Para Bens Alison!! Brazilian Birthdays are the BEST!

Oi! I hope that you are all doing well today in the states. Just to set the tone as you read this, we are having seriously one of the greatest days ever in Brasil. First of all the weather is unreal. I (Brent) have been here for the past 3 weeks and I can easily say that the weather today is the best that I have seen. The wind is blowing, the sun is out, the skies are clear, and its just warm enough to be wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Also, today I would say that Team 2 is fully in the swing of things. We are completely comfortable with what we are doing, we are developing incredible relationships with the kids and things are running very smoothly.

Yesterday afternoon camp ended great! We had a great day with the kids and had some incredible experiences as we have really started diving into relationships with the kids. When we ended we were able to meet with out team members from P. North for a little bit and then we got to go see the community that many of our campers come from. Let me set this up. The church that we are working with in P. North does a lot of mission work in a community near by called QNE (Quadrant NE). The church does a lot in this area and one thing that we have been able to do is to provide a bus for the church to pick up many of these kids in this area to come to camp. Roughly half of the campers that we have come from this area, so we thought it would be great to be able to learn about where they come from. As we drove through, our team had a whole new perspective to what it meant to live in poverty. The best way that our team could describe this area is that “it looks like a National Geographic magazine,” or a “feed the children commercial.” The only difference in what we saw yesterday and what we see on TV is that it was real. We saw kids and families walking the streets next to their shacks that were made of plywood scraps and a little cement. We saw a community of shacks that were in the middle of a field that were so far from any comfort that we experience even in our lowest standard of living. We saw kids that come to DEMAIS chase our van down the road as we drove down their streets. We saw things that many people on our team have never experienced, but we took so much from this. The biggest thing is that we were able to see that these are people. Not only were they people, but they are children that we know, that we have relationships with, and that we love. It was so encouraging that we get to know them, get to love on them, and get to share God’s love with these people.

As we ended the day of all of the excitement of camp and the reality check of visiting QNE, we had a great time to debrief as a team. We were able to go on an emotional rollercoaster together as we laughed so hard because of our friend Edson’s pranks, cried as we shared how being with the kids of QNE affected us, and a bit of both as we read the blog comments. One encouragement that we can share together for this community is a song that we may all know from Chris Tomlin:

“Greater things have yet to come, greater things are still to be done in THIS city…”

Today started a little earlier than yesterday as we tried to beat the morning traffic. We left this morning at 6:00am (breakfast at 5:30) and headed to a big day at DEMAIS. Camp got off to a great start on this wacky Wednesday as we celebrated the birthday of our teammate, Alison. We had all the campers sing “Para Bens” and we will continue to celebrate her all day long! (HAPPY BIRTHDAY ~ Brazilian Birthdays are the BEST!). We also had some great experience becoming experts in jump rope at camp, as this is one of the favorite welcome activities that we have! Today at camp the Girl World crew is “taking a trip to the salon” as they are doing hair and making them even more beautiful while also teaching that real beauty comes from the inside. In Man Land, the guys took the secret mission of Mission Impossible to find some explosions around camp and to learn that when you are filled with the love of God you can be an explosion to those around you and share with them about His Love! In rec the team played bucketball with the campers and used this as a way to teach them that God sends people in our lives to help to do things and that we need a community around us to help us fully be who God called us to be. In arts and crafts, the campers finished a project making fish windsocks as they were recapping our Bible story from yesterday of Peter walking on water. Overall the day has been incredible. We are looking forward to a great afternoon, and we really cannot believe that tomorrow will be our last day of camp this week. We hope that you are all doing well and will keep you posted as we spend our last few days in Brazil.

Chris is happy! Romans 8:35-39 J

Jessica- Happy Birthday, Alison! Enjoyed hearing girls from the vermelho team chanting, “Tia Jessica” as they walked to the registration table. Oh, and Marney rocks! I love and miss you Mom, Dad, Josh, Jake, and Misty.

Alison Obrigata everyone for the bday wishes! I’m loving having a Brazilian birthday and wearing a shirt with shoulder pads.

Mallory loves having all the campers run up and jump in our arms when they get to the church! I can’t believe we only have 1 day left. I will miss Mauricio and Edson.

Haley loves Wacky Wednesday.

Mae-is dressed to impress and wishing Alison a Happy Birthday!

Melodie-bittersweet emotions when I saw John, a Cade camper, in the neighborhood around p. north

Trudy- is trying to speak Portuguese to Melodie and translate for John!

Speedy-When I retire from being a camp director I’m going to give jump rope lessons.

Angela-is enjoying wearing face paint, a big fan of Brazilian weather, thankful for the prayers from so many, loves doing camp in Brazil, and is so proud of Team 2.

Julie is reminded how blessed we all are after seeing the neighborhood of some of the campers. A shout out to Megan and Cindi and Gretchen! Love to AG and D. There are some big hills here, but they are not red (saw some soy beans and sourghum though).

Ana Jane- Brazilian coffee. Need I say more?

Brandon-Got chased by a baby owl...manliness no longer in tact.

Born- Is learning what it truly means to love God and pursue him with a simple heart.

Brent-I’m going to bring Tiago home in my carry-on. Hope you don’t mind, Angela. J

J.D.-I have found my new calling…leading secret missions in foreign countries a.k.a. blowing things up!

Josh-singing in the car on the way home, dodging sick owls, and roads built like roller coasters make for an exciting night.

Posted in: 2010,Brazil,WSCIP