MNN workers and our leaders here in Brazil) preparing to leave to spend a weak in Goiania, a city two hours to the south that has three Mennonite churches.

I won't say much about what we did in Goiania; our time was mostly spent hanging out in houses of church members and with Nata, Dani's boyfriend from Argentina who had come up to visit for the week.  I'll just say that during our week there the team had the opportunity to, among other things, assist in some exorcisms by praying with the pastor performing them and to visit some homes for homeless children that the church worked with.  We also got to shooot volleyballs from a cannon at children as they tried to cross a bridge at the biggest birthday party for a four-year-old that I've ever seen!  (All these things are hard to explain in a blog, so I apologize for the lack of details).  The team then returned from Goiania to be separated again and to begin our two months in our respective towns.  Dani and I are currently in Ceilandia and David and Sheralynn are working in Samambaia.  We will stay here until the end of April.  

Photos, starting from the top: 1)Goiania, 2)Brejo da Madre de Deus, 3)A cistern built by MCC near Brejo.  MCC is working with the Brazilian government and other NGOs to build cisterns in the Northeast, where water is scarce during the dry season, 4)Andrea, a Brazilian MCC worker and Mike, a SALTer from the States, in a historic section of Recife.  These two where our "tour guides" in the Northeast, 5)The beach at Porto de Galinhas

Bible Schools!

Continuing with the theme "Things that Happened Months Ago", I have finally found time to write about the month of January.  We have been moving around so much since the year began that it has been hard to find time to sit down and blog, but now that I am stuck in the same town (Ceilandia), at least until May, I  hope I will be able to write more regularly.

After the holiday festas in Samambaia came to an end the team was reunited to begin working with  the bible school in Gama.  Monday and Tuesday were spent planning and spreading the word around the town.  We went door to door distributing information to the households with children near the church.  Bible school then began on Wednesday and ended with the Sunday evening church service.  The team and I, with lots of help from the Brazilians, helped to lead music and with the dramas and games.  Our theme was "Heroes of the Bible" and the stories were about Moses, Ruth, Peter, and Jesus.

The following week we moved on to Samambaia to do pretty much the same thing again, except the theme there was the story of Daniel.  After Samambaia we came to Ceilandia where we stayed for two weeks, first helping with the bible school of the Mennonite church here and then with a church plant in Sol Nascente.  There were predictions of close to three hundred children that were going to attend the bible school in Sol Nascente, but I don't think we ever had more then eighty,  while at the other towns we had between 30-50.  In general the turnout was lower than expected at each location, but there were still enough kids that we were all ready for our team retreat when January came to an end.

Photos, from bottom to top:  1)Kids watching a drama inside the church at Gama.  2)Playing capture the flag in the street in front of the church in Samambaia.  3)Acting out the story of Daniel in Ceilandia.  4)Most but not all of the kids in Sol Nascente.  5)Keeping the smaller children entertained in Sol Nascente. 

The Brazil Holiday Blog...oops

Well, the holidays have come and gone here in Brazil, and though January has also ended by now I still feel compelled to, like many of my fellow Radical Journeyers, write a blog about the holidays. And so, here is my Brazil Holiday Blog. My first christmas away from home really began on Christmas eve at about 9:00, when the extended family members began to arrive at my house. Then there was music and conversation until midnight. As soon as 12:00 arrived conversations ended as everyone was greeted with a "feliz natal" and a hug from there neighbor. Afterwards the party moved to the kitchen, where lots of tradicional Brazilian holiday foods like turkey and chicken, special salads and noodles, and of course, the ever-present rice-and-beans had been waiting. After the meal we all participated in a gift exchange, for which I had already bought a small backpack to give away and from which I received a Brazillian t-shirt (with English writing on it... oh well). After the gift exchange people gradually began to leave to go home and get some sleep, and I watched soccer on tv with some of the young adults until they too tired and left for home.
The following Christmas day was mainly spent cleaning out the church and getting ready for the Christmas service, after wich Dani and I rode the metro in to Brasilia to spend Christmas night with David and Sheralynn at Ottis and Betty's house.
New Years Eve was spent in the church. The service began at around nine thirty and went until about 11:45. At that point, everyone got on there knees and began to pray a prayer that lasted up until 12:15. Afterwards was another gift exchange, this time with the whole church, and after that more food. Things wound down by around three when people began to leave for home.
Overall christmas was spent without much of the commercialization of North American Christmas, with less emphasis on gift-giving and more emphasis on being together with familiy and freinds, and though it was definately not the same as spending Christmas with my familiy back home, it was still a great time and the people there made me fell right at home.

