Good Morning Planalto...

The cold water cascading down my face was enough to shock my body awake at 7:00 the next morning. I keep forgetting that Inacia turns off the hot water switches before she leaves at night, and it isn’t until 2 minutes into my shower that I realize why the electric shower head isn’t heating the water. The frigid temperature did its job waking me up, and after I got dressed I quickly prepared my things for that morning. I had to bring the photo printer with me to print pictures of some of the cooperative’s wooden products that morning, which was one of the things I was supposed to get done the previous afternoon.

Uncle Mark, William and I arrived in the Planalto and each headed our separate ways. The hall was coming along quite nicely. Raimundo and Damião had begun tiling the front stairs, and Raimundo was already at work installing the railings for them and the handicap ramp. There were two Lucianos working today. The regular Luciano was preparing to paint the auditorium, and the new Luciano, who was also a missionary from another nearby assembly, was at work preparing the front wall for the gate installation.

Uncle Mark, Neto, William and Luciano (the regular one) loaded into the Comvee to go complain to the granite counter-top guy. The counters had come the day before and it was clear that the person who cut the granite did not follow the template that Uncle Mark had made at all. Everything was off, the most notable mistake being that the sink was in the wrong place. I headed to Luis’s house to pick up the disk of co-op product photos to print. On my way home I got a bit lost and wound up in another slum in the opposite direction of the Planalto. I decided to follow the train tracks back from whence I came, and finally found my way to the church. I set up a makeshift office in the auditorium and began printing the pictures for the co-op and for the Planalto Gambas.

Lillia called to see if I wanted to go over there for lunch, but I declined in hopes that today would be the day that I made it to the cancer hospital. It had been the one thing that I had really been looking forward to doing since I had gotten here, other than blogging of course. When you get into crunch time, like we are in now, you begin to wonder and worry when or if some things will ever happen. I worked on the blog while the photos printed. Alison Dos was there that morning, so I gave him his Planalto Gamba pictures which he appreciated.

Neto was impressed by the printer, which spat out perfect quality 4X6 photos rather quickly. He discussed the possibility of buying both the printer and my camera before we all left on Monday. I told him that the printer was Paul’s so he would have to talk to Lori about that and that I would give the camera some consideration. It was soon time to break for lunch, so William, Uncle Mark and I piled in the Gol and headed back to Ponta Negra to partake in Inacia’s delicious cooking.

Jokes had been made the night before that Inacia and Preta, the woman who looks after Lillia’s house, should have a cook-off. Uncle Mark is invited over Lillia’s daily for lunch, rather than having to drive the 25 minutes back home. He always declines and says that he would rather have Inacia’s cooking.

After a lunch of beans, rice, tomatoes and beef, Uncle Mark and William headed back to the Planalto. Lori, Caroline and I planned on going to the children’s hospital in the city. We were finally on our way as soon as Lori learned where the hospital was with the help of Inacia. We took the beautiful coastal road to the downtown area before we arrived at the hospital. The receptionist buzzed a volunteer to guide us around the facility. As we waited I took a look around. Aunt Lori read a sign to me that was written in Portuguese that stated that all the procedures are preformed at no cost to the patient, and that it was by the support of donations that all of these things was possible. Our guide soon arrived at the door, and me, Caroline, Lori and three bags of stuffed animals finally entered the hospital itself.

Unfortunately, we were told at this point that we could not pass out the animals because there was a chance of disease being spread. The back up plan was to entrust the soft toys to the staff to pass them out when the patients either went home or went into a hospice-like program. We also had some small toys (finger puppets, bouncy balls etc…) with us so we decided we would pass these out instead. A girl was having a birthday party in a function room so we decided that we would “crash” the party. The halls were not very brightly lit. Caroline had a distant look in her eye and I really didn’t know what to expect.

We went into the room and Aunt Lori spoke to them all as a group, telling them who we were, what we were doing in Brazil and what we were doing in the hospital that day. The sight of the kids really took me back. To be honest, I was expecting worse, but I still wasn’t prepared for seeing very frail children with 2nd rate IVs in their arms. The hospital didn’t even have portable IV hangers. Each time the kids decided to walk around, a volunteer had to hold the bag above their head to allow the fluid to flow through the tubes. All of the staff was very friendly and helpful, and Aunt Lori took the time to talk to each of them as well as saying hello to each of the children.

Caroline and I had gone to work passing out the finger puppets. I really had been hoping to give these kids the stuffed animals and was slightly embarrassed to only have little finger puppets to offer. I couldn’t believe how the faces on them would light up over a little toy that would probably go for around 5 tickets at Chuck E’ Cheeses. We stayed at the party for a bit and took a few pictures before our guide pushed us forward in the tour.

Our first stop was the infectious disease ward. We had to wash our hands both before and after entering the area. There were two children in there who were in quarantine, one with Tuberculosis and the other with some form of newborn repertory disorder. We were told that the one with TB had a negative prognosis while the child with the breathing problem would likely be alright after three months of treatment. The doctor who seemed to be the head of this department was a very friendly woman who spoke a little English. Most of the children who were at the party were from this ward, and they had returned from their afternoon festivity while we were in still the area. We went back in to take a final picture., and after washing our hands a third time we were on our way.

The hospital reminded me of something I had seen in any number of movies that showed a hospital in a third world country. The appearance wasn’t very clean. The rooms were dark and dingy and didn’t look like anything you would want to be in for a night, let alone a three month quarantine. I probably would have been disgusted and shocked if it wasn’t for the fact that I had been to the Planalto and seen the conditions of some of the homes that these people live in. This hospital was a four star hotel compared to some of those houses. Although we couldn't enter, we peered inside the ICU from the doorway before moving on.

During the time we had been in the infectious disease ward, a child had died and our guide had needed to leave our side to stay with the body. Our new leader was a very peppy volunteer who was so excited that we had come to visit the children. She told us that they had been very sad lately because they hadn’t had many visitors. Many of them are there for very long periods of time, and other than their parents and a few close relatives or friends they had no contact with anyone from the outside world. It began to make sense why these kids seemed so excited to see three American’s who could only offer them finger puppets.

