Figaro, figaro

I´m excited because right now I have both time, and that inner motivation to write. The two things don´t always occur simultaneously, so it makes me happy when they do! We´re at Francy Anne´s house in Aguas Claras (a satellite city near Brasilia), and everyone is napping this afternoon, but I can´t sleep even though I´m tired so here goes . . .

The title of today´s post is in reference to my first-ever opera. On Friday evening Francy Anne told us that Angelica had a friend who studies music at UNB (one of the main universities in Brasilia) and that they were putting on an opera for free . . . so a bunch of us went and it was great! It was the students´ culmination of a semester´s worth of work: The Barber of Seville. I have no knowledge of operas, but it made me want to learn more about them. It would have been nice to have read up about the story before we went. When we got there Jess was like, `´Oh no! It´s going to be in Portuguese and I won´t understand anything! Do you think they´ll have subtitles?`` It turns out they did! The opera was in Italian, and they had two screens on either side of the theatre with the entire script going by on powerpoint slides . . . in Portuguese. We didn´t catch absolutely everything, but we got the main idea for sure. I had the strange sensation of not knowing where I was a few times as the opera went on. We were in a very famliar University theater setting (which made me feel like I could be in North America) watching an Italian opera in Portuguese. Hmmm . . .

Okay, I´ve skipped over about two weeks of life since I haven´t really written about our time since we left Brasilia last. We had a great time in Anapolis at Marcio´s house. And I´m not just saying that because I know you´ll eventually read this Marcio :). Marcio´s Mom and Dad, Fransisco and Guiomar travel a lot, but they don´t stay where they travel to for very long, so we got to meet a lot of people and see a lot of different places in a very short space of time. On our trip to Palmas we also stayed over night in Ceres (with blood relatives) and in Uruacu (with Christian relatives). Upon our return we visited Goiania briefly, and then on our trip back to Francy Anne´s house we stopped in at Gama (the same day that the Brasil vs. Portugal soccer game took place there), Taguatinga and somewhere else that I don´t remember the name of. While we were in Anapolis we basically just had a good time hanging out together - talking, trying to fix the internet connection but making things worse instead, watching movies, playing Uno, having in-depth and non in-depth conversation, eating . . . It´s not just the things we did, though, that were important. It was just being able to spend time together that made it so nice.

So, about our job situation. We´re in the process of officially registering everything and applying for the working visa. I´ll spare you the details beause it´s neither intriguing, nor relevant for most of you. Suffice it to say that I´m trying not to be nervous about having to rely on other people to get everything done by our December 15th deadline. I kind of feel like I´m back in university doing a group project that I would rather do myself, but alas, this is real life. Hey, maybe this is why they make you do those projects after all! Anyhow, we´re waiting for a package to arrive within a couple of weeks and I´m trying to trust the Lord that all the people we have to rely on are doing their parts properly.

Which brings me to my key phrase from life as of late: let go and let Him do it. I´ve come to realize that I am constantly (though sometimes unconciously) struggling to control and direct so many aspects of life. It´s become apparent in very simple situations like the one I described in the last paragraph. I get all tied up in knots when I can´t organize things and make them go the way I´d like them to. And even when I pray and tell the Lord I´m giving things completely into His hands, it´s not long until I realize that though I´ve said the words, the ´fingers´ of my heart are gripping tightly to that very thing I told the Lord was His. But He´s won a victory and I just realized it a couple days ago. It´s been two and a half months since I began to pray for Him to take control of one specific thing (during which time I battled Him all the while), but in the end He´s done it. He´s brought me to the point where I can truly say, `Lord, Your will be done` and let go completely. I can see, looking back, that He´s used the people I´ve been with, the situations I´ve encountered, and a lot of time in order to do something in me that neither I nor any other human being could accomplish. There seem to be a lot of situations lately, not only in my own life but in so many people´s lives who I´m connected to, in which the Lord is using time to get whatever it is that He is after in each of us. Which is why I love to be reminded of my Mom´s line over and over again: it´s a good thing we know that Jesus is Lord.

We´ll be in Brasilia for an indefinite amount of time, and I don´t know where we´ll be going next, since everything depends on everything, as it so often does. We will post more pictures as soon as possible. Sorry we haven´t done it yet!