Finally Some Pictures

Just to let everyone know, I finally put my pictures online and I´ve posted the links to my albums on the side of this page. Hopefully I will keep adding albums as I take more pictures, so check for new links if you want to see them.

A Breif Respite in the City of Mangos

Belem, we where we spent the last ten days, as seen from the lighthouse by the river

Let me begin this post by following up on some my previous posts. Firstly, I said before that it looks like we would only be staying in Samambaia for one month, but that ended up not being true, only a miscomunication between the pastors of the different churches. We will be spending two months in a row in each of the three locations (Samambaia, Ceilandia, and Gama) like we had originally thought. Secondly, the preaching at the Thursday service went well and was well recieved by the congregation. It wasn´t very long, but it turned out fine.

The Monday after that service, Dani and I had the opportunity to go with Rosalina (the pastor here) north to Belem, to visit her sister and her family. We spent ten days with them, exploring the city and the surrounding area and visiting some beaches. Unlike Brasilia, which was founded only about 50 years ago, Belem is an old city that was built by Portuguese colonizers in Brazil. It´s a beautiful city with lots of old churches and cobblestone streets and parks and open-air markets. We spent several days just exploring the city and surrounding towns with Rosalina and her family.

We also had the opportunity to visit some amazing beaches nearby. One day we visisted Mosqueido, an island in a river near the cost, and over the weekend we went to Salinas, the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. It was even better because it isn´t considered to be beach season in Northern Brazil so there wern´t many people at all. There where also some huge dunes behind beach that we decided to explore...

The view from the top of the first dune

We (Dani and I and Rosalina and her sister and her husband) walked to the top of the first dune, where we looked out across the beach and ocean to one of the most beutiful sights I have ever seen (see photo). Once we had caught our breath (from the climb and the view) we continued down the other side of the dune on a path that cut through the dense tropical undergrowth. After resting at the bottom we continued along the path up towards the top of the second dune. The climb was steep and the sand made walking difficult. After we had climbed three-quarters of theway we stopped for a brief rest and a photo, which I took (and here it is).

While we were resting, a man came up from behind us on the dunes. His head was wrapped in a red t-shirt and in his hand was a large knife. He stood next to Rosalina´s sister and held out the knife. He told us to give him all of our money. He wasn´t interested in cell-phones or cameras, he said, just money. None of the Brazillians had brought their money with them, but Dani had her purse and I had put my wallet in my camera case, instead of leaving it at the hotel. Dani emptied out her purse and handed her wallet to the man. He tooked the money and asked if we had more. Elvis (Rosalina´s brother-in-law) asked me if I had any, and I reluctantly pulled out my wallet and gave it to him. Elvis opened it up and gave the man 100 reais (brazilian money, equivelant to about 45 american dollars) and handed it to the man. He asked for more and Elvis pulled out 10 more and said that that was all, showing the man the inside of my wallet. The man then seemed satisfied that we had no more cash and made his way quickly back down the dune (Elvis managed to save about 60 reais that was hidden behind some papers in in my wallet). Shaken, we continued up to the top of the dune, where we stopped and sat down to try to catch or breath and to try to grasp what had just happened. (While it had happened it seemed so surreal. For some reason I wasn´t scared at all and my only thoughts were, "I really hope he doesn´t take my camera" and "this should make for an interesting blog entry") We all prayed together and thanked God that no-one had been hurt and we prayed for the man that had taken our money. The view from the top of the second dune was almost as beautiful (maybe more, you decide) as the first had been, and after we had rested we made our way down the dune, back toward the beach.

The Top of the Second DuneDespite this incident, the ten day break was very nice. It was a good chance to see a different part of Brazil and make new freinds and form relationships in a new place. We flew back to Brasilia very early Thursay morning and got right back into the old grove. We went to the school that morning at nine, despite having only about three hours of sleep on the airplane. It was strange flying into Brasilia and feeling like I was coming home, but that was how I felt. And it´s good to be back here with people I know, in my home-away-from-home.

Preaching to the Masses

Things have been going well for us thus far in Samambaia. The church here, as well as our host families, have invited us in with open arms. We are currently involved in teaching music and English classes at the church and we are helping out with English classes and a Christmas program at the school. We attend church every Sunday and Thursday, and have young adult meetings on Tuesday and Saturday nights. This past Tuesday Dani and I "led" the young adult bible study. It went fairly well and wasn´t very difficult. It was just a short devotional and not lengthy sermon so it went fairly easily.

