Picture/Video Post

Marúsia drinking coconut water... or is it coconut milk in English? In Portuguese it´s water. I get so confused these days! :) They drink it straight from the source here... none of that artificial wussy stuff! :)


This is my sweet friend Jéssica. She works at the church in Salto, so I´ve spent lots of quality hours with her. She´s the sweetest thing, and she absolutely hates this picture. She´s added much joy and laughter to my time here. What a joyful beauty!



Aaaooooo... as meninas! ;)



E os meninos! Fosco/Alessandro, Ivan, Ricardo, Jorge

Okay, readership... this was my moment to share one of my great family traditions with my Brazilian friends. Talk about enriching the culture!



And this is Garrett the other gringo. He is an Aggie studying in Chile, but he´s here visiting for a week. This boy has mad skills. Basically he runs a bobbypin through his nose. Don´t watch if you´re super squimish... I seriously almost died laughing :)

Thursday Thanksgiving

Wow, that week sure comes fast, huh?

This week I am especially thankful for--

• Friends who tell me the truth, even when it´s hard to hear
• Packages from home
• Hershey´s Cookies and Strawberry chocolate bars
• Brazilian hugs and kisses
• Hope
  

Katherine, Diana, and Paris

Hmm... Paris got chopped off on the side. What a shame.

Randomlings

If you don´t read the PostSecret blog every week, you are missing out. To summarize, it´s kind of a contemporary art project. People from all across the country/world make postcards with their secrets on them, then mail them anonymously to this guy. He chooses a sampling to post on the internet every week. It´s so theraputic, heartbreaking, funny, and inspiring to read what people are holding in. The strangest and best feeling is when you read a card and think, "You too? You mean I´m not the only one?"

--------------

Recent Movies I´ve Seen

Olga-- A Brazilian movie about a woman who was one of the leaders in an attempted coup of the Brazilian government by the Socialist party. She was captured by Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. I watched this movie in Portuguese and could follow what they were saying well enough. My problem was that I didn´t understand the story. After talking to my friends afterwards I realized my big problem was that I thought the Nazis and the Communists were the same people. The Brazilians were shocked I could think that and informed me of course not, they´re enemies and at opposite ends of the political spectrum. This movie gave me lots of things to think about. Good movie.

World Trade Center-- Good movie, but I don´t want to see it again. I feel about it like I felt about The Passion of the Christ. I feel it was good and important for me to see it, but it was so stressful at the same time. I thought it was good for sticking to it´s purpose and good and staying unpolitical.

Take the Lead-- I liked it! I´m a sucker for nice stories, and this had several. Plus I love dancing and this had plenty of it. Good fun movie.

I haven´t seen The Last Kiss yet, but I am anxiously awaiting the video release in the US so I can see it!!! It comes out here in December. :(

-------------

Yesterday my beloved people from São Paulo came to visit! Oh it was so wonderful! What a great day of Brazilian lounging and eating and laughing.

-------------

I´d like to apologize to some people who I accidentally left off of my blog roll recently. I switched over to the new Blogger, and with that had to redo my links. I honestly believe that blogger is eating some of my links, because I recently noticed that Josh, Ben, and Praying Mantis were no longer links. There are probably others, and if you´ve been deleted, please don´t be mad, just tell me and I´ll re-add you.

-------------

I like my new cluster world map thing here on the right. It´s fun to see where people are reading me! It´s cool because I can see Jonathan´s little dot in Venezuela, Amber in Honduras, and Pamela in Canada... I´d like to give a shout out to my European readers! I have no idea who you are! ;) Fun stuff.

-------------

I bought my ticket to return to the motherland. Three weeks from tomorrow eu vou embora (I go away). I have about a billion emotions wrapped up in this, but I´m not going to write about it now. Maybe after I´m back in the US. I´m just going to focus on putting as much time as possible into being all here right now, completely in these moments.

Friends and Thursday Thanksgiving

There are people who make you laugh. There are people who share your hobbies. There are those with whom you work, go to church, or exercise. There are people who are smart, to whom you look up, or want to emulate. There are those who we have a history with-- a hometown, a high school, a camp.

These are all qualities important in friendship. But I don´t think these things alone make a friendship.

As trite and obvious as it is, friendships is born of love. And love is sacrificing. Love never intends harm. Love places others higher than self. Love rejoices in happiness and shares burdens. Love is service. And love is consistent, despite momentary fluxes in feelings.

I read a quote somewhere at sometime that said people are lucky if they have 3 good friends. Over my life I have been exceedingly blessed with some fabulous friends. A lot of us have gone our separate ways through the flow of life and growing up, but there are always more wonderful people in the world to be discovered.

-----------

Thursday Thanksgiving

Jettybetty has done this for a year today, and has inspired me to start doing the same!

Today I am thankful--

• for my true friends.
• for buses that come exactly when I need them.
• for MSN messenger, AIM, and Yahoo Messenger that lets me communicate with people I love far away!
  
• for the miraculous ability of the body to heal itself. My toe is almost 100%!
• for intuition and gut feelings that help us make good decisions.
  
