September 3, 2011
-
He pulled out a machete and whacked the top of the coconut off. The liquid inside gushed over as he put a straw in and handed it to me. Yum—fresh coconut water. It has been a good week. I wake up at 5:30am and work out at “Fat’s Gym.” Yes, that is the literal translation. By 7am I am waiting for the bus to get to the International school where I run opening assembly until 8am—sing some songs with the kids, teach them new songs and Bible verses—sorta like a supercharged VBS. Good thing I am a morning person. I like those kinda things. 8am I am back out at the bus stop, waiting for a bus or Kombe (vw bus) to take me to Cajueiro claro. Once I arrive, it is a 4 kilometer walk from the road to the “town,” down one hill and up another.
If we arrive around 9, all of the kids pronounce us late and get all huffy until we circle around and have devotions and Flavio plays some songs on the guitar. By this time, we have about an hour/hour and a half to play games, have activities, and prepare and serve a snack/lunch. Somewhere after 10:30am we walk four kilometers back to the main road. After another bus ride, I am standing in front of the refrigerator, thinking “What the heck am I gonna make for lunch?”
In the afternoons I am working on Living Stones logistics and growth—talking to more churches and pastors and people interested—as well as re-opening Living Stones in Paudalho. This week I have been visiting all the homes of the children in Paudalho, checking in with them and making sure everything is going ok until we can get things moving. On Tuesday I chopped all my hair off, so now I resemble Peter Pan. It also means where my hair used to be is now sunburnt. Who thought of putting sunscreen back there? Not me.
I am in Brazil on a student visa. This means I am a student. Hopefully. While in the USA, they told me classes would start in July or early August. Now they are telling me September or early October. Hmmm. So as soon as they get enough people signed up for the class, yours truly will be a student at FALUB, studying Educational Psychology. It is ironic because the name for the course in Portuguese is almost impossible for me to pronounce: Psicopedagogia. Yeah. Say that three times fast. But it is pretty said to mispronounce the class you are taking. Doesn’t make you sound like the brightest crayon in the box.
So once I am officially a student, my evenings will be full, and hopefully I will learn to pronounce the name of my course correctly. Friday night is church in Cajueiro Claro, and Sunday mornings I am teaching an English class at the Acacias church. I will be starting a community English class in Paudalho on Sunday afternoons, and I guard my Saturday mornings with an iron fist, claiming any Bible verse that talks about a Sabbath as a good reason to sleep in.
Specifically this week, in Cajueiro Claro we decorated the classroom. The kids did a wonderful job helping!
In Paudalho, I had wonderful chats with many kids and families, as I brought pictures for them from past trips. Next week is Independence day in Brazil, so I will get to see the children involved with the government program, PETI. One of the ladies who used to work with Living Stones has been working with PETI to have all of the different programs in the whole town (1000 children, if everything goes right) to incorporate the character program that I translated with her into Portuguese for Living Stones. Next week we will be planning training times, where I can go to the different centers (which are much like Living Stones, but only the government part, not the spiritual part) and help train the workers to teach character. I am very excited! Please pray for that!
