I´ve posted some pictures here for all to see:
http://joyalegria.multiply.com/photos/album/18/18#
There would have been more if it didn´t take quite so long to load, but alas, it did, so these will have to suffice.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
It´s Been a Month Already!
That makes it sound as though I can’t believe so much time has passed, when in reality all that has happened since January 14th seems to be too much to fit in the space of only four weeks. But it certainly has. We’re still living in Bernadete’s house, and although we’re excited to get our own place (we decided to take that apartment I wrote about two weeks ago, and are just waiting on paperwork to be able to move in), a lot of unexpected and “unplanned” events took place this week that made us especially happy that it hasn’t happened just yet.
It’s so good to be able to live with the certainty that God is in control of our lives, but there’s something so exciting about those times when He lets us take a glimpse of some of His “behind the scenes” workings. We knew that Bernadete was a believer, and we’ve all been able to speak freely about the Lord together, but we hadn’t really connected on a deep level until the Lord arranged a few perfect circumstances that allowed us to all be able to open our hearts up this week.
After school on Thursday Jess and I were preparing something to eat, when Bernadete told us that she’d made a decision about something because she felt that the Lord had told her that she was headed in the wrong direction. She shared with us how she’d been having doubts, and had been waiting on the Lord to show her clearly what He wanted, and now that He had, she was going to follow Him even though it would cost her things she wants/feels she needs. As she shared with us, I felt amazed that the Lord had brought us to live in this house. It made me realize that sometimes outward situations hide the most precious things – as we fellowshipped together I realized that we were in the presence of someone who lives such a sweet and simple life before the Lord, relying on Him inwardly for all of her needs. She had no idea, but the things she shared with us were also answering questions that had recently come up in our hearts. One of the things we talked about was having discernment, and that the more we know Jesus, the more we are able to recognize His presence (or the lack thereof) in the events of our lives.
She shared with us how when she was initially renting our room, she had prayed to the Lord to only bring someone (she was renting for one person at the time) who served Him. A lady had come along, and wanted to rent the room, but Bernadete didn’t feel like she wanted her, so she told the lady in faith that she was sorry but the room was already rented. And that’s when she got a call about us (the day before our arrival), and put an extra bed in the room to prepare for us. Now we know why she and her sister were high-fiving each other when they found out that we were believers. God’s pretty good at what He does, eh?!
It just so happened that after this we all (Jess, Bernadete and I) went together to a Christian gathering that we’d been invited to the day before, to which none of us wanted to go, but somehow we’d all said yes. I would actually like to put the word Christian in quotes in that last sentence, except I am certain that there were genuine believers there, so I won’t. I really believe that the Lord took us there to contrast the inward life with the Lord that we had just discovered in Bernadete, because what we got was an extreme outward show, but no Jesus.
Picture simplicity: we were in the back of a very simple house in a very out-of-the-way neighbourhood with a group of people who don’t have much of anything. This was contrasted greatly with the person leading the meeting, who was flashy in everything he did. From the start to the finish this person demanded our attention (in no uncertain terms), and commandeered every single aspect of what took place. He started off by asking performing “healings”, then told us when to stand, when to sing, when to pray, what to pray and what not to pray(and kept throughout this time so that it was impossible to even think let alone try to contact God), sang songs prepared background music he’d brought along, told people when to be silent (even when they were obviously crying out the Lord), shared things briefly from the word, asked everyone what they needed from God and told them that he was responsible to provide all those things because God had sent him to them (to people who nobody visits because they have no money – yes, he said that out loud), and ended by collecting an offering. Absolutely everything that occurred pointed obviously to himself as the centre and focus of our being together. He could certainly sense that Jess and I weren’t being controlled, because he was surprised at the part where he went around asking what we all need from God, when both of us said, “Nothing”. When we talked about it later, we laughed because both of us had had the same thought, “I don’t need anything. I’ve got Jesus!”
By the end I felt completely disgusted and offended that someone should try to stand between God and I, and so thankful that I can come to Jesus without any intermediary. When we arrived home, all three of us agreed that we don’t ever need to go again. Jess and I had plenty to talk about after that night! It’s funny how much the Lord can show you through contrast. I’m so thankful that God is so real when we seek Him, and that He’s promised to be found by us when we seek Him with all our hearts (Jeremiah 29:13). I felt so much for the people in that gathering who had come because they wanted Him.
In the past two months the Lord has been teaching me about believing. It’s impossible for me to write today all that He’s taken me through, but I have come to realize that there is a whole different world available when I really and truly believe: it’s the world of faith. And it does not depend on what we see, but it depends on what Jesus says, and who God is. I don’t believe so that He will accomplish such and such. If He has spoken, I believe because He is faithful. Whether or not it looks possible does not change the fact that He will do as He has promised. Because no word will be impossible with God. (Luke 1:37)
Here are a few verses, a poem and a couple songs the Lord has encouraged me with to help me to take my eyes off of what I can see, and place them on Himself. We aren’t the authors of our faith; we just have to receive the faith He is offering us, because He operates within us is as the power to believe:
And Mary said, Behold, the slave of the Lord. May it happen to me according to your word. (Luke 1:38)
And blessed is she who has believed, because there will be a completion of the things spoken to her from the Lord. (Luke 1:45)
Do not let your heart be troubled; believe into God, believe also into Me. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. (John 14:1,27)
Now when Daniel came to know that the writing had been signed, he went to his house (in his upper room he had windows open toward Jerusalem) and three times daily he knelt on his knees and prayed and gave thanks before his God, because he had always done so previously. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and he was found completely unhurt, because he had trusted in his God. (Daniel 6:10,23)
For my faith
though it be weak,
makes me strong: (R.W.)