• for the beauty of the Bible. Last night my Bible study group was in this passage--

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."
Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." John 14:1-7

Bat woman

I have a couple of funny stories to share.

First, on Sunday a big group of friends went to the movies and we ended up seeing "Open Season", I think it´s called in English... in Portuguese it´s "O Bichu Vai Pegar." It´s a movie about a bear and a deer being hunted. I wasn´t very impressed. Anyhoo, after the movie our group went to eat dinner. We were all at a big table and I wasn´t paying much attention, but I heard people talking about how something was normal in the US and they were surprised by it, so I asked what they were talking about. Jéssica turned to me and said, "É normal nos Estados Unidos pra gente caçar animais?" What I heard was "É normal nos Estados Unidos pra gente casar animais?" Slight difference in pronunciation, big difference in meaning... She asked me if it was normal for people to hunt animals in America and I thought she said is it normal for people to marry animals in America. Oh my goodness, after the initial shock then understanding, I died laughing. Easy mistake, but funny mistake. :)


------------


Second, yesterday some friends were here at my house. One friend said, "I think you have a bat in the house. I said, "Oh no, you always hear that sound. They´re outside the house." He said, "I´m going to open the door to let the bat out." So he opened the door and a few minutes later I saw a bat FLY OUT OF MY HOUSE into the night. I screamed like a girl! I´m not scared of bats, but I sure don´t want them in my house!!!!!!! Oh my goodness... all day long I´ve been looking at my ceilings to check for more bats. :-/ But let this be a lesson. If you have bats in your house, just open the door and let them out.

Hair Gone Wild

This blog through the years has brought you updates on various physical conditions-- my stomach, my liver, my weight, my toe, and my hair. I think it´s time for a hair update!

For those of you who don´t know, a quick recap. Last year I was very sick, and as a result of sickness, most of my hair fell out. So last April I cut it all off to even it up with the new hair I was growing.

It´s kind of funny to me to look back at pictures from when I arrived in Brazil. My hair was so much shorter! Here´s a reminder--


Pretty short! Well clearly over the months it has grown, seeing as how this picture was taken 4 months ago.

As my hair has grown, I have become keenly aware that I am certainly my father´s daughter as far as hair goes. Well, how my dad´s hair used to be... :)

For example, yesterday I was downtown walking in the rain. It wasn´t pouring, but a normal rain. I have wavy hair, and so rain tends to freak out the hair. When I got home and looked in the mirror, this is what I saw--

It was pretty straight when I left the house in the morning! Here are some more photos to demonstrate how my hair can be--





Also notice that my hair has come back with cool highlights!

I´m not sure if my hair has come back more wavy, or if it is just like this because it´s so short. Really, I´m tempted to keep it short. It´s so low-maintenence!!!!! I think a sign that I´m getting old is that I just said those words. But I think I´m going to grow my hair out again for a while. I want to have and enjoy long hair while I´m still young. :)

My hair is to a length also now where I can blow dry it semi-straight, which is nice for options. Here´s a photo of my hair more straight and pulled back.



So what do we think? Do we like the short hair, or should we go long again for a while? I hear that guys like longer hair, and we know how I need a man to kill the bugs in my life. :) Ha, thanks for all the comments on the previous post, guys.

Why I´d Like a Husband

In a nice conversation with my friend Meredith tonight, I mentioned that I´d really like a husband. Of course there are emotional reasons, but I´m not talking about those. Besides, I´d never talk about something like that-- it might be a sign of weakness.

Anyhoo, I feel like there are many practical needs that having a man in the house can fulfill. This was even clearer to me while I was disabled this week.

Here is a short list of reasons why I wish I had a husband. I really don´t know who does and doesn´t read my blog, so I don´t know if any potential husbands are reading. If you are, please take note that you will be expected to do these things/fulfill these needs.

1. Changing the water bottle. Not really an issue in America, but here everyone uses those big water bottles on a little dispenser. You have to be strong to manuver that thing!
2. Related to number one, carrying heavy objects in general. At times I find myself with a suitcase in the wrong place that I wish could be moved, and often it stays where it is until the next time a strong man comes to my house. :)
3. Putting the groceries away after shopping.
4. Putting dishes away after they´re dry.
5. Cooking for one is not fun. Not only do you end up with a million leftovers, there is very little motivation to cook a nice, nutritious just yourself.
6. Taking the trash out.
7. Driving. I don´t like to drive.
8. Splitting rent, food, utility costs. It´s so much cheaper to live with two than one.
9. Always having someone to automatically sit with in church.
10. Taking care of any mechanical engineering type things-- appliances, cars, electronics, etc.

Ten´s a good round number. I´m sure there are lots of other great reasons to have a husband. These are the ones I will admit to caring about. :)

I would also like to add that I am most certainly capable of doing all these things, except maybe the water bottle. But I´d like someone else, especially a cute man, to do them for me. :)

Are there other good, practical reasons to have a husband? No emotional/physical comments desired. :) What are the practical uses for a wife? I challenge my single man friends to write the mirror to this blog. Challenge! ;)

Toe Update

Hello from the wilds of Brazil! :)
That´s a joke... Itu is anything but "the wilds".