We visited the cancer section of the hospital, and spent a while visiting with each individual patient. Some were very friendly, and others were very shy. Our new volunteer had insisted that Lori hand out the tracts. Up until this point, the pieces of paper hadn’t even been mentioned. We didn’t want to feel like we were throwing something at very sick children, many of which were dying. However this staff member knew each patient and each parent, so with her help we distributed them for the remainder of our stay.

We found a girl in the corner of the ward that was severely ill. Her mother seemed exhausted and just completely lost. Lori talked with her for a while before giving her a hug and we moved on. It wasn’t until I was out of the hospital that I learned the little girl’s story. The mother had been trying to read the Bible, but every time she opened it or mentioned God the girl would go crazy. The child was probably between 5 and 7 years old and looked very sick and extremely frail. My heart went out to her and her mother. It was evident that she had been sitting beside that bed for a very long time. Lori told her, “I am here to tell you that God loves you, but it sure doesn’t feel like he is in this does it”.

Before leaving the hospital we stopped by the in vaccination area. Upon opening the door, we discovered the staff member stationed there reading the Bible at her desk. Lori talked with her and left the remaining tracts and stickers with her to give out to the children and parents when they received their vaccinations. We said goodbye to the friends on the staff we had made and got back in the car. After a routine traffic stop we got to an ice cream place in Ponta Negra where I tried ascie ice cream with banana’s and granola. The food was good and the energy boost was needed seeing we were heading to an artisan center to look for more product next.

We didn’t stay in the center too long, and after getting a few small things and 5 kilograms of cashews we were on our way back home. It was about 7:30 by this point and we relaxed with some snacks and watched Seinfeld for a little while. Uncle Mark and William got home at about 9:00 that night. It had been a long, but productive day. Since I had left that afternoon they had done some more tiling on the front stairs, and Luciano had completely finished painting the auditorium. Uncle Mark had finished all the shelves that he was building, which left him with a few finishing touches to do the next day. I was exhausted and ready for bed before 11. I had hoped to go to the beach for an hour or so with William the next morning, but he told me he was going to the Planalto. Plan B, which I seemed to be resorting to a lot lately, was going to be a book poolside. Sometimes even the best laid plan “B”s of mice and men often go array...

Raimundo Working on the Hand Rails

Uncle Mark Giving the Bookshelves a Final Sanding Job

Aunt Lori and I with the Kids and Volunteers at the Birthday Party

Aunt Lori Communicating with Some of the Kids at the Party

Aunt Lori and I With some of the Volunteer Doctors, Nurses and Helpers

A Young Child (Probably Three Years Old) in the Oncology Wing of the Hospital

The Volunteer Running the Vaccination Center Was Reading Her Bible When We Arrived

The Summer of the Monkeys...

My sleep was disrupted at around 3:00 in the morning by a light rapping on the bedroom door. At first, I opened my eyes thinking that William was calling my name. Moments later after my eyes had adjusted to the lighting, I could clearly see that William’s eyes were closed and he was still sound asleep. I figured that I had been dreaming and attempted to get back to sleep. Then I heard a loud hacking outside my door and someone say my name in a soft voice again. I looked at the clock on my phone and got out of bed. Aunt Lori, Uncle Mark and Caroline were all outside the bedroom door. Caroline had gotten extremely ill in the middle of the night with a severely upset stomach and killer headache. Since she had been sick several of the past few days they decided that a trip to the hospital was necessary.

After the three of them left I went back to bed, but had a very difficult time falling asleep. I could tell that it was getting close to 5:00 in the morning because the light of dawn was slowly crawling into my bedroom. I finally drifted off for about two hours before being woken by the sound of Luke and Bo Duke being shot at on the television. I decided that attempting to sleep was futile at this point and got out of bed. The three others had returned from the hospital by this point and were sound asleep. Each was trying to catch up on an entire night of missed rest. I had planned on going to the beach that morning, but truth be told, I didn’t have the energy to make the three quarter mile walk down the hill.

Around 9:00 I heard excitement in Inacia’s voice, an occurrence that had not been very common in the nearly six weeks I have been here. I came out of the room and saw her pointing at the window over the dining room. There in the place where panes of glass would be were three monkeys. They screeched a little bit in their high pitched “voices” signaling that they had come for food. William decided to oblige the one monkey that “waited out the drought” and put some Banana down for him to take. When the cost was clear, the little monkey made his way down the trees that grow in our indoor garden and took the banana. Rather than eating it all himself, he was generous enough to think of his family as well. After eating a few bites, he picked up the piece of banana and scurried up the tree and out the window.

I decided to do my morning work; including the blog and some other things I was trying to finish up for the office, before going out and reading in the sun. It was an absolutely beautiful morning, and it would have been a great day for the beach. It was relaxing to take the time to read. At about 10:00 Luciano came to the house wondering if Mark was OK, since he hadn’t showed up to work that morning. Seeing that Uncle Mark is a man of routine, Neto and Luciano had found it odd that he hadn’t been there waiting for them to arrive before 8:30. Such a strange phenomenon warranted a phone call from Neto first. When no one answered the phone, Luciano decided to make the 25 minute drive from the Planalto to Ponta Negra. Lori told him the situation with Caroline and Luciano nodded his head, then left to go back to work.

Luciano and Neto were not the only people worried about Mark. Inacia had some concerns of her own. Preta had told Incsia the day before that Uncle Mark had been hit in the head with a piece of falling concrete. Once again, the “Man of Routine Theory” was put into play when Uncle Mark had not been sitting there drinking his coffee when Inacia arrived at 7:30. When Mark woke up at about 10:15 he explained that the rock didn’t hit his head, but just missed it. Apparently word spreads through the Planalto like wildfire, and like an elementary school game of telephone, the message had been mixed up due to signals getting crossed.