Oh, and speaking of lengthy sermons, that´s what we´re supposed to do tonight. We are in charge of giving the message at the Thursday night worship service. That´s right: 45 minutes, in Portugeuse. Given the fact that this is not a language that I find myself to be very familiar with (it´s coming, but slowly), this task has been placed on Dani´s shoulders. I think maybe we are going to sing a song (in english) and I´ll read some scripture (in portuguese) and then Dani will give the discourse (in faith). She is nervous about it (who could possibly blame her?), but I´m sure it will end up fine. The church here is so supportive of us that I´m sure it will be well recieved, no matter what happens.

Moving on...

I´m writing this blog entry in the living room of my new host family´s home in Samambaia. We´ve finished our portuguese classes in Gama, and now Dani and I are working with the church in Samambaia. Tommorow we start teaching our first classes. We´ll be teaching English and Music classes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and spending our afternoons helping at a local school. My portuguese is still at the point where I have some trouble communitcating with people, so trying to teach kids and to understand teachers will probably be... it will be a new experience for me. Right now, it looks like we will only be in Samambaia for a month before we go to Ceilandia, and then changing each month after that. I don´t know when the change was made from spending two months at a time in each place to one month, but thats the way the churches have our schedual set up right now. I think (and I think that the team agrees with me) that it would be better to spend the two months that we have in each town back-to-back, but it doens´t look that that will happen right now. Tommorow night we are going to Betty and Otis´s to watch the electron results live, and we will talk to them about it.
I enjoyed Gama alot and was just starting to get settled in, but its time to move on again. I am looking forward to getting started with the classes and with the other things that we came here to do. Plus, it will be nice to start getting more real-world portuguese practice, since no-one in my house speaks English very well. My host mother, Marisneide, lives with her three sons, her sick mother, and her brother. We live in a house about a block away from the church. Dani´s house is a just five minute walk from mine.
We spent some time with the youth group after worship Sunday night, and they are very freindly. We played charades, which is suprisingly more difficult when you don´t speak the language.
I will try to post some pictures of brazil soon. I left my camera at my house in Gama, but hopefully David will bring it to Otis and Betty´s tommorow.

A Safe Arrival and a Good First Week

One week ago Tuesday our plane touched down in Brazil. We made it into the country without any problems, though on the flight from Rio de Janiero to Brasilia we had to pay for our extra luggage. Apparently, Brazilian airlines allow you to check only one suitcase and one carry-on bag for domestic flights, but we arrived safely with our all of our things intact. Ottis and Betty Hochstetler, retired MMN missionaries living in Brasilia who are working with us and the churches in the Federal District, met us at the airport, along with my host father Helio. They drove us to the church in Gama, the town that we are living in for the first month which is located about thirty minutes out of Brasilia. When we arrived, we where greeted by some members of the church with food and hugs (apparently, these are extremely popular in Brazil. It seems you can´t go anywhere without recieving some of both). Then we were driven to our host families' homes, where we will be staying until at least the end of this month.
Learning to speak Portuguese is our main goal at this point. We have classes at the church Tuesday through Friday from 9am to lunch, with the afternoons off. On Saturday we visited the church in Céu Azul and met with the pastors. That night we attended a welcoming party with the Gama church that lasted until midnight. The bus broke down on the way home, though, so we didn´t get home until after 2. However, the Sunday service in Gama did not take place until the evening, so we had plenty of time to catch up on sleep.
On Monday we spent the day with Ottis and Betty. We took a bus from Gama to Brasilia to meet them at their house. They showed us some of the city and talked with us about some Brazilian culture. They also helped us to register with the Federal Police at the airport. We will be meeting with them every Monday during this month to learn more about Brazil and its culture.
And so the rest of this week up to this point has been spent learning Portuguese and spending time with my family. Helio and Vilma and their 9 year old son Fillipe make up my current host family. We live on the fifth floor of an apartment building in Gama, which is about a 20 minute walk from the church.
My Portuguese is coming along slowly. Portuguese is structured similarly to Spanish, but with many differences. I hope to have some sort of communicating ability by the end of this month, because I may have to start teaching English in November.