Anyhoo, here´s the word on my dedão... my big toe!

I went to the doctor yesterday, and let me say that this doctor, Dr. Flavio was his name, was so amazingly wonderful. He looked like the storybook doctor... dignified, elegant, kind and knowledgable. He did x-rays and the toe is definitely broken, but he said it´s not severe (although it feels severe!) and he wrapped it up tight and told me to rest it and come back Monday.

It still hurts, but I´m going to live. :)

If the heroes of Monday were Aníbal and Jandira, then yesterday´s hero was definitely Ivan. He found the doctor, made the appointment, arranged my transportation, then came home with me and cooked dinner for me. Dinner was kind of a joint effort... I told him what to do and he did it. I felt really bossy and lazy. :) Our meal attempted to be chicken parmesan, but it ended up not like any chicken parmesan I´ve ever seen. But it was still really good! Just not chicken parmesan. ;) Then he made chocolate chip cookies, which were delicious. Here´s a video to demonstrate my bossyness. :)

Seriously, I´ve said it before, I´ll say it til the day I die... I have the best friends in the whole wide world. Thanks for all the e-support you guys! I´ll keep you updated. :)

I broke my dang toe.

Last night I was coming home on the bus, which was unusually overcrowded. As I was stepping around a lady to pass, my foot hit the ground funny and I felt a lot lot lot of pain. Trying not to fall over on the bus, I somehow manage to get off the bus and get home (which if you know where I live in relation to the bus stop, is quite fantastic). I took my shoe off-- gingerly-- and before I took my sock off I could see a huge lump growing on my big toe.

Yes, people, I broke my big toe. It was hurting pretty bad and I was sad about being alone to deal with it, so I called my friend Jandira to see if she would come spend the night with me. When I told her what happened, she dropped what she was doing and she and her marvelous fianceé came over and hauled my sorry body to the hospital. Yes, my world tour of hospitals spans three continents now! :) By the time we reached the hospital my toe was turning lovely shades of purple.

The hospital experience was... interesting. The doctor I saw was truly awful. He was gruff and mean and generally angry seeming. He looked at my toe, told me to go get two shots and an x-ray and booted me out of his office. The line for shots was enormous, and he didn´t even tell me what they were for, so I made the decision to just leave. I was thinking I would just elevate it, take tylenol, put ice on it, and see how it was the next day (today). And I wanted to call my wonderful doctor friend, Thiago (my friend I visited in São Paulo a few weeks ago).

So Aníbal took me back to his house and he and Jandira fed me since I was so hungry I thought I was going to die, then they brought me home. I called Thiago who gave me some advice on how to treat it at home, and told me I needed to see a doctor today in case it needs to be set. Jandira stayed the night with me and took care of me, and this morning when I woke up she was preparing a delicious lunch for me.

As I write my amazing friends are finding a doctor for me to see and generally meeting any need I could have.

You can see that I am well taken care of, so no worrying and no comments or thoughts about poor Ann alone in Brazil as a cripple. :) My experiences in Japan and here (and America, too!) confirm beyond a doubt living reality of the body and family of Christ. I am absolutely blessed.

By the way, yes I have taken several pictures of my big, purple toe, but I won´t subject you to those. But I will subject you to a video! Hahaha... then again it´s totally up to you if you hit play. ;)

Seu Zezo and other stuff

Yesterday I needed to go by the construction site of the new church building here to take pictures, so Seu Zezo (Seu is a title of respect, his name is Zezo, which I´m pretty sure is a nickname for Jesus-- the name, not our Savior) took me there. Seu Zezo is an elder here and is becoming one of my favorite people. I´ve been here four months, and it was only two weeks ago that Seu Zezo learned that I am not Brazilian. Clearly, we hadn´t engaged in any large discussions, but I do remember translating for him once when the campaigns were here. But anyway, now everytime he sees me he says, "speak English!" I don´t know if he means I speak English or he speaks English or what. :) When we got in his car yesterday I was amazed because the CD he was playing was hard core techno... so loud you could feel it. :) I love Seu Zezo and his sweet family.




-------------------------

I´m pretty sure this could be me one day...

---------------

Tonight is the McBride Center Lecture. I wish I could be there... but I´m pretty sure the rest of my life is going to entail wishing I could be in more than one place at once.

---------------

By the way, this week has been amazing so far. Last week is a distant bad memory. :) Thanks to you guys for your support and prayers.

Stormy Skies

The weather the past few days has been kind of strange... windy, cloudy, warm... typical changing of the seasons weather. The sky was really amazing the other night and I took some pictures and a video. These are all different shots of the skyline at the same time, except the last one, which was at dusk.













For those who miss hearing my voice (haha), I give commentary on the video. ;) And there is also the sound of the evil next door neighbor dogs barking. I really hate those dogs.

A peek into my prayer life...

This is pretty much entirely how my prayers go these days--

God, I have no idea what I´m doing, but I believe you do. Help me, help me help me, and thank you, thank you, thank you*.