Although the headache remained, a pain I can strongly sympathize with, Caroline was feeling a little better thanks to the antibiotics she had received by the doctor. However I could tell that her illness was going to put a wrench in the works for my original plan to go to the cancer hospital that afternoon. Mark and William left for the Planalto at around 10:30, and announced that they would not be returning for lunch. I did not hear this announcement or I would have gone with them rather than risk the chance of being stranded on Lobster Road the entire day. When lunch time rolled around I asked if they were coming home, and Aunt Lori told me no. She had a doctor’s appointment later in the afternoon, so the day looked like it was going to wind up being a wash for me.

After a quick lunch of chicken soup for the disease ridden’s soul, I shot over to the shopping center to pick up a few things. My four hours of sleep was starting to catch up to me by this point, so after I got home I decided to lay down for about an hour to take a rest. Caroline was getting some sleep of her own, and Aunt Lori left us two sleeping beauties for her appointment. I woke up at around 4:30 and decided to use the time to work on a project for someone that I told them I would try and finish before I came home from Brazil. I hadn’t started it up until this point and I had no intention on going back on my word.

I continued working on it for the next few hours. During this time period Uncle Mark and William had returned, bringing Neto and Paula with them. Lillia and Luis, along with Dona Nier and Pietro, were coming over that night despite four of us being severely sleep deprived. You would think that I would be used to not getting any sleep, seeing that has been a common theme in my life recently. The past few weeks I have been getting a longer, less interrupted sleep. I wanted to get to a point in my project that night, so I rudely continued working despite having seven other guests in the house. Inacia had also stayed. Aunt Lori had invited her as a guest, but she insisted on doing the majority of the work.

We all visited for a few hours, and since I had gotten more sleep than anyone else I drove Neto, Paula and Inacia home. I had forgotten how much fun it is to drive a stick shift. The VW Gol reminds me of my old 1988 Honda CRX, which had more standard features than this almost brand new car. The CRX had been equipped with a radio and a sunroof, while this four door hatchback had no radio, no airbags and no sunroof. It did have air-conditioning however, but this feature was an upgrade. even in a country that averages 87 degrees a day during the year. Heat or no heat, the car rental was more each month because of this luxury.

On the way home I drove faster than normal due to the fact that there was nobody on the road. I failed to see a speed bump on a back road that led to the Planalto, due to lack of lighting and yellow paint. Paula and Inacia screamed from the back seat. Then everyone started laughing. Inacia had hit her head on the ceiling while the rear portion of the car was climbing the crest of the large bump. She started calling me a crazy driver. I guess I fit in with all the other maniacs that are on the road down here. I dropped Inacia off, after first saying goodbye to a horse that was wandering the dirt road at 12:45 at night. After Paula and Neto were dropped off I had a second wind.

I had a lot on my mind that evening, so I decided to go walk the beach for a little while despite the fact that it was almost 1:00. I weaved down several cobblestone streets that ran along the shoreline until I found a nicely lit area of the beach. There were a few couples walking on the beach that night, so I walked into the surf up until half my lower leg was under the water. The water seemed warmer at night, and the warm breeze moving off the water felt good. A rather large bat went back and forth along the shoreline skimming some bugs off the surface of the sand that was still wet from an earlier crashing wave.

It started to rain lightly, and scenes from Jaws were starting to run through my head. Visions of the opening scene with the girl first swimming and then getting devoured by the great white shark flashed in my mind. Seeing that sharks can somehow in as little as two feet of water, and not wanting to end up losing my prized left leg, I left the warm surf and went back up the dune to the Gol. I got a little lost on my way home, and wound up driving through the night club sector of Ponta Negra. I didn’t even know this area existed, but it looked like downtown Boston on the Fourth of July. Vendors lined the streets at 2:00, and there was more traffic than rush hour in Chinatown.

I played the stop and go game with the traffic for a while, before finding a way out. Lobster road was right around the corner and I made it home safe and sound. I entered the house as quietly as possible. My second wind had died down around the time I was stuck in traffic, so I was ready for bed. Seeing that I hadn’t made it to the Planalto as I had original planned that day, I had twice as much to do there the next day. I had told Uncle Mark that I was going with him the next morning to the Planalto. He was leaving in less than 6 hours…

Who Let the Monkey's In...Oh Wait...There's No Glass

Three Monkeys Could Spell Trouble at Lobster Road

Plan B...

I had been so tired when I went to bed on Monday night that I had forgotten to set my cell phone alarm clock. When I woke up in the still relatively dark bedroom the next morning, I was shocked to see that it was 10:45! I quickly got up and showered, and then talked with Aunt Lori about that afternoon. My original thought was to take the stuffed animals that I had brought with me to the Children’s cancer hospital that she had heard about. She tried in vain to get in touch with Washington, the Buggy driver who had told her about it, to find out exactly where it was.

Plan B was to go in search of more products that she needed to buy before she went home. Since I also needed to go to the Centro de Tourismo before leaving Brazil, I thought it would be wise to go along with her. Uncle Mark came back for lunch and told us about his progress of the morning. He had finished the second wall cabinet, and his goal for the afternoon was to install the remaining cabinets and begin working on the doors for them all. The counters were ordered, and Luciano was set to handle that project once they were made and ready for install.

Caroline and William opted to stay home with Inacia that afternoon while Mark went to the Planalto and Aunt Lori and I went to the tourism center. We arrived at the old prison that overlooked the beautiful Caribbean like ocean after first stopping at the rental car facility to make a payment and the currency exchange place. We immediately went to work looking at product for Va Livre and over the next few hours had picked out some great stuff. Because of the quantity that was being purchased, they gave her a discount on the final price. I did some shopping of my own before leaving, trying to make up for not buying anything during my first trip here.

We had a mild adventure on the way home. Aunt Lori decided to see if she could get back to the house going a new way. After making many left hand turns that brought us back to where we had started we found our way to the coastal road that bypassed all the traffic on the way to Ponta Negra. It was just about 7:00 at this point and Uncle Mark still was still not home. This meant that Inacia had stayed an extra two hours past her normal quitting time. Caroline came out to find out where we had been and informed us of the awful afternoon she had and the migraine “the size of a meteor” that she was currently experiencing. Aunt Lori offered Inacia a ride home and Uncle Mark pulled in shortly after they left for the Planalto.