Two Church Perspectives

Last Sunday I went with a group of ten people who attended Trinity United Church of Christ, a large, almost entirely African-American congregation in the south side of Chicago.  Committed to Christ and to the advancement of the Black Value System, Trinity UCC is an "Unashamedly Black, Unapologetically Christian" congregation. The Black Value System is a unique blend of culture and religion, combining African American heritage with Christian values.  We were greeted warmly as we entered the church building, though as we walked through the doors I couldn't help but notice the signs forbidding cameras and requiring all members of the media to check in at the office.  I had to wonder if the recent political drama had turned Trinity into something of a tourist spot, but I didn't see a disproportionate number of visitors.  After some singing, led buy the 200 or more members of the choir, who were all dressed in traditional African garments, the message was delivered by Rev. Otis Moss III, a charismatic young preacher who had recently taken over pastoral duties at Trinity following the Rev. Jeremiah Write scandal.  The message was passionately delivered and followed by a spontaneous alter call, and though service lasted nearly three hours, it never grew tedious.

The following Sunday (sept 29) I attended Reba Place Fellowship, an intentional community within a Mennonite congregation located in Evanston, a suburb north of Chicago.  Reba Place Fellowship began as a VS unit that developed into a permanent intentional community in the late 1950's.  The members of the Fellowship all lived together and shared a common purse in an attempt to return to the community style living of the first disciples.  In the 1970's, a charismatic preacher from Houston brought spiritual reform to the community, though this caused some older members to leave and eventually caused problems due to some authoritarian household and pastoral relationships.  This led to the formation of Reba Place Church, a congregation that now contains nearly 300 members, and is independent from Reba Place Fellowship, although the 30-45 members of RPF are members and attend RPC.

The church service took place in a converted taxi-repair shop, although this was impossible to tell from the inside.  The service included hymns, praise and worship songs, and even a congregational dance.  The sermon was then given by Nancy Bedford, a theology professor. Once the service concluded, we ate lunch with some of the members of RPF.  We were also given a tour of the Community before the 2 hour train ride home.

This past week has been spent mostly in the Faith House or the church, listening to speakers who come to have conversations with us about things like conflict resolution, teaching English as a second language, cultural differences and theology.  On Thursday I worked at a community garden, weeding and picking up trash.  That evening we practiced solitude.  No one was allowed to talk or use any sort of electronics.  I spent some of the time by myself downtown, and the rest reading or journaling.

And now I start my last week in Chicago.  The Brazil team leaves one week from today (Oct. 6), and I will try to get one more blog posted before I leave.

In the Faith House

This Sunday we attended the church next door to the Faith House, First Church of the Brethren. The congregation is quite small, but the service was very energetic and the pot-luck meal that was served afterwards was outstanding. The people there were welcoming and friendly. We were given a list of area churches that we can attend by Krista, one of our leaders. On the list is Trinity United Church of Christ, the former church of presidential candidate Barack Obama. I might get a chance to attend that church in the following weeks.
This week has been spent mostly inside of the Faith House, talking to each other about our personal stories and finding out our personalities. We have not done much city wandering this week, although we did travel to uptown Chicago this afternoon to visit Emmaus Ministries. Emmaus Ministries is a program that works with male prostitutes to give them a safe place to stay and help them get off the streets. We listened to storytellers who worked for Emmaus Ministries tell the stories of some of the people who they had helped through songs and monologues. It was a very unique experience.

In Chicago

I've been in Chicago for close to a week now, and I've finally found time to post my first Brazil blog entry.  So far this week has been spent getting to know the other Radical Journey participants and getting to know the city.  We have been given several assignments throughout the week that have enabled us to get a good feel of how the city and the public transportation system work.  We were also given a few objectives that were slightly more challenging.  For example, on Wednesday night after we found our way to Millennium Park, we were each given a dollar and told to find supper.  My team decided to look for a soup kitchen, so we stopped at a church and found directions to the closest one.  We had an interesting meal and some interesting conversations, and we actually left quite full.  It was quite an experience for me, and my team has considered returning to the soup kitchen some time this month to volunteer, if our schedule allows it.

The time spent here in the faith house is filled with lots of interesting conversation with my other housemates.  We play games, read books, watch the office, and just hang out.  It has really been a good experience so far, and I look forward to the rest of the time to be spent here in Chicago.

Tommorow, we will be blindfolded, dropped off at random points in the city, and forced to find our way back.  That should be pretty exciting; I at least am looking forward to it.  After that, many of us are going to the Celtic Festical.  That will be fun too.

Well, this is the first blog I have ever written, so hopefully it was interesting.  I will keep everyone who is reading this updated.