*The help me/thank you part is stolen from Anne Lamott, who said all prayers basically boil down to those two sentiments.

Democracy in Action

Unless you are absurdly or unusually informed, you probably don´t know that today was election day in Brazil. Voting is mandatory for all citizens ages 18-60, I believe, unless you are over 200 kilometers away from your registered voting station (and I´m sure there are other excuses). So, it was a busy day for Brazil in general. These were the major elections-- president, governors, congress and senate, and some other office.

Political campaigning is very different here. It is anything but subtle. For the past month (at least), everytime I go down town I´ve been bombarded with leaflets and handouts and all kinds of gaudy advertising. Each candidate has a number, and when you vote you must enter that number into the machine from memory, so they work hard to make their number seen.

My friend Ivan wanted me to see how this worked, so he invited me to go with him to vote after church. As we neared the voting hall, this is what the street looked like--

These are all political leaflets in some kind of last ditch effort to advertise.

I was allowed to enter with Ivan as he voted, and for a country sometimes known for it´s chaos, it´s really quite advanced in this issue. It´s all electronic, you just go and punch your numbers in an electric machine and leave. It even pops up the picture of the candidate you enter so you can be sure you have the right one.

I found this leaflet on the ground and and tried to get Ivan to vote for him, but he refused.

In the end, it looks like Lula, the current president, will be re-elected. Most people I know are not happy about that. Lula is a north-easterner, and Paulistas (people from São Paulo) were voting rooting for a man named Alckmin (the former mayor of São Paulo, I believe). We´ll see. I´m not too devistated... I am kind of used to disappointing elections. ;)

Sunday morning, new week

It´s Sunday morning. It´s 8am, which isn´t terribly early, but right now feels really early. :)

Last week was pretty rough, as some of you know. I guess there was one big frustrating thing that happened and about a million smaller ones. Ever have days, weeks, months like that?

It culminated last night. Our youth group has a Bible class Saturday nights, and I always go. I love to go. So even though yesterday was truly craptacular and I was in a horrible mood and so tired, I set out to go. I left a little too late, so I missed my bus by a couple of minutes and had to wait 25 more. In the rain. In my "looks waterproof but really isn´t" jacket. And from my bus stop it´s still a 15 minute walk to church, in the rain. So I arrive 40 minutes late to find not a soul there. Oh how disheartening. I sat on the steps of the church and cried a little.

I sat there about 20 minutes, just thinking. I´m not sure what I was thinking, but I think "woe is me" would sum it up nicely.

So I started home. In the rain. And by this point it was really raining.

By the time I get to the bus station, I´m completely soaked. When I take the bus to my house, it lets me off at the gate and I still have another 15 minute walk to my house. So I made the executive decision to splurge on a taxi.

As Murphy´s law would have it, I got the strangest taxi. The car acted like it was going to die at any moment, struggling to conquer every speedbump. I envisioned myself pushing the car along the road... in the rain. And the driver was SLOW! At one point I started laughing because it was truly insane. Then to add insult to an injurous night, he was like, "You´re not Brazilian, are you, because you can´t speak our language well." Thank you, sir, may I have another?

Frustrating day. Week. We all have them.

But it´s Sunday morning now... a new week! I want nothing more than to crawl back into bed and stay there all day. But I won´t. In a few minutes I´ll get dressed and start the journey to church all over again. Because I need to. I need to go and see the faces of the people I love so much and who love me. I need to be hugged and kissed and loved on by the body of Christ. I need to sing with my friends and share in communion with them, and I need to laugh with everyone about what happened last night.

I think the natural reaction to when you feel bad and want to hibernate is to do so, but my experience has been that when you don´t want to go to church is when you need to go the most. Time after time this has been my experience... when I´m down, frustrated busy, stressed, whatever... if I make the time for God and my Christian family, I am always blessed.

So I´m off. I hope you shared your Sunday with your family, too.

A Song I Hate

Generally songs don´t usually have the power to put overwhelming amounts of rage into my heart, but occasionally it does happen. One I think of off the top of my head being Toby Keith´s "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue".

So now there´s another one. It´s been out for a while, but I never heard it terribly often in the US. However, lucky me, it is very popular here. The recipient of this rageful honor is... drum roll... "Don´t Cha" by the Pussycat Dolls. First of all, I am extremely irritated by the title. Let´s not write things like they´re pronounced, and this also goes for a slew of other songs such as "Stickwitu."

The reason I really hate this song is the message. You can google it if you want, but I´ll give you the gist of the lyrics. It´s a slutty woman singing about how she wants to steal some other woman´s boyfriend/husband, using convincing arguments such as "Don´t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me, a freak like me, raw like me, fun like me, etc etc..." I would like to add a verse that says "a disease ridden skank whore like me", but that doesn´t fit the beat.

I think the reason I hate this so much is because one of the basic principles that I have founded whatever relational philosophy I live by on is that I will never, I repeat never, never fight another woman for a man. By fight I mean compete. I´m sure that deep within this is some reason related to insecurity, but the primary reason is because I would never trust the character of a man who let two women compete for his affection. To me that is a sign of a man who wants way too much attention, and if he is willing to put two women he allegedly cares about through that kind of frustration, then who´s to say what he won´t do for attention as the relationship progresses.