People had showed up to help at the hall that afternoon, and with the help and hard work of so many, they were able to get a lot accomplished. Uncle Mark had hung the cabinets and had started on the doors, while Luciano led the others in cleaning and painting the roof tiles, painting the outside of the hall, and laying the new tile for the steps. William and Caroline went to bed earlier than normal, while Uncle Mark and Aunt Lori just relaxed together in the living room.

I on the other hand stayed in the dining room until after 11:00 that night. I had set some time apart for working on things that needed to be done for work, and I did just as I had planned. After I finished that I worked on a few other things before deciding to call it a night. As usual I was the last person up, so I ensured the doors were locked and the lights were off before making my way to my bed and slipping under the covers. I may have only been up for about 12 hours, but I sure was tired…

The Car Rental Place

Aunt Lori Looking at Product

Not So Early to Bed, and Way Too Early to Rise...

The alarm clock went off at 6:30 AM. While 6:30 in itself isn't an uncommon time to "rise and shine", it is too early for someone who hadn't managed to fall asleep until after 3:00 that morning. I had tried to muffle the bear-like sounds Chiquinho was making by covering my head with a pillow, but I have a difficult enough time sleeping with a single pillow, let alone having the one pillow I do possess on top of my face as my head lays flat on a mattress. Finally Chiquinho had shifted or something, cause the snoring ceased long enough for me to quickly drift off. Until that point it seemed that the Mack Truck convention was in town and the Daytona 500 had been moved to the Planalto.

I dressed, and packed my bag in the dark that morning amidst the not so melodious sounds of Chiquinho snoring in the background. Neto, Paula and I ate breakfast a little bit before 7:00, and by quarter past Neto and I were on our way back to Ponta Negra. Uncle Mark and William were waiting in the hammock when we pulled into the driveway on Lobster Road. The three boys headed to the Planalto while I went in to work on some logos that needed to get done that morning. It was only 8:00 at that point, and I spent the majority of the morning working on designing a logo for the "Planalto Gambas" the name I had given to the group of aspiring young baseball players. Although time consuming, the logo came out pretty good for a mornings work.

Lori had already left before I got home that morning to have another test done. Lillia had joined her, and the two of them returned home shortly after Uncle Mark and William did for lunch. Caroline was up and feeling better than she had the day before, and she had spent the morning peering over my shoulder at the progress I was making on the logo. After lunch Uncle Mark and William went back to the Planalto, while Aunt Lori, Lillia and I went to the shopping center to run a few crucial errands. Aunt Lori went to Gilgal first to put in an order for another 1,000 Bibles in hopes that they would arrive before Friday. I had drifted across the hall from Gilgal with my logos to see how much it would cost to get some tee-shirts made for the kids with the logo on it.

After Aunt Lori finished with the Bibles, she came into the shirt store in time to hear the woman give me a quote of $480 Raies for 20 shirts. I scoffed at this price and Lori asked if she would give a discount. She gracefully offered us $10 off, which I declined. My original vision had been to make shirts to have the kids get their pictures taken in, holding either a bat and a ball. I also wanted a big group photo of everyone in their makeshift uniform. The vision wasn't worth the hefty price of $480 Raies, but I figured that I could still achieve part of it. I decided to buy two shirts, one large and one small. At $25 Raies a piece they were more than I would pay for a shirt at The Gap. This way the regular kids could still get their picture taken, as well as some of the guys and women at the hall who have showed some interest in the sport.

After the shirts were made, Aunt Lori and Lillia went to check on the quality of a particular product that a woman near the Planalto made. They dropped me off about a half mile from the hall, and I headed there on foot. I stopped at the co-op first to see it in action. While I was there I put in a special order for myself. I also showed them the shirts, which they all thought were hilarious since they knew the story of the Lobster Road gamba. They joked and said that it should be the "Ponta Negra Gambas". I laughed along with the group of women for a while before continuing my walk toward the hall. Along the way I gained a few baseball followers who were anxious to play. Uncle Mark was finishing one of the two wall cabinets he was working on, and he asked me to take a walk to the convenient store to get some Coke for the guys working.

There was not a big crew working on the hall that day, and I felt bad leaving to play baseball with the kids. As bad as I felt, I had promised them on Thursday that I would play on Friday and Monday. I had already broken my promise once, after the Bible distribution became such a success and I just didn't have the heart to do it again, especially since they were all waiting for me. I took some pictures of the few kids that were there in their "uniforms" before taking the walk to the field. We gained a few extra followers on the way, and I decided to let the kids do some of the pitching that day. By the end of the day most of them were getting the concept of looking at the catcher’s glove and not the batter when throwing the ball.

At about 5:30 we headed back to the hall. Uncle Mark had finished the cabinet, but many of the roof tiles had not gotten painted. They had taken them down that day, and now they were putting them back up still dirty. Uncle Mark and I both wondered why they didn’t just put a tarp over the roof to protect against rain, but they seemed to think that the fragile tiles, which could easily be broken with a rock, were more of a deterrent than a tarp. Fact is, regardless of what material made up the roof, someone could still break into the hall within minutes.

We didn't wind up leaving the Planalto until almost 6:30. Lori had canceled her class because she felt ill. I was disappointed to not be teaching English, but I just went back to the house and worked on some other logo work. I also managed to finish my blog from the previous day. Uncle Mark and Caroline had gone to Luciano's birthday party. Mark had got Luciano some new boots as a gift, but he wrapped his own old ones and worn the new ones as a joke. To Luciano it seemed that Mark had given him the old boots and got some new ones for himself. He and Uncle Mark have a very similar personality, so he found it as funny as Uncle Mark originally had intended.

I worked on some projects until a little after 1:00 that morning. Caroline and Uncle Mark had gotten home at around 10:30 and went strait to bed. Aunt Lori had spent the night in bed herself with her mild illness. William had spent the evening with the two Dukes brothers before going to bed around 10:30. When I finished what I was currently working on I went to bed and completely collapsed. I had been going non stop doing various activities and I just wanted some sleep. The good news this night was that Chiquinho's snoring was nowhere to be heard...