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.
Lord, now I see,
You only want me to believe
Not to change
In all my failures and defeats
To believe what You have done,
And not in what I see.
Lord, I believe,
When all around me is defeat
And it seems that nothing’s changing outwardly.
No! I’m not discouraged,
I’m believing You.
Yes, I believe,
And there is no demand on me.
Simple faith, yes , that is all you want from me.
Freed from anxious doubting –
I’m free to just believe!
Believing You,
Because, Lord, You are my success!
When I fail, all I must do is just confess,
And go on enjoying You –
I love believing You!
It’s so good to be able to live with the certainty that God is in control of our lives, but there’s something so exciting about those times when He lets us take a glimpse of some of His “behind the scenes” workings. We knew that Bernadete was a believer, and we’ve all been able to speak freely about the Lord together, but we hadn’t really connected on a deep level until the Lord arranged a few perfect circumstances that allowed us to all be able to open our hearts up this week.
After school on Thursday Jess and I were preparing something to eat, when Bernadete told us that she’d made a decision about something because she felt that the Lord had told her that she was headed in the wrong direction. She shared with us how she’d been having doubts, and had been waiting on the Lord to show her clearly what He wanted, and now that He had, she was going to follow Him even though it would cost her things she wants/feels she needs. As she shared with us, I felt amazed that the Lord had brought us to live in this house. It made me realize that sometimes outward situations hide the most precious things – as we fellowshipped together I realized that we were in the presence of someone who lives such a sweet and simple life before the Lord, relying on Him inwardly for all of her needs. She had no idea, but the things she shared with us were also answering questions that had recently come up in our hearts. One of the things we talked about was having discernment, and that the more we know Jesus, the more we are able to recognize His presence (or the lack thereof) in the events of our lives.
She shared with us how when she was initially renting our room, she had prayed to the Lord to only bring someone (she was renting for one person at the time) who served Him. A lady had come along, and wanted to rent the room, but Bernadete didn’t feel like she wanted her, so she told the lady in faith that she was sorry but the room was already rented. And that’s when she got a call about us (the day before our arrival), and put an extra bed in the room to prepare for us. Now we know why she and her sister were high-fiving each other when they found out that we were believers. God’s pretty good at what He does, eh?!
It just so happened that after this we all (Jess, Bernadete and I) went together to a Christian gathering that we’d been invited to the day before, to which none of us wanted to go, but somehow we’d all said yes. I would actually like to put the word Christian in quotes in that last sentence, except I am certain that there were genuine believers there, so I won’t. I really believe that the Lord took us there to contrast the inward life with the Lord that we had just discovered in Bernadete, because what we got was an extreme outward show, but no Jesus.
Picture simplicity: we were in the back of a very simple house in a very out-of-the-way neighbourhood with a group of people who don’t have much of anything. This was contrasted greatly with the person leading the meeting, who was flashy in everything he did. From the start to the finish this person demanded our attention (in no uncertain terms), and commandeered every single aspect of what took place. He started off by asking performing “healings”, then told us when to stand, when to sing, when to pray, what to pray and what not to pray(and kept throughout this time so that it was impossible to even think let alone try to contact God), sang songs prepared background music he’d brought along, told people when to be silent (even when they were obviously crying out the Lord), shared things briefly from the word, asked everyone what they needed from God and told them that he was responsible to provide all those things because God had sent him to them (to people who nobody visits because they have no money – yes, he said that out loud), and ended by collecting an offering. Absolutely everything that occurred pointed obviously to himself as the centre and focus of our being together. He could certainly sense that Jess and I weren’t being controlled, because he was surprised at the part where he went around asking what we all need from God, when both of us said, “Nothing”. When we talked about it later, we laughed because both of us had had the same thought, “I don’t need anything. I’ve got Jesus!”
By the end I felt completely disgusted and offended that someone should try to stand between God and I, and so thankful that I can come to Jesus without any intermediary. When we arrived home, all three of us agreed that we don’t ever need to go again. Jess and I had plenty to talk about after that night! It’s funny how much the Lord can show you through contrast. I’m so thankful that God is so real when we seek Him, and that He’s promised to be found by us when we seek Him with all our hearts (Jeremiah 29:13). I felt so much for the people in that gathering who had come because they wanted Him.