And this isn´t just about men. I´ve seen women do it, too... stringing along a couple of guys as she decides who she loves more (or who loves her more) as pretty much everyone else in the world suffers for her selfishness.

So, yes, it´s a source of frustration for me. How do you guys feel about this? Am I over-reacting? Am I right (like always)? :)

I went to São Paulo!

Oi meu povo (my people)!

Since I have been going for the informative, to the point titles, you can see where this is going. I went to São Paulo for the weekend!

I have two good friends who live there, and so I went to visit them. They planned some really cool stuff. For one, I got to go to my SECOND Brazilian national sporting event (remember the volleyball game in Brasília)!!!!! This time it was the FIBA world women´s basketball series. And Brazil was playing the US in the match for the bronze! It was hard to know who to cheer for. So I cheered for both. :)


Soraya (one of my friends who lives in SP) and me at the game


Then we went to Ibirapuera Park, which is really a cool place. Great atmosphere with lots of nature and people having fun and things.


Me and Thiago (my other good friend in SP) at the park with some of the SP skyline behind us

We did lots of great things. I met so many wonderful people, including Felipe and Thauana. Felipe is Thiago´s roommate and Thauana is his girlfriend, and I absoutely fell in love with them. Hanging out with everyone this weekend was like I was with a group of old friends. It´s times like this I believe without a doubt that God is so merciful and kind and grants us just what we need when we need it in our lives.


Phil and Thauana

We did lots of cool things and I saw a lot of the city. I could drone on, but it´d probably be boring. It was a great weekend and I can´t wait to go back and see them all again!

Como se chama???

Last night I had thought of a blog topic, but then this morning couldn´t remember. Now I do!

One interesting thing that I´ve noticed the past three months is that people here have found inventive and imaginative ways to mispronounce my name. Now, my name is really quite simple. Ann Marie White. Simple. Very. Even the Japanese could pronounce my name. Except for the "Ho-whito" part. :)

When I first came to Brazil, my team thought it was funny that people pronounce my name "awhn." In fact, Meredith (who´s name is even funnier in Portuguese) still calls me "Awhnie" at times. But by and large, my name was largely left in tact.

Not this time!

I am called a number of ways. Some people call me Ann. Some people call me Annie, and some people call me "Uhh-nee", for lack of a better what to write it. This one sweet lady found out my name was Ann Marie (Ana Maria here, very Brazilian), but when she tries to say it in English she calls me "Annie Mary". It´s really quite funny. :)

Ali Gonçalves came down here and started the Ana Branca revolution, which is Ann White translated into Portuguese. Lots of people call me Ana now. Generally, I used to be so against when foreigners came to America and changed their names to something super-American like Bob or Susie (I experienced this a lot with the Asian students I worked with at OC), but now I understand. It´s kind of better to be called a different name than to have your name hacked up. But in my defense, Ana is basically Ann.

So I´m Ana Branca a lot. Then this turned into Ana Branca Franga, because my dear friend Jandira started calling me Franga... she says it´s some slang term from the 70s for a girl. Then she dubbed me Ana Branca Franga da Silva, because she says all Brazilians have like, 7 names (which is totally true), and since White is a common name in the US, da Silva is very common in Brazil.

So there you go. I am Ana Maria Branca Franga da Silva.

Also, I found this toy on myspace. I thought it was a cool way to display a lot of pictures. Enjoy! Or don´t, it´s really up to you. ;)

10 Years

10 years ago today I was baptized at Graham St. Church of Christ in Stephenville, Texas by my father. I grew up in the church, I was hyper-involved, and I always knew one day I´d be baptized. As I sat in my Wednesday night Bible class I decided it would be that day. I´m not sure why. See You at the Pole was that day, and maybe that had something to do with it, I´m not sure.

In our youth group Bible class here, we have been having an ongoing discussion on when salvation occurs. Goodness knows this has been talked about for pretty much forever, and I´m pretty sure no one knows the answer, but it´s an interesting conversation.

Here´s my opinion. Our salvation comes through God´s unfailing, unflinching, unconditional love for us. That is a relationship. The Bible compares our relationship with God to that of a husband and wife or father and child. Relationships don´t just happen at one moment. With a marriage, you could say that the relationship started when they first met, their first date, first kiss, marriage ceremony, and I´m not married, but I would think that there are couples who are together 10, 20, 50 years and still feel like everyday is a new beginning because they learn more and share more.

Or a parent and child. When does that relationship start? When the child is born? At conception? Or when two people decide to commit to starting a family together?

Baptism is important. I believe it is a holy and sacred event, the depths of which we can´t understand this side of heaven. But I will say that although incredibly important, my baptism didn´t mark the beginning or the culmination of my Christian walk.

So today I look back and thank God for where I´ve been, where I am, and where I´m going. And I thank all of you for walking down this road with me.