Some of the Ladies Working at the Co-Op

Filipe at the Bat

Junior in the Outfield

Junior Swings and Misses

Rodrigo Shows the Planalto Gambas Logo

William Goes for the Intimidation Factor

Night Had Fallen Before it Was My Turn for a Picture

A Not So Sweet Smelling Savor...

Sunday morning led me directly where it should have, to the door of the hall in the Planalto. With Caroline and William following behind me, we had left Lobster Road with 30 minutes to get to the hall. The streets of Natal are empty on Sunday morning. Nobody is up! Most people go to church on Sunday Night, so they take the opportunity to sleep in on Sunday morning. It took less than 20 minutes to get to the hall, which was the quickest amount of time that I had ever made there in. We pulled in directly behind Lillia and Luis. After we first exited the car, Lillia instructed me that I should move to give the other neighbor more room to pull out of the driveway.

I did as she asked, and parked in some tall grass to the side of the road. We went into the hall and morning meeting commenced soon afterward. About 5 minutes into meeting I began to notice a smell. I looked around wondering which member of the church had failed to use deodorant. The closest one to me was Raimundo, but Raimundo is Mr. Hygiene himself, so that did not make sense. The rest of the people relatively close to me were women, and if it was one of them it had to be the worst female body odor I had ever smelled in my entire life. The smell continued to permeate the air throughout the remainder of meeting. Sometimes it would be stronger and other times it would be weaker. I couldn't figure it out.

After meeting I was shaking hands with everyone, and Neto came over to me and put his elbow on my shoulder. "You have poop on your shoe", he told me in his thick accent. Slightly embarrassed after seeing the brown trail my shoe had left behind, I slinked outside and casually scraped the bottom of my sneaker on the dirt road. I checked the grass near where I had parked and found a newly squished pile. I sarcastically thanked Lillia silently in my mind for the mental disruption that had been caused during that mornings service.

Caroline, William and I left after the Sunday school singing. There was no point in sticking around if we couldn't understand the language. We went back to the house to change before lunch. We had a bit of time to spare since we were meeting Lillia and Luis. I took the opportunity to blog for a bit. Caroline was feeling ill and didn't even want to go to the restaurant for lunch, but I forced her to go. We met up with Aunt Lori and Uncle Mark, Lillia, Luis, Dona Nier and Pietro shortly thereafter. Caroline and I left abruptly after another delicious Sunday lunch of meat, beans, rice, cheese and grilled pineapple. We went home and I floated in the pool on Uncle Mark's raft for a while. I got sick of keeping my finder over the hole in the seam, so I soon abandoned that plan and just went inside to take a nap.

William came home about 20 minutes later. They had stayed at the restaurant for another hour, which caused me to regret not asking William to come home with us too. Poor kid was stuck with the adults and Pietro for an extended period of time. He likely did not hear anything other than Portuguese. After I woke up from my nap I got ready for meeting. Uncle Mark had headed back to Santa Maria to preach the Gospel that evening. I packed an overnight bag, since I was sleeping at Neto's that evening, then hopped into the Gol and headed back to the Planalto. Meeting went by super slowly, as is the custom when you don't speak enough of the language to get what the speaker is saying.

After meeting I joked around with some of the kids, and went to find Dudu to give her the pictures that she had directed me to take after the distribution on Friday. Her mother thanked me for them, and now it seemed I had a friend for life in Dudu. After I refused to sing La Bamba as one of the kids played it on the guitar, Paulo and I loaded the sound equipment and instruments in the Gol to drive them the short distance to Suzete’s house. We could not have fit another thing into the car if we wanted to unless Paulo had walked. We drove back to the hall and picked up Paula and Neto who were still talking with Luis. After we had all our passengers present and accounted for, we headed to the Pastel place next to Luiz's for dinner.

We were joined shortly thereafter by 20 others. All of the young people at the hall minus Suzete and Rodrigo, who were in Santa Maria, had come out for pastels. I had a great evening with everyone. We ate, laughed, joked and allowed Neto to translate for us all. When the bill came I couldn't believe it. Every single one of us was stuffed. These pastels were huge and stuffed with whatever filling you desired. It was basically a much lighter calzone. We each had had at least one pastel and Coke and yet the cost for everything was only 60 Raies ($30 American Dollars). When is the last time you have seen 24 people stuffed full of food for a price less than $30. I don't think I ever have!

We gave some of the girls a ride home, then Neto, Paula, Chiquinho and I headed to Neto’s house. Chiquinho went to bed shortly after getting home, but Neto and I stayed up to work on creating the logo for the cooperative on the design programs that were installed on my computer. We finished the logo, stationary and mailing labels around 2:30 AM, and retired to bed for the night. I had to be up at 6:30 the next morning in order to get the car back to Ponta Negra in time for Uncle Mark to leave for the hall by 8:00. It didn't help the "falling asleep situation" that Chiquinho, whom I was sharing a room with, snores louder than my father...

Dudu Hides Behind her Napkin

Hernique's Wife, Elezabete, Gleisse and Adriana

Dedu Shows Off His New Hair Style

Paulo With a Mouthful

One End of the Very Long Table

Life on the Other Side

I Wish I Chose a Different Pastel

Mall Rats...

I wasn't anticipating good weather for Saturday, but often it can be a pleasant surprise when you receive something you don't expect. This was the case this day as well. The rain clouds that filled the sky when I awoke at around 10:00, the latest I have slept in until in almost four months, were gone by 11:00. The only ones left were fast moving cotton looking compilations of condensed evaporated water. I had planned on blogging at 11:00, but I didn't want to waste the opportunity of the perfect weather, since it can change in an instant here for the worse as well as the better.