In the past two months the Lord has been teaching me about believing. It’s impossible for me to write today all that He’s taken me through, but I have come to realize that there is a whole different world available when I really and truly believe: it’s the world of faith. And it does not depend on what we see, but it depends on what Jesus says, and who God is. I don’t believe so that He will accomplish such and such. If He has spoken, I believe because He is faithful. Whether or not it looks possible does not change the fact that He will do as He has promised. Because no word will be impossible with God. (Luke 1:37)
Here are a few verses, a poem and a couple songs the Lord has encouraged me with to help me to take my eyes off of what I can see, and place them on Himself. We aren’t the authors of our faith; we just have to receive the faith He is offering us, because He operates within us is as the power to believe:
And Mary said, Behold, the slave of the Lord. May it happen to me according to your word. (Luke 1:38)
And blessed is she who has believed, because there will be a completion of the things spoken to her from the Lord. (Luke 1:45)
Do not let your heart be troubled; believe into God, believe also into Me. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. (John 14:1,27)
Now when Daniel came to know that the writing had been signed, he went to his house (in his upper room he had windows open toward Jerusalem) and three times daily he knelt on his knees and prayed and gave thanks before his God, because he had always done so previously. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and he was found completely unhurt, because he had trusted in his God. (Daniel 6:10,23)
For my faith
though it be weak,
makes me strong: (R.W.)
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.
Lord, now I see,
You only want me to believe
Not to change
In all my failures and defeats
To believe what You have done,
And not in what I see.
Lord, I believe,
When all around me is defeat
And it seems that nothing’s changing outwardly.
No! I’m not discouraged,
I’m believing You.
Yes, I believe,
And there is no demand on me.
Simple faith, yes , that is all you want from me.
Freed from anxious doubting –
I’m free to just believe!
Believing You,
Because, Lord, You are my success!
When I fail, all I must do is just confess,
And go on enjoying You –
I love believing You!
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Highlights of the Week
I keep remembering that the very first time we came to Brazil with a big group of young people back in 2001 that I said out loud, “I could live here.” And now, here I am. It surprises both Jess and I over and over again. Every few days one of us says to the other, “Can you believe we’re living in Brazil?” Usually we can’t. We had a great week. Exhausting, but good to the core.
Music in the street
Monday was a long day, starting at 5:15am (which turned out to be exceedingly early – even after sauntering to school from where the bus dropped us off, we arrived at 6:40. . . we now know to catch the 6:30 bus rather than the 6:05) and ending with an after-school meeting at around 4:15. By the time we’d caught the bus home and were walking down our street it was getting to be dinner time, and we were pretty tuckered out. Deep in conversation as we neared our place, we faintly heard music drifting through the commotion of the busy street, getting progressively more definite as we continued on our way. When we got close enough we saw that in a tiny used instruments shop a lady was trying out a keyboard while the shop owner accompanied her on his guitar. The chorus stopped us in our tracks, and we just stood staring across the street, taking in the sight, the sounds, the moment:
At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light
And the burden of my heart rolled away
It was there by faith I received my sight
And now I am happy all the day
It was as if my senses picked up signals from all the outward stimuli and worked together to cause all the emotions of that particular moment of my life – joy, sadness, restfulness, anticipation – to surface. It’s hard to put certain feelings into words, but I think the sentiment that wafted over me was a recognition of the changeableness and fragility of life, and a subsequent welling up of an appreciation for all I had at that very moment. And for some reason, it made me cry.
Caught in the Rain
There was a staff meeting at 6:15pm on Tuesday, which we hadn’t known about until we arrived in the morning. With our friend Denise, who is here from the Philippines for a year to do the same thing as we are doing, we walked to a bakery after school to get away for a bit and have something to eat. On the way back to school there was thunder and ominous clouds, which made us hurry on our way. We had to leave the meeting early because we’re all living so far away and wanted to be home before dark. Had we known the amount of rain that was coming, we would have left earlier. But we hadn’t known, and just as we were reaching Denise’s bus stop, it started pouring. Denise had an umbrella, which she and Jess shared, and a girl named Sebastiana offered to share hers with me. It poured. Our shoes and jeans and were soaking wet. We waited and waited and waited for Denise’s bus to come. It got dark. Her bus finally came, and she was on her way with her umbrella. Jess and my umbrella’s are currently in a suitcase in São Paulo at Arne’s house, so we were grateful that the rain let up as we started towards our bus stop a few blocks away. The let up was short-lived. We got poured on. I kept having to wipe my eyes because I couldn’t see for all the water in them. I had to laugh at myself, because even though there wasn’t anything left of me to get wet, I was still jumping to try and avoid puddles. The rain was warm enough that I wasn’t uncomfortable despite the fact that I was only wearing a sleeveless top. Our bus was a long time in coming, and by the time we finally got home (two hours after we’d left the school) both of us were quite ready for a hot shower and dry clothes. All in all, it was a thrilling adventure. I loved every minute of it.
Culture Shock
After the first day of school, which came with an overload of awakenings and realizations, I felt like, a year is going to be a long time. Same thing after the second day. Both Jess and I had shocking realizations about how much we are not from here by running into school-culture culture shock. When we talked later, we found out that we’d gone through the same thing feelings as we watched our teaching partners affectionately hug and kiss the students as they arrived; and I emphasize, affectionately. I felt like the most freezing-cold stiff person on the planet. I’ve never felt extremely uncomfortable with the warmth of South American people the way some people do. In fact, I like it. But in the context of school my whole being forbade it. Throughout our teacher education, it was emphasized, and reemphasized, and re-reemphasized about the importance to not ever show anything that could be interpreted as love towards your students. In fact, it’s best not to let them know that you’re a human being just in case someday someone happens to interpret what you do in a way you wouldn’t want them to and . . . the inevitable negative consequences of your good-hearted intentions occurs. I only slightly exaggerate. We were told to be sure never to do this, and never to do that, to the point that once we were actually teaching, it was awkward to receive hugs when the kids gave them to us just because.