Say no to speedo

I´ve been planning a trip to the beach with my friends in a couple of months, and today the thought struck me that some of the men might wear speedos. I can´t tell you how disturbing this is to me. I really think I´ll never recover if I see my male friends in speedos. Not that they´re ugly by any means, if you´ve noticed in my pictures on here Brazilians are exceptionally beautiful. But a speedo? Dude, please. I know this is a cultural issue that I have to get over... but it will take an act of God, I´m pretty sure. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me... even exposure to speedos.

For those Simpsons fans out there, I would like to recall the episode where the Simpsons go to Brazil and Homer wears a speedo. He actually wears like, 4. Great moment. :)

Stroganoff

Right now I´d like to take some time to make you all wish that you were here in Brazil, not only to bask in my fine company, but also to eat the amazing food.

If you don´t know Brazilian stroganoff, you have not lived. :) Haha, kind of a dramatic statement, huh? I always considered stroganoff to be of the Hamburger helper variety and a German food, but like many things, the Brazilians have taken it and made something beautiful from it.

A few of my friends and I have been doing these dinner night things where we get together and I cook and we have a nice meal together. Last week my friend Jandira taught me how to make stroganoff! It´s really surprisingly simple. You kind of pan grill strips of chicken, then add cream, mustard, ketchup, worschsershire sauce (I don´t know how to spell or say that), and garlic of course. I think Americans generally eat stroganoff with noodles, but Brazilians eat it with rice and shoe string potatos. Oh my heavens, it is so good.

Here is a video of Jandira making it and Ivan begging for tastes.




I don´t think I´ve done a sufficient job of making it sound as good as it is, but trust me, it is. I will start taking requests for me to make it for you when I go back to the States.

Anyone else know Brazilian stroganoff? Want to give a testimony? :)

Asian Invasion

You won´t even believe what I did today. Honestly, I still can´t believe it myself. Here´s a hint:



Yes, people, I ate Japanese food.

Okay, here´s a moment of brutal honesty, because it´s my blog and I should be honest. I don´t like Japanese food. The Japanese food I like is mostly actually Chinese (yakisoba, gyosa). I do like tempura, and I think that´s actually Japanese. But generally, no I don´t like Japanese food. I don´t like seaweed, I don´t like fishy fish, I don´t like soy sauce, I don´t like misso. And let´s not even talk about natto. Just being honest, people. :)

But today after church I was invited to go to a pretty authentic Japanese restaurant in the next city called "Yoshi´s Japanese Restaurant." That´s really what it was called. Japanese restaurant in Brazil with an English name. Go fig. Anyhoo, I have a short antedote and I´ll post some pictures.

First, we were eating a buffet style meal where they bring things by your table for you to eat (rodizio). The first big plate that was brought were these sushi rolls like I´d never seen before. They were about the size and shape of a conical ice cream cone (made of seaweed of course), filled with rice and then with a lot of this red stuff on top. Now, I could have SWORN that the waitress said it was tomato. Yes, that´s weird, but it´s Brazilian sushi after all. So I take one and take a big bite. Then a few minutes later as I´m looking at the remainder of this HUMONGOUS sushi roll, I realize it is not tomato, but in fact raw salmon. As if that´s not bad enough, about halfway through our meal my friend leans over to me and says, "You´re going to finish that, right? You know you have to pay extra for what you don´t eat." I wish I could have seen my face at that moment, because I had a pile of raw salmon on my place about the size of a very generous scoop of ice cream. I tried, I tried valiantly, but I couldn´t do it. Some things are worth paying extra for. Mental peace is one. But really, I´m still not convinced that my friend wasn´t kidding. He swears he wasn´t, but it would have been a pretty funny joke, huh? :)

Here are some pictures!



Uma barca de sushi! A boat of sushi!



Phyllis and Ako, our wonderful hostess. Yes, her family is Japanese. :)



Ivan (happy with sushi) and Ann (happy without sushi)


Jorge and Antenor

Really, the food was actually really good and the company was wonderful. It brought back lots of memories! :) Itadakimasu! Gotsosamadeshita!

Curitiba-- Congresso 3 em 1

Part II of Curitiba!

The purpose of this trip was to go to the church conference, Congresso 3 em 1. It was really, really wonderful. I got to see a lot of people I didn´t expect to see, because a lot of the leaders of the church in the southern half of Brazil were there.

The theme was basically about the Shepherd and His Flock. I was so tickled because my Portuguese is to a point where I could easily follow the classes and lectures (although I did have to learn quickly some sheep vocabulary). It was so gratifying to not only be able to understand the classes, but to also really take spiritual nourishment from them.



This is the praise team from the Igreja de Vitoria in Rio de Janeiro. They´re praise ministry has done so much and I am sure will continue to do so much for the Churches of Christ in Brazil. They lead the praise all weekend.

I took a whole lot of pictures, which can be viewed in my webshots album, but here are a few.

This is Antenor Gonçalves speaking on the subject "I am the door" from John 10. Really excellent lesson.

This is Allen Dutton Jr. speaking on the importance of being aware of the lost sheep of our flock.