I decided to collect my thoughts for Friday's blog while getting some sun by the pool. I made my way to the patio and spread my towel on the stone. I soaked in the rays while mentally outlining how the lengthily blog post would flow. I was still enjoying the sun after about an hour, so I went inside and got a book to read while lying out. Even though reading isn’t the most comfortable task to do while trying to obtain maximum body exposure to the sunlight, I made do and continued doing this for another two hours. At that point I felt exhausted. It was only 2:00. I had only been up for four hours, but it felt like I hadn't slept in weeks. The sun has the ability to drain the energy out of someone.

About halfway through my tanning session, Uncle Mark came out in his bathing suit to take a well deserved break. Saturday was his day of rest, and he still had to go to Santa Maria, a neighboring assembly about an hour away, to preach later that night. He got to the pool deck and noticed that his floaty had a leak. In fact, he noticed that the cheaply made material was totally flat. It hadn't taken much for some of the kids to puncture the raft one day while they were playing in the pool, but Uncle Mark was not happy. He yelled for William to get the pump, and William and Caroline both searched the house looking for it. After several minutes without locating the device, he began to yell for it some more. At this point the amount of airflow that was leaving his lungs in the direction of the children and the time spent waiting for the pump to be found could have both been used to fill an entire armada of chair-shaped floats and set them sail for Spain across the Atlantic. Needless to say, the pump was found, the float was filled and Uncle Mark enjoyed a nice relaxing day floating in the pool with his finger over the tear in the seam.

I blogged later that afternoon. Aunt Lori went shopping for some much needed groceries while William took time to study his new English/Portuguese parallel Bible that his parents had given him. Caroline kept to herself most of the day, until I told her that we would be going out that night when the parents drove to Santa Maria. They had no idea how far the other assembly was, or how long the meeting was going to be. Aunt Lori had suggested that we stay home rather than having a Portuguese preamble to the lengthy Sunday that was before us. I decided it would be good to take the kids out for the evening, so I took the keys to Uncle Mark's car for a night on the town with Caroline and William.

After the kinds and I cleaned the house we headed out the door toward Midway Mall, the largest Mall in Natal. I wanted to do some souvenir shopping and Caroline wanted to get some credit on her cell phone so she could text message her cousins and friends. We hit the food court as soon as we arrived. The kids each got a Subway sandwich, which actual looked just like the picture. Caroline has been impressed ever since she first went to the Midway Subway that they actually "fan the meat". I wandered around the food court until I found the sushi that I had been craving for so long. It was an a-la-carte sushi place, with several kinds laid out sorted by price. I tried one of each of the 15 varieties they offered and wound up paying a sum equal to $7.50 in the states. This was some of the best sushi I had ever had for a price that it would cost to get 6 pieces of California Roll back at home. Delicious!

After dinner we went for desert. There were four ice cream places to choose from. The kids decided to go for the one that seemed most American, since we were not even close to being fans of the Brazilian subspecies of ice cream. Brazilian ice cream is like a really bad mutt of a dog. If ice cream in the United States or Canada could be considered the golden retriever of frozen milk products, then the Brazilian counterpart would be more like a deformed Mexican hairless. Hollywood Ice Cream wasn't as good as the gelado place we had went to before, but it was pretty decent. We each got a medium and hit the stores as soon as we finished. The mall seemed to be laid out in sections. Clothing took up most of the second floor, electronics took up about a quarter of the first floor, shoes another quarter, drug shops another and so on. I couldn't find any souvenir shops, so as soon as I got some needed fuses, Caroline got her cell phone credit and William spent his not so hard earned Raies on a compass we were heading back for home. The entire way home William would shout our updated direction constantly from the back seat. Good to see he was putting his compass to use.

I worked on some personal projects when I got home. William helped me for a while and got bored, so he retired for the evening to watch some Dukes of Hazard. Caroline listened to music for a while, and they gladly obliged when I sent them to bed at around 10:30. Their parents got home around 11:00. Uncle Mark had wound up being the only speaker there, while a man from the Santa Maria assembly named Alial had translated the English to Portuguese. Luis and Lillia had taken many of the Planalto Christians to the meeting that night, which was a birthday celebration for the church. They had rented a bus so they could fit more than the five or ten that could have went if they had just taken Luis's and Lori's cars.

I went to bed around 11:30 that night. Uncle Mark and Aunt Lori were going back to Santa Maria in the morning so Uncle Mark could do ministry. I was going to go to the Planalto, and the kids wanted to stay with me so they could see their friends. Seeing as this wasn't a problem for me, I agreed to take them. I checked my e-mails and the weather before heading to bed. Sunday's forecast looked to be sunny and hot, which was usually the case except for my first weekend in Brazil. This forecast meant that the hall would transform into a larger scale Easy-Bake Oven. It was very hot that night, and I found it difficult to get to sleep. This was partly because of the heat and partly because there was a soccer game going on in the stadium behind our house. When I finally did drift off, I had an uninterrupted sleep. Uninterrupted if you don't count the fireworks that went off at about 1:30 AM. I don't think these people have any concept of time here in Brazil...

The Pool Looks Cool and Inviting on a Hot and Sunny Saturday

The B-I-B-L-E, Yes Thats the Book For Me...and Me...and Me...

On Thursday evening both William and Caroline were planning on going with Uncle Mark on Friday morning to scrub and paint roof tiles. However, when I opened my eyes at about 8:15 that morning, I saw William still sound asleep in bed. Mark usually leaves at around 7:30, so I knew the boy had "missed the bus" and would be here for the morning. I worked on my blog for a while, and it was around the same time that Caroline stumbled down the stairs. She had also overslept and had not been awake to go with her father. Aunt Lori and I talked a little that morning about some stuff that had to get done that day and completed before we all left in 10 days. I went about my normal morning routine, until Aunt Lori came in and asked if I wanted to go to Gilgal, the Bible bookstore.

