Birthday boy!

Sweet Titus is 8. He got red soccer shoes from new wonderful friends, a soccer ball, and soccer socks... Guess we are in Brasil now! So thankful for this wonderful gift of another year of life!

Elevators

I may be inventing steel toe high heels for moms. Seriously 8 of us in the elevator up to the 17th floor several times a day... I need steel toe high heels, deodorant for boys, and maybe breath mints for someone else (I won't mention any names)! We have already had elevator stories -Darius was stuck alone in the elevator during a storm...he  was a little nervous not understanding all the instructions the pleople were trying to yell at him from outside.   Lukas went in one time and the door shut...he couldn´t reach 31...so he pushed 17...God´s providence Doug was downstairs studying that day.  Lots of tears.  Life is just plain exciting here.

Little Roman

Little guy couldn't take it and had to sleep a little before lunch. A pic of our delicious lunch.... Beans and rice! We love it!

CS Lewis quote of the day

Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in. C. S. Lewis

Traffic

The traffic is impressive here!!

My bedroom

I picked a shade of gray, but it looked purple after I painted! We now have a purple room. Where was Rhaquel when I needed her to help pick a color.... And Lori and Emily and Sandra?
I will put on thankfulness.

My chevron... At last!

Chevron... I finally have a wall to paint!! I measured off and taped out the chevron, but ran into big trouble taking the tape off. So I know they say take it off when the paint is wet, but I had to do 3 layers ( the paint isn't so great here). So it dried and I had a lot of peeling. Help! Any suggestions?

A little more in Peroba.

Coconut water





We had great sermons too, I just didn't take pictures of that.


Amazing fruits and different foods all over.


This is Marlon Brando for the "famous actors" night. Doug just pinned a name tag "Brad Pitt" on. And, "no", Darius did not smoke the cigar.

Church camp...nice, huh?

Peroba beach! Churches run away from the city during carnival and our church went to this beautiful beach a few hours away.





Gringo. That is someone totally not Brazilian. Lukas is so funny ...the blond hair and blue eyes....hat etc...he sticks out a little.

















The boys were not eating too much and then they busted out the crab. After these last years of being friends with the Marks, we learned how to eat crab, and the boys wanted to chow down. I was so amazed at the kind and patient men in the church, they just sat and got great bites of meat for the boys.


They kept eating and eating...

Churros

We made some homemade churros...take that Costco. All kinds of new things. The family here is trying to make it so fun for the boys. We are spoiled!




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First day of school.

We arrived on Friday and the boys started school on Monday! We were so thankful, one of our desires this last year was to make it in time for school.




Um, I'm thinking he is their new poster child.




First day went well, then it went down hill. Ha, kicking and screaming....but we are doing much better.




Physique on first day of school.




Must have been a long day, when I went to pick him up he had his backpack on upside down.




So cute.




First day of school was only 4 kids...the flu came on strong one by one...we were dropping like flies.

We made it.

All I can say is, imagine how Doug and I felt if the boys were this knocked out. :). The Lord gave us a great trip though!


Recife! There were drums and crazy music on arrival preparing for Carnival.


Sorry, Doug, I had to post it.

Trip

First drink of fresh orange juice in the Rio airport.


Waiting in line for the elevator with 16 bags, 10 hand bags, oh, and 6 boys I kept counting. Lots of stares.



Lots of little legs didn't work.




Last American ( ok Chinese meal). Mrs McManus told me to buy the boys a treat, so I let them pick their last meal on American soil. Of course they had to all pick something different....but we had time to spare and it was so delicious!!! Thank you, Mrs. McManus!!!!!!!!!!!!!




Well, we didn't lose anyone....

Catch up

We have the "best family in the whole wide world"!!!!!! They came to help us off at 6 am....we love you, Leamans.




Tara even met us ...with her badge!




From this pic to the next life was a blurr. God's grace is sufficient!!

Getting a little energy out before school

I cannot catch up, so I have decided to just jump into blogging again. Boys got their homework done and needed a little break. Praying for Lukas to not throw a fit to go to school today, and we are so thankful zayin started eating and smiling a little again. He was really struggling. I will show my paint job on the living room soon. We are busy, but truly have a peace in being here.

I am very tired.

Last night we stayed up and made a master list of everything in the boxes...it's so fun around here. And free info: goodwill gives free boxes ( we nearly made daily trips). Oh, and nice friends give free boxes too.



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Ordination

What a celebration of God's faithfulness. One thing Doug mentioned that evening that was taught to him from the time he was young was the awesomeness of our great God. To Him be the glory!


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Ha

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Chairs

I do miss blogging. I had to jump out of the blogging world for sanity sake....and not that I am sane again,but here we go.
So I had to pick chairs. Ya know, not a big deal, right? But I only want to buy chairs once in my life, and I want everything in my life to reflect Christ in a way. I want to show the excellence of God's creation. I tried half the chairs in Olympia and beyond to find a good sturdy one that would hold up for the years to come. I want to show we can use even chairs to Glorify God and serve others. I hope The Lord lets me serve thousands of people using these chairs. I hope family is comfortable. I hope no one even notices the chairs because they don't draw attention, but serve a purpose. Although reading of the details God put into His tabernacle I do need to have order and beauty in every detail of our lives. Well, anyway here you have it: our chairs. 14 of them and imagine, we will still have to pull in a few more for having our dear friends Rogerio and Susan over ya know...but now on to the next item on list: a tea pot.