No faolo Portugues

Sunday July 17
We are at Tim and Talisa's til noon, when we left in Ben's VW van for the church. The van officially seats 9 people, but that number is very flexible. We ate lunch at the church and prepped for the sunday school program put on by the church in the afternoon. We also assembled a basketball hoop and several shelves. Michael and Brennan cleaned toilets. Graeme went to the store to buy food supplies with Rafael Palazzo. The children's program went well, they loved the songs. We sang "Louve o Senhor" which you know as "Allellu allelu alleleu alleuia praise ye the Lord" with actions and activities. After the kids left a big screen TV was set up to watch the Brazil-Paraguay soccer game, which Brazil lost in a shootout 2-0. Much disappointment among the Brazilians. During the game we ate supper, which was excellent. After supper there was a church service. The Brazilian music team is great, and Tim's Bible study was fun and insightful. He talked about John chapter 17, and how we are all "the disciple who Jesus loved". After church there was a time for visiting and fellowship. Brennan, Michael and I (Graeme) went to our hosts' house afterwards, where we unloaded our bags, set up our room and then proceeded to talk with our great hosts (Raamses and Jacqueline) until about 2:15 in the morning, which was fun but we woke up very tired the next morning. They also ordered pizza at about midnight. The next morning we took the bus to church along with Rosalie's triplet and Rafael Jonnson, a church member. Upon arriving we prepared for the VBS to take place in the afternoon. The VBS seemed to go reasonably well, but we all agreed that we need to work on being more co-ordinated and fast-moving so that we don't lose the kids' attention (i.e. please pray that this will happen for us). Translation was also a bit difficult. After the VBS, we had supper and got ready for the English cafe, which debuted this evening at the church. Essentially it's an evening where Brazilians can come and learn english according to their level. There was also waffles (made by Talisa, Laurier and Michael) and espresso coffee (made by Tim and I). It went really well from what I could see, although there wasn't much chance to debrief afterwards. Tonight we got back to our hosts' home at about 10:00, talked and ate for a few hours and are now on the way to bed. Please pray that we'll get good sleep and that we'll all stay in good health. We're currently tired, excited and happy. Please continue to pray for us, since we need God's help in everything we do.

Michael, Brennan and Graeme (me)