This is our beautiful group! We were really a combination of the churches in Itu and Salto. Salto is a new church plant in the city right next to Itu (really, only about 10 minutes away). We had 5 families from Salto go! That really touches me because it shows such powerful dedication and leadership of the families working there.

This is a video of the entire audience singing this beautiful Brazilian hymn. I am so frustrated because I don´t know the name! But I will find it and tell you. The message is about the family of Christ standing firm together as we look to Jesus to lead us, and being able to withstand attacks from Satan through our unity. It was a really powerful moment for me to hear a group of 200+ Brazilians singing this.

I was so blessed through this opportunity. And I ask you to continue to pray for your brothers and sisters in Brazil as they work for the kingdom with you, wherever you might be.

Book Thing and Video

1. One book that changed your life: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck made me see the true power of words and helped me fall in love with literature.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Leaving Ruin by Jeff Berryman. I don´t even know how many times I´ve read it, but I fall in love with the characters every time.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: Fighting the temptation to say something smart alecky like, "how to survive on a desserted island," I will instead say Life of Pi by Yann something or other. Little Pi had some great ideas about how to stay alive.

4. One book that made you laugh: Hitchhiker´s Guide to the Galaxy. Holy moly, this book is hilarious. Blake gave it to me for my college graduation and I took it to Brazil to read, and I was laughing out loud with every page. I would read passages outloud (through fits of laughter) to my friend Taylor who appreciated the humor. Seriously, this probably one of the funniest books ever.

5. One book that made you cry: Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein (I mean the triology in general, but really the last book-- Return of the King-- had me very teary).

6. One book you wish had been written: I have no idea.

7. One book you wish had never been written: Anything that was written by any political hack, either side of the spectrum. Oh, or any book that tries to sell a feel good or a health and wealth theology.

8. One book you’re currently reading: I have a terrible habit of reading more than one book at a time, so let me choose since now I have about 5. I am re-reading A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm. Old book, but great book. Classic.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Gee, there are lots. I guess if I have to choose one I´ll go with the next Harry Potter.

10. Tag five others: Homey don´t play ´dat. ;) But if you do choose to post it, please leave a comment so I can go check out your answers.

Next installment of the Curitiba series is coming! Please be patient! But in the meantime, here is a video I took at the Botanical Gardens that I forgot to include last time.

I went to Curitiba!

Hello loyal followers!

I think the subject sums it up. :) Last Thursday through Sunday I went to Curitiba (pronounced kur-a-chee-bah), a city father south in Brazil, for a church conference. It was really fun and I am so thankful I got to go. Like for my Brasília trip, I will break this trip down into parts. Just 2 parts this time, though. :) One for our sightseeing and one for the church stuff.

All Brazilians say Curitiba is a city very different from the rest of Brazil, and very representative of the southern part of the country. The south has been very heavily influenced by European settlers from Italy, Germany, and Portugal while the north has more African and indigienous influence. I guess we in the middle are somewhere inbetween. :)

Our sightseeing day was Friday, and as my luck would have it, it rained nearly all day. Much like my trip to Rio 4 years ago. But the rains did stop and we did get to sightsee 2 beautiful locations, the Jardim Botânico (Botanical Gardens) and the opera house, Casa de Arema. Here are some photos. Yes they´re mostly of me. I am vain. :)

The first three are from the Botanical Gardens and the last two are from the Opera House.








While it rained we went to a mall. A very chic mall! They offered all kinds of services in the bathroom, including free dental floss!!! If you know my love of dental hygiene, you know how happy this made me!!!!!!!!!! :)

Feliz dia de ficar*!

Last night was a fun night to celebrate my not leaving Brazil for a while longer, because yesterday is when I was originally scheduled to fly out. So I had the wonderful privledge to have dinner with some of my favorite people here and in the world.

These guys are my family here and no matter where I go or what I do in life, I will always carry them in my hearts.



Marúsia, Ann, Jandira

Aníbal, Ivan, Leandro, Marúsia, Ann, Jandira-- I love these guys so much!

*This means happy staying day, more or less, although I´m probably missing a preposition or something. :) It´s funny because "ficar" in Brazil also has the same meaning as NCL for your OCers, or when you just randomly make out with someone you have no romantic relationship with. Yay for learning Portuguese!

Calma, calma...

Hello my friends from morning in Brazil.

I am asking for prayers, for myself and for my friends here. For myself because I am getting culture shocked, culture stressed, or whatever you want to call it. I really think that culture shock is a process that is worked through and I´m just in a icky phase of it now, but whatever. The problem is that I am very easily irritated these days. I´ve found myself being over sensitive and easily annoyed at my friends here, which has in turn prompted me to last out and snap at people. So I ask for prayers that God will chill me out. I also have some very stressful situations that are trying to get resolved, so without going into too much detail pray for those.

Secondly I ask for prayers for my friends here to have patience with me and try to understand where I´m coming from and what kind of stress I´m under, and to have an extra measure of mercy on me. They are wonderful, and I pray I don´t wear their patience thin.

Thank you my people. :)

Strange things

So, living in a different culture, experiencing new things, you notice some strange stuff. Here´s a snippet of the strangeness of my life lately.