It’s not the only difference in school-culture, however, which has made me realize that one can’t go from being a Canadian teacher to being a Brazilian teacher just by way of teaching in a Brazilian school. I know I will inevitably be changed after this year, because we as human beings have an incredible ability to adapt. I am already having to fight and hold on to my Canadian English – we are in such a strong Brazilian English environment that when I speak to the kids, I can already here the lilts as my voice rises and falls in ways it ‘should’ not. But I’m excited to change and be changed by the coming year. A year is a long time, but that’s not a bad thing.
The Kids
By day three I lead an activity with the kids in my class and was reminded again why I became a teacher in the first place. As they came up to me one by one, or called out to me, “Ms. Joy, Ms. Joy – come see”, and as they crawled into my lap at circle time I remembered how much I love being with kids, and how much I love to be able to be a positive influence in their lives. I’ve already gotten attached to my two classes, and realize that a year is going to be over all too soon. There are a few who stand out:
J – the little blond boy from Australia, with his two front teeth missing and constantly has a shock of hair falling into his eyes, who has an incredible accent and can’t speak enough Australian English to satisfy my desire to hear it
D – our new arrival from Pakistan who also has an incredible accent, and cannot speak without smiling
D – a little charmer who has an incredible personality, and loves to joke around, but who also has an incredibly strong will (he refuses to eat anything he doesn’t like and at lunch every day he eats a plateful of rice with salt on it) and is my challenge to discover ways to make him want to do things he thinks he doesn’t want to do
P – an adorable little boy who makes every effort to speak English, and speaks it in such a way that makes him seem much older than his seven years
C – a girl of Kenyan and Finnish decent, who is always ready for everything that’s going on
M – C’s friend, who is an extremely definite little girl
M – a boy who I’ve already gotten through in terms of a change of attitude, and who I’m looking forward to being with the rest of the year
I could go on, but I must eat breakfast so that we can go and accomplish things today.
Music in the street
Monday was a long day, starting at 5:15am (which turned out to be exceedingly early – even after sauntering to school from where the bus dropped us off, we arrived at 6:40. . . we now know to catch the 6:30 bus rather than the 6:05) and ending with an after-school meeting at around 4:15. By the time we’d caught the bus home and were walking down our street it was getting to be dinner time, and we were pretty tuckered out. Deep in conversation as we neared our place, we faintly heard music drifting through the commotion of the busy street, getting progressively more definite as we continued on our way. When we got close enough we saw that in a tiny used instruments shop a lady was trying out a keyboard while the shop owner accompanied her on his guitar. The chorus stopped us in our tracks, and we just stood staring across the street, taking in the sight, the sounds, the moment:
At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light
And the burden of my heart rolled away
It was there by faith I received my sight
And now I am happy all the day
It was as if my senses picked up signals from all the outward stimuli and worked together to cause all the emotions of that particular moment of my life – joy, sadness, restfulness, anticipation – to surface. It’s hard to put certain feelings into words, but I think the sentiment that wafted over me was a recognition of the changeableness and fragility of life, and a subsequent welling up of an appreciation for all I had at that very moment. And for some reason, it made me cry.
Caught in the Rain
There was a staff meeting at 6:15pm on Tuesday, which we hadn’t known about until we arrived in the morning. With our friend Denise, who is here from the Philippines for a year to do the same thing as we are doing, we walked to a bakery after school to get away for a bit and have something to eat. On the way back to school there was thunder and ominous clouds, which made us hurry on our way. We had to leave the meeting early because we’re all living so far away and wanted to be home before dark. Had we known the amount of rain that was coming, we would have left earlier. But we hadn’t known, and just as we were reaching Denise’s bus stop, it started pouring. Denise had an umbrella, which she and Jess shared, and a girl named Sebastiana offered to share hers with me. It poured. Our shoes and jeans and were soaking wet. We waited and waited and waited for Denise’s bus to come. It got dark. Her bus finally came, and she was on her way with her umbrella. Jess and my umbrella’s are currently in a suitcase in São Paulo at Arne’s house, so we were grateful that the rain let up as we started towards our bus stop a few blocks away. The let up was short-lived. We got poured on. I kept having to wipe my eyes because I couldn’t see for all the water in them. I had to laugh at myself, because even though there wasn’t anything left of me to get wet, I was still jumping to try and avoid puddles. The rain was warm enough that I wasn’t uncomfortable despite the fact that I was only wearing a sleeveless top. Our bus was a long time in coming, and by the time we finally got home (two hours after we’d left the school) both of us were quite ready for a hot shower and dry clothes. All in all, it was a thrilling adventure. I loved every minute of it.