I was in the middle of a workout at the time, and dripping with sweat. I told her I would if she went after lunch, but Caroline volunteered to go instead. I got ready for the afternoon. I planned on going with Aunt Lori for the afternoon for a change of pace. Uncle Mark returned home about 1:00 and told me what was being done at the hall that day. Luciano had finished most of the exterior painting, and was now working on the plastering inside the bathrooms. Damião was finishing the concrete work on the stairs and preparing to tile them during the next week. Uncle Mark had started building one large vertical cabinet for the kitchen, in hopes of finishing it by the end of the day. Most of the others had spent the day washing and painting roof tiles, which was the most monotonous and time consuming task of all.

After lunch, Caroline and William left with Uncle Mark and I headed off with Aunt Lori. In the back of the Gol we had 530 bibles. A shipment of 500 of them had just been picked up that day. We decided to head to the hall and pick up Neto, so we could get the clothing out of his house and begin distribution. Aunt Lori and Caroline got to work labeling the Bibles while I drove Neto and Paula the two miles to their home. As we approached their neighborhood I needed to stop to let a large bull cross the street in front of Uncle Mark's car. We turned and took the same road that the bull was roaming. He meandered in and out of several yards on Neto's street before reaching the end of the road and letting out a loud "MMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOOO".

Neto's house was small, but very clean. I sorted through a box of clothes to pick out the most appropriate clothing for the neighborhood we would be heading into. We had a huge dishwasher box full of children’s clothes and four smaller boxes, two with woman's apparel and two with men’s. After cleaning and organizing the back of the car, we loaded all the boxes, and literally following in the other Gol behind us.

We went to Inacia's neighborhood first, where we distributed a lot of clothing. Many people took multiple items and were more than happy to take the Bible as well. We loaded the clothes on the back of Lori's car, and I turned around in time to see the dishwasher box literally walking away. One of the women had asked Lori if she could have the box, and her grandson had put it over his head and walked toward the house. All you could see of the young lad were his two sandal clad feet on the ground. After giving out about half the clothes, and maybe 40 Bibles, we headed to the next stop. At this point we had only been distributing for maybe 20 minutes or so.

The next area was kind of a "back road" neighborhood in the Planalto. Many women holding babies came out first to get whatever smaller clothing we had left. Neto and I handed out the Bibles. We had a visit from a young girl from the hall named Dudu, and I put her to work sticking more labels on the front of the Bibles and slipping a tract in the pages. We were about 45 minutes into the distribution and almost out of clothes. I noticed a man at the end of the street who had received some clothes, but no Bible. I took off after him, and reached him as he turned the corner unto the main road. I handed him the Bible and turned to head back toward the crowd surrounding the two Gols.

Moments later I heard a commotion and turned around to see two little boys leading a multitude of people toward the cars. We were out of clothes and all we had were Bibles, but that is all they wanted. Before this point we may have given out 100 Bibles, but now people were coming. We gave out about 100 more at that location, and then decided to take our show on the road. Praying all the way down the street, we parked the cars near a soccer field where some young men were playing a game of soccer.

We distributed a few Bibles to passers by, and within minutes they had gone and told their friends and family about the gift they had received. People began running toward us wanting a Bible. We could not keep up with the labeling them with the stickers that had the hall information on it. Dudu and her mother, Elizabete, were labeling while Caroline and Liese stuffed them with one tract each. I passed them out as quickly as I could, but the seven of us could not keep up with the immediate demand. The soccer game abruptly ended, and all of the players came over to get the Book for themselves. A swarm three or four people deep were surrounding Lori's car. Bible's were going faster than I could have ever imagined. Empty box after empty box was thrown to the side of the car as we continued to label. stuff and give out the Bibles.

Some people would want and additional Bible for their son, husband, mother or father, and we would gladly give them one to pass on. I tried to get out of the crowd now and then to snap some pictures of the unbelievable scene that was before me. It was less than 30 minutes before the remaining 300-400 Bibles were completely gone. One man came peddling up on a bicycle huffing and puffing. He told Lori that he had ridden all the way from the other side of the Planalto after he had heard there was Bibles being given away. We didn't have anymore. Every box was empty. Lori prayed while I tore apart the cars looking for the "one that got away". Tucked away in a side compartment of Uncle Mark's car was a single blue Bible. I slapped a label on it and handed it to the elderly man. He shook my hand and smiled at us as we smiled back.

Caroline was crying over the fact that God had answered the prayer that quickly. More people began to run up to us. Then I remembered we had given Luciano two cases of Bibles, 64 in total, to take to his assembly. I got in the car and kicked it into gear. I splashed through puddles, and went over grooves until I reached the hall and asked Luciano for the Bibles. He gave them to me, and I headed back to the location we were just at. Aunt Lori had wound up telling everyone looking for a Bible to come to the hall Sunday night and they would get one. We decided to keep one case for Sunday, just in case, and Neto and I went door to door around the hall to give people the remaining case full of God's Word. We finished around 5:45. In an hour and a half we had given out a car load of clothes, and exactly 502 Bibles. I was extremely surprised, though I shouldn't have been, and greatly encouraged.

Uncle Mark let me drive his car home so I could learn the way, since I would be on my own that coming Sunday. By the time that I got home I was completely exhausted. I did some work uploading and labeling pictures, which has wound up being the most time consuming task of the blog, before getting ready for bed. William wasn't really tired and I was rather restless, so he developed the brilliant idea of letting me use him as a punching bag. He girt himself with a huge purple "reading" pillow and I took a few jabs at him. We laughed for a while before he fell asleep, then I read a little bit before calling it a night myself. There was not much planned for Saturday, so I decided not to set my alarm clock and just let my body wake up on its own...

Aunt Lori with the Gilgal Girls, the Women who Run the Bible Bookstore "Gilgal"

Aunt Lori's VW Gol is Packed With Bibles

Some Christians Working on the Hall

Luciano Looking Like an Old Man with the Plaster Dust in His Hair

A Bull Roaming Around Neto's Neighborhood

The First Crowd of People We Encountered

Aunt Lori and I Trying to Keep Up with the Group of Women

Caroline Dressing a Previously Naked Child

Caroline Giving Clothing to a Half Clothed Child

Caroline, Neto and Aunt Lori Sorting Clothes

A Cute Little Girls with Her New Skirt and Hat

Birds Eye View of Some Clothing and Bible Distribution

Dudu Putting Labels on the Bibles

More People Coming for Bibles with Smiles on their Faces

We Could Not Keep Up with the Distribution

Swarms of People Come to the Gol for Bibles

Dudu and Her Well Earned Raies

Coconut Water of Life...