• Men´s underwear here has no flap in the front. I´m not sure what to make of this, but I´m too embarrassed to ask anyone and honestly don´t want to admit that I´ve noticed it. And for the record, I noticed it on manequins in the mall. :) Honestly, I could probably do a whole blog series on the weirdness of Brazilian underwear.
• The staff at McDonalds knows me. And they all know exactly what I order. Oh my goodness, this is so embarrassing. Que vergonha! My friends think this is really funny and an indication that I eat there all the time. In reality, I don´t eat there all the time, maybe once a week. And some people think that´s awful, and for a long time had me believing it was awful, too. But you know what! I decided last week that I can like and eat at McDonalds without shame! I am proud to be a McDonalds fan! ;) I actually have one friend here who also loves McDonalds. I call him my McMigo (get it, Mc + amigo (friend)... I think it´s terribly clever! Maybe even more clever than "obrigadeiro"...)

McMigos-- because every blog deserves a picture

• I would also like to say in relation to the above weird thing that a LOT of people know me. Itu isn´t a small town (maybe for Brazil, but it has 150,000 people), but they don´t see a lot of foreigners (except for the mountains of gringos that flood in during campaign season), so a lot of people like to talk to me at bus stops or in the grocery store or wherever. So in reality, the staffs of pretty much every store at the mall know me. Not just McDonalds. :) Superstar!!!!

Dirty Words

In good essay writing you generally start with a broad statement then work your way own to a more concise point, so here goes.

Learning a second language is hard.

:)

Okay now for my real point. Before I came to Brazil, I really worked hard studying books and such to learn Portuguese. Hence, I was a good writer and reader but listening and speaking were hard. Since I´ve been here my primary method of learning has been through what I hear around me. This is good because I can hear how people actually use the language and correct pronunciation and all, but it has it´s downfalls, too.

First of all there is the human error factor. As you know in English as well, some people use language correctly and some people do not. The problem is here I don´t know exactly which are which, so I have to be careful who I model myself after.

Next is the slang factor, which is somewhat related to the above issue. Most slang is fine, I think, but sometimes it´s just wrong and I don´t want to learn ghetto Portuguese.

Closely linked to the slang factor is the dirty word factor. Let me give you an example. I have a dear friend here who I spend a good deal of time with, yet this person has a... ahem... colorful vocabulary in Portugese. So, although I adore this person, I have to be careful and not repeat what they say. Which is really difficult, because I´m realizing how infantile I´m becoming in my language learning here (which is natural). I am sort of like a parrot, and I have started talking like my friends and saying what they say. But the problem comes when they´re saying things that I don´t need to repeat, and I don´t realize it.

The complicating factor is that "dirty words" are so subjective. You all know, of course, that we have varying degrees of dirty words in English. There are the boogers, butts, freakin´s, craps, and the list goes on. So one day a couple of weeks ago I sat down with a good friend of mine here who I trust in judgment and Christian wisdom (and she´s my age, so my generation speaking), and I kind of went through the list of questionable words I know in Portuguese to get her opinion on whether I should say them or not. I think that was a good move.

I´m not a language prude. Language is my business, I´m a fairly artsy person, so I have a sort of liberal attitude about this issue. I don´t run around shooting my mouth off, but sometimes I think a "dirty word" is a extremely appropriate, more so than other words. But the root of this issue is that I want and need to know exactly what I´m saying. Words are powerful, and can be used for great good and evil. Proverbs says they´re like arrows-- so I want to be sure I´m shooting straight.

Brasília-- the wrap up

It was a fun trip, and I´m so so glad I went. I knew in going that I was going to put myself in a major case of self induced culture shock, because I was traveling with all Brazilians, to the capitol of Brazil, to a Brazilian wedding and to see a Brazilian national sporting event. And culture shocked I did get, for about 3 hours on Friday. But even when I was frustrated out of my mind, I knew that in a week I´d look back on it and think it was one of the funnest times ever. Now it´s been a week and I can readily say that yes, it was. :)

Here are some random favorite photos!




Ivan, Enidilson and Jorge-- manly men!



Enrique, possibly the cutest kid ever. :)



This picture kind of freak me out, but I think it´s really cool. Aníbal does really cool stuff without a flash on his camera.



Aníbal took this picture on our late night tour of Brasília with Enidilson and Enrique. From left to right it´s Ivan, Edinilson, Enrique, me, Jandira.



Another one of those non-flash photos. I like the colors in this one so much. I knew Aníbal was getting ready to take a picture, but I didn´t know when he took it. Hence the half-posed look. Very cool.



Ha, I love this! Another irreverent picture in the Congressional Palace. :)



I love this picture too! Liberdade!



A too-sweet, Janibal special. :) And I took it, thank you very much. ;)



Jandira and I



Remember the blog about being late to the airport? This is a picture from that time... look at those faces! hahahahaha... :)

That´s all folks! And as always, there are more great photos (at least I think so) in the album. Yay webshots! Yay advertising! Yay give me free stuff! ;)