Culture Shock
After the first day of school, which came with an overload of awakenings and realizations, I felt like, a year is going to be a long time. Same thing after the second day. Both Jess and I had shocking realizations about how much we are not from here by running into school-culture culture shock. When we talked later, we found out that we’d gone through the same thing feelings as we watched our teaching partners affectionately hug and kiss the students as they arrived; and I emphasize, affectionately. I felt like the most freezing-cold stiff person on the planet. I’ve never felt extremely uncomfortable with the warmth of South American people the way some people do. In fact, I like it. But in the context of school my whole being forbade it. Throughout our teacher education, it was emphasized, and reemphasized, and re-reemphasized about the importance to not ever show anything that could be interpreted as love towards your students. In fact, it’s best not to let them know that you’re a human being just in case someday someone happens to interpret what you do in a way you wouldn’t want them to and . . . the inevitable negative consequences of your good-hearted intentions occurs. I only slightly exaggerate. We were told to be sure never to do this, and never to do that, to the point that once we were actually teaching, it was awkward to receive hugs when the kids gave them to us just because.
It’s not the only difference in school-culture, however, which has made me realize that one can’t go from being a Canadian teacher to being a Brazilian teacher just by way of teaching in a Brazilian school. I know I will inevitably be changed after this year, because we as human beings have an incredible ability to adapt. I am already having to fight and hold on to my Canadian English – we are in such a strong Brazilian English environment that when I speak to the kids, I can already here the lilts as my voice rises and falls in ways it ‘should’ not. But I’m excited to change and be changed by the coming year. A year is a long time, but that’s not a bad thing.
The Kids
By day three I lead an activity with the kids in my class and was reminded again why I became a teacher in the first place. As they came up to me one by one, or called out to me, “Ms. Joy, Ms. Joy – come see”, and as they crawled into my lap at circle time I remembered how much I love being with kids, and how much I love to be able to be a positive influence in their lives. I’ve already gotten attached to my two classes, and realize that a year is going to be over all too soon. There are a few who stand out:
J – the little blond boy from Australia, with his two front teeth missing and constantly has a shock of hair falling into his eyes, who has an incredible accent and can’t speak enough Australian English to satisfy my desire to hear it
D – our new arrival from Pakistan who also has an incredible accent, and cannot speak without smiling
D – a little charmer who has an incredible personality, and loves to joke around, but who also has an incredibly strong will (he refuses to eat anything he doesn’t like and at lunch every day he eats a plateful of rice with salt on it) and is my challenge to discover ways to make him want to do things he thinks he doesn’t want to do
P – an adorable little boy who makes every effort to speak English, and speaks it in such a way that makes him seem much older than his seven years
C – a girl of Kenyan and Finnish decent, who is always ready for everything that’s going on
M – C’s friend, who is an extremely definite little girl
M – a boy who I’ve already gotten through in terms of a change of attitude, and who I’m looking forward to being with the rest of the year
I could go on, but I must eat breakfast so that we can go and accomplish things today.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Smorgasboard
I can’t believe it’s only been two and a half weeks since Jess and I arrived here. So much happens every day, it feels like we spend each day racing to get as much done as possible before we collapse on our beds at night. We’re pretty exhausted, but it’s a good, satisfying exhaustion from having accomplished a lot. Here’s a ‘potluck’ of the things that are currently part of our lives:
School
I think I mentioned before that I was happily surprised by the school setup and environment. After a week of preparation for the beginning of the school year on Monday, I can say I’m even happier to be a part of it. We didn’t just sign up to be teachers when we took these jobs. The school’s philosophy (boiled down to essentials) is not to focus simply on high-quality education, but to produce well-rounded, proper people who will be an asset to the world. They really are about developing the whole person. Which means we play a lot of the Mom role as teachers. It’s the little details that show it. For example, every student is given a toothbrush and after lunch we take our classes to the washroom and help them all brush their teeth. Crazy, eh?
We’re working with a great group of teachers, which is good because we’re at school a long time. Our schedule’s been changed a bit. We now go from 7am until 4pm, with an hour off for lunch. Starting at 7 means that we have to catch our bus at 6:10, which means that we’ve got to start waking up around 5:15, which means we’ve got to be in bed around 9 at night. Which means that we have almost no life outside of school at present. We’re looking for a place closer to the school as a result. More on that later.
I found out this week that here time isn’t money the way it is back home. In this sense: all the things that teachers buy to put up in their classrooms back home, I was making by hand. Jess made an entire alphabet (printing and cursive, upper and lowercase) for her classroom, cut each square down to size, pasted it onto coloured Bristol board, and has yet to laminate them. By hand. I spent much of my week making large posters of the class schedule, a birthday calendar, a special helper board etc. Oh, and we both worked together on a bulletin board for the school. We used recycled materials for the whole thing, including kids’artwork from previous years. The school is really big on recycling. I have to say that even though doing all these things takes tons of time, there’s a great deal of satisfaction when you get to the finished product knowing that you made it yourself as opposed to having bought it.
School starts tomorrow. It’ll be exciting to meet all the students!
Buses
Bus rides are an adventure. Actually, they’re quite hilarious once you get a seat. The driver’s seem to all have two modes. The first mode is to gun it, and the second is slam on the brakes. For corners, as Jess describes it, it’s seems that their goal is to make it around using only two wheels. So what happens is you get on the bus, and you pass the driver, and then you have to give your money to the cobrador, who gives you change if you need it, and then he swipes his card so that you can go through one of those metal turn thingys to get to the seats, if there are any. If you ride the bus early, you most likely won’t get a seat, but it’s pretty easy to stay standing because there are so many people that you can’t actually fall anywhere. However, getting off can be a challenge. One day Jess and I had to squeeze through people and I had to keep yanking my backpack through after me until we made it to the back door. If you ride the bus at 8 or 9 you are more likely to get a seat, but it can be tricky to stay standing until you do. I noticed yesterday that I somehow pulled a muscle in my right leg, and I’m pretty sure it happened while trying to stay upright on a moving bus.
