An Epistle according to 1 triplet

Reporting back to you are Laura, Mia and Rosalie. Today we went into a school for students with autism, cerebral palsy, Down´s Syndrome and other not yet diagnosed neurological problems.  All of the OT´s and PT´s and SLP´s reading this would have loved to have been there.  They are currently teaching about 150 students from ages 1-45.  Most are under 20.  It started about 20 years ago when 12 parents got together.  They realized they were spending a lot of money driving their disabled kids to a different city (or taking the bus) and that they could hire a physician (or 2) and teachers and rehab staff for the same amount of money.  It~´s now grown to these 150 students with 60 on the waitlist.  It´s an NGO (non government organization) so they have to raise funds.  It is really well organized and the rehab they provide is quite similar to many of the things we do.  I´ve got a ton of pictures and if I (Rosalie) can figure out how to download a few, you´ll get to see them.  We´ve actually taken tons of pictures and videos.  Prepare to be in awe and amazed when we return.  Speaking of which, I just remembered I was supposed to ask Joan when to come to the airport on Saturday to pick us up and I completely forgot.  Stay tuned for tomorrow´s blog on that.

So, what else, oh, yeah, at the school, some kids showed  us this cool dance/martial arts.  They also had us join in one at a time.  It was fascinating and fun.    It was a bit tough for some of our youth to be there as some of the students are quite disabled.  But we did feel by the end of the 4-5 hours there that it was well worth it.  3 of the teachers also came to our English Cafe at the church tonight too. Tomorrow morning we´ll be at a different school in the afternoon.(oh, I see some fatigue setting in)  As we´re 3 hours ahead of you, you might see this before we go.  If so, please pray for clarity of what God wants us to share.  We have a lot of liberty in what we can say.  Pray that we be a witness to the teachers as well as the students.

On the topic of prayer requests, fatigue really hit many people today.  Some were falling asleep in our team meeting that happened around lunch time.  We also had quite a few leaders and youth commenting about sore, scratchy throats.  We don´t know if people are coming down with something or not.  We´d appreciate prayer for renewed strength on these last few days, for health and for a passion to keep sharing our faith and God´s love.  By the way, safety hasn´t been as big of a concern as it was in Rio.  We are taking precautions, and God is keeping us safe.

The weather the last few days has been awesome.  It feels like summer.  Hope you´re getting summer in Edmonton.  No sunburns here.  But Mia´s had some bug bite or spider bite or ??? this morning. It´s swollen and hot and she saw 3 doctors today.  It does look a bit better as we write.  As we write this, we´re in our host family´s living room where the TV is.  We´ve been home about 1/2 hour following the English Cafe.  Anyhow, Shrek 3 is on in Portuguese.  It´s always fun to watching TV in a different language.

Overall, our youth have been doing a great job getting into a different culture and interacting with new people.  The youth program on the weekend went fabulously.  Many prayed with Laurier and our translator and accepted Christ.

We all send hugs and kisses to our respective families.  PS.Wendy, things are great here.

So now I think I´m rambling (Rosalie) so I´m going to sign off.  Tomorrow morning, I hope to eat ice cream here for the first time.  Laura hopes to eat gelato.   Mia wants to eat a Brazilian hot dog.  OK calories, here we come!