Thursday's weather was supposed to be gorgeous. In fact it was supposed to be so nice that weather.com had stated there was a 0% chance of rain. Weeks before while I was at home, Trista and I had a discussion that there is always at least a 10% of rain listed on weather.com. We attributed the fact to the weathermen wanting to cover their bases in case some rouge storm hits that they had not foreseen on their radar systems. I found it extremely odd that I would see this 0% in the precipitation column for the first time in a place that had rain almost every day for a least a short period of time. William and I were on our way to the beach early looking to make the best of this joyous 0% precipitation occasion.

We distributed some tracts on our way down the hill, and once we had arrived on the beach we hit the water. There were not an overabundance of waves, but the ones that were rolling across the top of the sea were quite large. I would say a few of them were close to 12 feet which is pretty big for body surfing. We stayed down on the shore for about two hours, alternating swims in the water with some time reading time on the beach. We walked back home and went to work vacuuming the dirt of the bottom of the pool. Junior had done his job and the water was crystal clear, however the dirt that had been floating in the water had now all sunk to the bottom and needed to be extracted. I worked on blogging for a while until Aunt Lori and Caroline came home.

They had made a trip to the Bible bookstore Gilgal to check on the order of 500 Bibles that were scheduled to arrive the next day. Including this order, Aunt Lori had ordered over 2,500 Bibles during the almost three months she had been here, and had given out all but 20 of them. The remaining 20 were still on our shelves waiting for the next clothing distribution. On their way to the store they had stopped at a coconut water stand that Paul had frequented on his trip here due to his love of the beverage. They had given the young attendant there several tracts over the course of their visits. When Aunt Lori pulled her VW Gol into the small parking area, he raced over to them. He told Lori that he was very thankful she had given him the papers. He was unable to read, but he had taken them home and had his wife had read them too him. He had realized he was a sinner and needed to have Christ in his heart if he was ever going to be in Heaven. Because of a simple Gospel tract, a man was on his way to heaven. Praise God!

This was an encouragement to us all. Thousands and thousands of tracts had been given out since we arrived. Yes...we only know of one who trusted Christ because of reading one, however, we will never know how many others may have come to the same conclusion as this man. There may be none. There may be hundreds. All I know is that God used this one man to be an encouragement to us and show us that we were doing the right thing by passing out these tracts and showing people the love of Christ. This should also be an encouragement to everyone else who is reading this. You never know what effect that a single simple action may have on someone’s eternal life. A tract, a simple word, telling one person the word who passes it on unbeknownst that this is what they are doing... Even the smallest action can have the greatest eternal reward for someone else.

Uncle Mark came home from the Planalto for lunch, as usual. He had found a place that made kitchen counter tops. Much thought and discussion had gone into deciding what to do for these counters. He had been contemplating slate and concrete, but a talk he had with Luciano now had him considering granite. He had visited the granite place and learned that the whole kitchen could be done for $350 American Dollars. This job would have easily cost $3,500 just for the materials back at home. Since they mine and refine the product right here in Brazil, the cost was 1/10 what it would be in the states. William, Caroline and I went with him back to the Planalto after lunch. Uncle Mark went to work finishing the cabinets for the kitchen and making the template to bring to the counter place. Caroline and William began scrubbing and painting the roof tiles as I went around doing whatever odd jobs they had for me. I scrubbed, painted, moved large pieces of plywood from one area to another and helped get the tiles back on the roof.

After a long afternoon, everybody began winding down. Luciano had spent the day doing the final coat of exterior paint. Damião had built a beautiful handicap ramp. Raimundo had finished tiling the kitchen floor and was now working on the door frames for the kitchen and bathrooms. Neto had untiled and re-tiled the roof. Liese and Rodrigo had scrubbed and painted tiles. Everyone had worked long and hard in the hot Natal sun. Rodrigo and I played some catch at dusk while Uncle Mark finished up something for Luciano. It was the first time he had ever played, and he cheered for himself when he caught the ball for the first time.

I had not had the opportunity to play baseball that day as planned, due to the kids staying away from the hall in fear of being recruited to work. William was too tired to go off and recruit the kids, so I had just stayed and painted...even though I had promised some guy’s father that I would be playing that day. I didn't want to go alone, and appear to be luring children over to play the game. It would have been one thing had three or four kids already been with me, but it would seem rather suspicious and creepy if I had just been standing in the middle of a field with a bag of baseball equipment waiting for James Earl Jones to walk out of a cornfield.

I gave Dona Nier (pka Mama Luis) and Neto's wife Paula a ride to their homes, since Luciano had forgotten them and left them in the Planalto. It was only my second time driving down here.

It had been a while since I had driven a stick shift, and it was a baptism by fire to drive amongst the crazy Brazilian drivers. I used the common courtesy seen in the states and allowed people to cross at crosswalks. Every time I did this, I could see a look of shock on their face as if to say "is he really letting me cross". This is never seen down here. If you are in the middle of the street, they come faster, making you cross faster and get out of the way of all the drivers who apparently had somewhere to be RIGHT NOW!

We returned home at about 7:00. I ate a small dinner and just hung around for the evening. Bedtime came, and I wasn't going to complain. I was tired, cranky and covered with orange paint. I would wash that off on the morning since at this moment all I could think about was a pillow....

The Coconut Water Man

Neto and I Moving All the Plywood

Luciano at Work Painting the Outside of the Hall

Caroline Doing Some Scrubbing

Damião and Rodrigo Work on the Handicap Ramp

Everybody at Work

Uncle Mark Building a Cabinet

Neto's Having Fun

Raimundo and His Door Frames

Liese Doing Some Cleaning

Rodrigo Taking Out the Garbage

Examining a Tile Before Liftoff

Up and Away

Nice Catch Neto