Banks
The last thing we need to do to be setup here is to open a bank account. We tried this week, but we’re still missing a piece of documentation. Banks are open from 10 until 4, Monday to Friday. Which means that when we want to deposit our paycheck, we’re going to have to ask for time off work. It kind of makes me wonder why we’re getting bank accounts at all. Except when I think about stockpiling cash at home (that’s how we’ll be getting paid) I remember why.
Our Neighbourhood
We love it here! It’s feels like what I imaged Brazil to be. We live in the oldest neighbourhood of the city, and I know I’ve described it before, but I want to paint the full picture now that we’ve been around. It’s like the neighbourhood is a small city in itself. People refer to this area as little Minas Gerais (the state just north of us) because there are so many mineiros who live here. We’re on the main street, which makes for constant noise. Here are the things you’ll see and hear at any given moment: groups of people standing in the street, or just outside a place to eat, chatting and wasting the day away, big kids and little kids out in full force flying their kites as high as possible and trying to avoid getting them caught in the rows of telephone wires, dogs meandering up and down the street in search of food, cars, fuscas, buses, horse-drawn carts, men unloading trucks and carrying heavy loads from one place to another, people working on their cars, a game of street football, bare-footed people in the supermarket aisles, soap-opera scenes taking place in the street in the wee hours of the morning, birds singing, dogs barking (and barking and barking), mothers carrying babies, kids darting around in their bare feet sent out on errands by their mothers, busy people, doing-nothing people, people people and more people. It’s been fun to find the little useful shops along our road, the sewing shop, the health-food shop, the internet cafés, the bakeries, the ice cream shops, the pharmacies (where we can weigh ourselves for free to see just how much we have or haven’t been eating). And it’s fun to start establishing relationships with the people who work in all these places. The neighbourhood certainly lends itself to a certain sense of belonging in a very short while. We’re already sad that we can’t stay.
I’ve learned to sleep with the noise. My ears were sore from using earplugs every night, so I realized I just had to get used to it. A good dose of tiredness every night helps a lot! But when it starts raining at night, Jess usually says, “Quick! Let’s try and fall asleep before the rain stops and people get back out into the street!”
Our ``Family``
We love them too! The lady we live with is named Bernadette, and her two sons are Eduardo and Vinicius. Her sister, Benita, also lives with us. Her fiancé Paulo is often over with his daughter, Paula. They’re all really happy people, and it turns out that Bernadette is a Christian, which we discovered shortly after we arrived. She was thrilled to know that we are too. Considering that it was decided that we would live here only a day before we arrived, I am certain that the Lord’s hand was in the choosing of us being here. We feel completely at home. It’s going to be hard to go.
Apartment-Hunting
Our friend Daniel, who we met at the International conference in September through our friend Marcio, was super kind to take us to look at places yesterday. Here you go through real-estate agents even to rent apartments. We’re asking for something ‘’impossible’’ between our combination of wanting 1)walking distance from the school, 2) something furnished, 3) a low price 4) a pleasant place to live. We’d looked at places the first week we were here. It’s so interesting to me how you get feelings just by walking into places. I mean, I’ve always took home for granted before. Home was wherever my Mom and Dad chose to live, and it was always great. But you learn pretty quickly what to look for, and almost as soon as the front door is opened I can get a pretty good sense as to whether or not I could handle living in the place. One place was particularly horrific (everything was narrow and dark and made me feel like I was in hiding during war times), which has made me appreciate pretty much every other place we’ve looked at. So, anyway, yesterday we looked at two places, and the second place, aside from being a one-bedroom apartment, seems to combine all of our unrealistic requirements. It’s in a great neighbourhood, fully furnished (except we’d have to buy another bed), within walking distance from the school, fairly bright and homey, and at an extremely reasonable price. Neither of us being good on-the-spot decision-makers, we haven’t decided for sure, but I’m getting the feeling that this is the place the Lord prepared for us. Pray for us.
The Feira
I am at a complete loss as to how to convey my extreme pleasure of getting to live in a country where there are street markets. Certain streets have markets on different days of the week, where vendors set up around 6 in the morning and sell their fruits, vegetables, meat, grains etc. until around 1pm. Jess and I went today for the first time, to one a few blocks away. It made us so incredibly happy to wander from stall to stall and find things like Quinoa, fresh spinach, granola, sweets, cheeses . . . in amongst the noisy crowd of vendors and market goers. You can get them to grate a fresh coconut in front of you. How cool is that?
Jesus
Although this is the last topic of today’s post, it really is the most important, because it’s what makes all the rest have any meaning. Over and over again the Lord has been showing that He is with us, and what it means to live life walking with Him. I have to say that Psalm 16 best describes how we feel about life right now: In Your presence is fullness of joy. I can see that the Lord is teaching us what it means to live in His presence. It’s not something apart from real life. But it makes life real. It makes all the seemingly insignificant details of life have meaning. Something so subtle happened in our apartment-searching yesterday, and I realized that Jesus was with us and teaching us how to follow him in such a gentle way, that it made me so incredibly excited. Both Jess and I are really, really happy. No, not happy. We’ve got real joy. Not because things are easy, or because they’re comfortable. Actually, if I look at the facts there are many things missing in my life. With our time so limited, I’ve had such little opportunity to contact people outside of my immediate world. But somehow everything is okay. It’s so exciting when one of us reads a verse, or a book, or a song, and realizes the Lord is supplying us. It’s so incredible to see how the Lord leads us through our prayer together each day. It’s so wonderful to be with Jesus.
My heart feels so full that it could burst.
This, however, is not a license to all of you to not write. Because I really want to hear from you. We need contact with life outside of Sao Jose dos Campos, and I apologize to all the people I haven’t written yet. My plan was to write more emails today, but I’m overwhelmed with everyone I want to write, and so I decided to do this instead to fill everybody in at once. But if I haven’t written you yet, please know that I’ve been thinking of you still, and that I would have written had time allowed it. You can pretend you got a letter and write one back :).
This will be the end of today’s massive entry, because we’ve really got to get out to the internet. I’m typing this up on my laptop so that I can just copy and paste it once we arrive, because we’ve still got to do our wash (which is semi-by-hand) and do some baking and food prep for our breakfasts and dinners this week. I’m so glad that we get a good solid lunch at school every day. Not having to make lunch the night before is one of the most beautiful feelings as I crawl into bed!
School
I think I mentioned before that I was happily surprised by the school setup and environment. After a week of preparation for the beginning of the school year on Monday, I can say I’m even happier to be a part of it. We didn’t just sign up to be teachers when we took these jobs. The school’s philosophy (boiled down to essentials) is not to focus simply on high-quality education, but to produce well-rounded, proper people who will be an asset to the world. They really are about developing the whole person. Which means we play a lot of the Mom role as teachers. It’s the little details that show it. For example, every student is given a toothbrush and after lunch we take our classes to the washroom and help them all brush their teeth. Crazy, eh?
We’re working with a great group of teachers, which is good because we’re at school a long time. Our schedule’s been changed a bit. We now go from 7am until 4pm, with an hour off for lunch. Starting at 7 means that we have to catch our bus at 6:10, which means that we’ve got to start waking up around 5:15, which means we’ve got to be in bed around 9 at night. Which means that we have almost no life outside of school at present. We’re looking for a place closer to the school as a result. More on that later.
I found out this week that here time isn’t money the way it is back home. In this sense: all the things that teachers buy to put up in their classrooms back home, I was making by hand. Jess made an entire alphabet (printing and cursive, upper and lowercase) for her classroom, cut each square down to size, pasted it onto coloured Bristol board, and has yet to laminate them. By hand. I spent much of my week making large posters of the class schedule, a birthday calendar, a special helper board etc. Oh, and we both worked together on a bulletin board for the school. We used recycled materials for the whole thing, including kids’artwork from previous years. The school is really big on recycling. I have to say that even though doing all these things takes tons of time, there’s a great deal of satisfaction when you get to the finished product knowing that you made it yourself as opposed to having bought it.
School starts tomorrow. It’ll be exciting to meet all the students!
Buses
Bus rides are an adventure. Actually, they’re quite hilarious once you get a seat. The driver’s seem to all have two modes. The first mode is to gun it, and the second is slam on the brakes. For corners, as Jess describes it, it’s seems that their goal is to make it around using only two wheels. So what happens is you get on the bus, and you pass the driver, and then you have to give your money to the cobrador, who gives you change if you need it, and then he swipes his card so that you can go through one of those metal turn thingys to get to the seats, if there are any. If you ride the bus early, you most likely won’t get a seat, but it’s pretty easy to stay standing because there are so many people that you can’t actually fall anywhere. However, getting off can be a challenge. One day Jess and I had to squeeze through people and I had to keep yanking my backpack through after me until we made it to the back door. If you ride the bus at 8 or 9 you are more likely to get a seat, but it can be tricky to stay standing until you do. I noticed yesterday that I somehow pulled a muscle in my right leg, and I’m pretty sure it happened while trying to stay upright on a moving bus.
Banks
The last thing we need to do to be setup here is to open a bank account. We tried this week, but we’re still missing a piece of documentation. Banks are open from 10 until 4, Monday to Friday. Which means that when we want to deposit our paycheck, we’re going to have to ask for time off work. It kind of makes me wonder why we’re getting bank accounts at all. Except when I think about stockpiling cash at home (that’s how we’ll be getting paid) I remember why.
Our Neighbourhood
We love it here! It’s feels like what I imaged Brazil to be. We live in the oldest neighbourhood of the city, and I know I’ve described it before, but I want to paint the full picture now that we’ve been around. It’s like the neighbourhood is a small city in itself. People refer to this area as little Minas Gerais (the state just north of us) because there are so many mineiros who live here. We’re on the main street, which makes for constant noise. Here are the things you’ll see and hear at any given moment: groups of people standing in the street, or just outside a place to eat, chatting and wasting the day away, big kids and little kids out in full force flying their kites as high as possible and trying to avoid getting them caught in the rows of telephone wires, dogs meandering up and down the street in search of food, cars, fuscas, buses, horse-drawn carts, men unloading trucks and carrying heavy loads from one place to another, people working on their cars, a game of street football, bare-footed people in the supermarket aisles, soap-opera scenes taking place in the street in the wee hours of the morning, birds singing, dogs barking (and barking and barking), mothers carrying babies, kids darting around in their bare feet sent out on errands by their mothers, busy people, doing-nothing people, people people and more people. It’s been fun to find the little useful shops along our road, the sewing shop, the health-food shop, the internet cafés, the bakeries, the ice cream shops, the pharmacies (where we can weigh ourselves for free to see just how much we have or haven’t been eating). And it’s fun to start establishing relationships with the people who work in all these places. The neighbourhood certainly lends itself to a certain sense of belonging in a very short while. We’re already sad that we can’t stay.
I’ve learned to sleep with the noise. My ears were sore from using earplugs every night, so I realized I just had to get used to it. A good dose of tiredness every night helps a lot! But when it starts raining at night, Jess usually says, “Quick! Let’s try and fall asleep before the rain stops and people get back out into the street!”
Our ``Family``
We love them too! The lady we live with is named Bernadette, and her two sons are Eduardo and Vinicius. Her sister, Benita, also lives with us. Her fiancé Paulo is often over with his daughter, Paula. They’re all really happy people, and it turns out that Bernadette is a Christian, which we discovered shortly after we arrived. She was thrilled to know that we are too. Considering that it was decided that we would live here only a day before we arrived, I am certain that the Lord’s hand was in the choosing of us being here. We feel completely at home. It’s going to be hard to go.
Apartment-Hunting
Our friend Daniel, who we met at the International conference in September through our friend Marcio, was super kind to take us to look at places yesterday. Here you go through real-estate agents even to rent apartments. We’re asking for something ‘’impossible’’ between our combination of wanting 1)walking distance from the school, 2) something furnished, 3) a low price 4) a pleasant place to live. We’d looked at places the first week we were here. It’s so interesting to me how you get feelings just by walking into places. I mean, I’ve always took home for granted before. Home was wherever my Mom and Dad chose to live, and it was always great. But you learn pretty quickly what to look for, and almost as soon as the front door is opened I can get a pretty good sense as to whether or not I could handle living in the place. One place was particularly horrific (everything was narrow and dark and made me feel like I was in hiding during war times), which has made me appreciate pretty much every other place we’ve looked at. So, anyway, yesterday we looked at two places, and the second place, aside from being a one-bedroom apartment, seems to combine all of our unrealistic requirements. It’s in a great neighbourhood, fully furnished (except we’d have to buy another bed), within walking distance from the school, fairly bright and homey, and at an extremely reasonable price. Neither of us being good on-the-spot decision-makers, we haven’t decided for sure, but I’m getting the feeling that this is the place the Lord prepared for us. Pray for us.
The Feira
I am at a complete loss as to how to convey my extreme pleasure of getting to live in a country where there are street markets. Certain streets have markets on different days of the week, where vendors set up around 6 in the morning and sell their fruits, vegetables, meat, grains etc. until around 1pm. Jess and I went today for the first time, to one a few blocks away. It made us so incredibly happy to wander from stall to stall and find things like Quinoa, fresh spinach, granola, sweets, cheeses . . . in amongst the noisy crowd of vendors and market goers. You can get them to grate a fresh coconut in front of you. How cool is that?
Jesus
Although this is the last topic of today’s post, it really is the most important, because it’s what makes all the rest have any meaning. Over and over again the Lord has been showing that He is with us, and what it means to live life walking with Him. I have to say that Psalm 16 best describes how we feel about life right now: In Your presence is fullness of joy. I can see that the Lord is teaching us what it means to live in His presence. It’s not something apart from real life. But it makes life real. It makes all the seemingly insignificant details of life have meaning. Something so subtle happened in our apartment-searching yesterday, and I realized that Jesus was with us and teaching us how to follow him in such a gentle way, that it made me so incredibly excited. Both Jess and I are really, really happy. No, not happy. We’ve got real joy. Not because things are easy, or because they’re comfortable. Actually, if I look at the facts there are many things missing in my life. With our time so limited, I’ve had such little opportunity to contact people outside of my immediate world. But somehow everything is okay. It’s so exciting when one of us reads a verse, or a book, or a song, and realizes the Lord is supplying us. It’s so incredible to see how the Lord leads us through our prayer together each day. It’s so wonderful to be with Jesus.
My heart feels so full that it could burst.
This, however, is not a license to all of you to not write. Because I really want to hear from you. We need contact with life outside of Sao Jose dos Campos, and I apologize to all the people I haven’t written yet. My plan was to write more emails today, but I’m overwhelmed with everyone I want to write, and so I decided to do this instead to fill everybody in at once. But if I haven’t written you yet, please know that I’ve been thinking of you still, and that I would have written had time allowed it. You can pretend you got a letter and write one back :).
This will be the end of today’s massive entry, because we’ve really got to get out to the internet. I’m typing this up on my laptop so that I can just copy and paste it once we arrive, because we’ve still got to do our wash (which is semi-by-hand) and do some baking and food prep for our breakfasts and dinners this week. I’m so glad that we get a good solid lunch at school every day. Not having to make lunch the night before is one of the most beautiful feelings as I crawl into bed!
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