Chove chuva...

The classic first day of school picture!
I'm off to my first Portuguese class. :)

Gui and the double rainbow in Miami.

Miami sunset, the day before we set out for home.

I woke up this morning to a pounding rain so powerful it was too distracting to go back to sleep! Lucky for me, today is the anniversary of São Bernardo do Campo (our city) and it's a holiday here so I don't have to teach classes this morning! Might even get a nap in sometime this afternoon. :)

Makes me think of a Brazilian song about rain.

Today is an exciting day marking the first time that Gui and I will have friends meeting in our house to start a church out where we live. I know what you're thinking, “Wait, woah-woah-woah, Maggie, YOU are going to start a church?!” We say this and get funny reactions from people. Maybe the reason it seems so strange is because starting a church sounds like some kind of huge undertaking, but I think that's due to cultural baggage we have after centuries of establishing traditions and institutionalizing church practices. The simple answer is yes, we will have a church gather on Saturdays at our house. Friends and people searching for God who live nearby and don't have a church family will be able to create one with us! What is especially exciting is that people who wouldn't otherwise go in a church building will hopefully feel more comfortable coming to sit in our living room and encounter God's word and His people in a more easy, friendly setting.

Soon I'll post pictures of our meetings. I wouldn't be being honest with you if I didn't say that I'm a bit nervous about starting. I know it could be awkward at times and we may have only a handful of people- which we're so quick to label a failure- but we feel led to take this step of faith with God and to be the light in the place He has put us. For 2 years now, we've attended a wonderful house church of about 20 people in São Paulo. Our church, Zoe, is a young group of believers spanning from high-schoolers to young professionals. Gui and I have come to be some of the leaders there being so old and mature as we are (that was a joke, you can laugh now), and we decided along with the other leaders' support and encouragement to start something out here in São Bernardo. Already at Zoe we have 4 or 5 regular attenders who all journey across to the city (averaging about 4 hours round trip!) just to participate in Christian community. When you put it that way, it just seems silly. After all, shouldn't we try to build community in a place near where we live and work and go to the grocery store? I put it to my Mom like this- “Wouldn't it be silly if you were traveling to Atlanta every week and trying to participate in church and maintain relationships with people in your congregation so far away?” That's pretty much what we've been doing the whole time I've been in Brazil. For these two years we've learned a lot together and seen God moving among us, but it's always been sad when I wanted to invite a friend from home to something our church is doing or I didn't have time to meet with friends on the weekend. I've had to pass up opportunities to build closer relationships with co-workers and friends in our neighborhood. Hopefully now I can be available to be used by God here in the area where we live. :)

Zoe will be sending people to help out periodically on Saturdays and once a month we'll all meet at Ibirapuera Park (like the Central Park of SP) for a picnic and gathering of all the members. Together both churches will be going through the book of Acts which is quite fitting as a book all about the early efforts of small, young, passionate churches. It's going to be a wild ride this semester, and we're ready to get started!

So we ask friends to please be praying for us that God would give us wisdom and guidance to make disciples, teach us more about Himself, transform us more and more into His likeness, and glorify His Name!

Ah, and now the rain has stopped! Things are shaping up to be a nice day! Now to get crackin' on cleaning house and making cookies for this evening!

Where Wisdom Is Found

Panning for Gold...

The semester is drawing to an end and well, I'm starting to run out of things to do at school! This means both freedom and a lot of extra time that I don't know how to use. I'm doing my best to get some final details worked out on our fast-approaching trip to the US. We leave July 2nd! Just a week and a half away!

The thing I keep reminding myself though is that the trip I'm so looking forward to will be over before I know it. My goal is to enjoy the simple moments I have with friends and family giving thanks for the pleasure of their company because when you get right down to it, simple pleasures are all we've got.

I remember once or twice as a kid we went to the North Carolina mountains to old gold rush towns. In the streams there are still little flecks of gold waiting to be found. We'd take Dad's wide black-bottomed gold pan and sit on the banks taking turns washing and swishing and swirling handfuls of sand and dirt trying to catch a glints of gold that would easily flash out of sight. At the end of the day, we proudly bottled a few precious grains of golden sand. How proud we were of our little treasures which to the outside observer would seem so insignificant.

Maybe like the fine golden dust hidden in the silt bottom of a stream we have to diligently sift out and treasure the simple, beautiful moments in life. If we don't work at capturing them, they'll easily get overlooked and washed back into the muck .

I wrote a bit of poetry (if you can call it that) when I was first sitting down to write this post and feeling unsure of what I wanted to express. It all kind of tied together nicely with this notion of treasure and searching and knowing what is truly precious and worthwhile.

I wished to write something profound,

for nothing else seemed worth the effort,
But wisdom doesn't come cheap,
And I had nothing with which to produce it,
Just sitting in a pool of my own thoughts.

For what is the stuff of wisdom?
And who are the wise?
And where do they learn?
Who teaches them?

I want to be counted as wise too, but why?
To impress people?
To feel more secure?

With what motives can we begin to attain wisdom?

The cool thing is that after writing this and feeling still very perplexed I decided to search for the word wisdom in the Bible. Reading through many verses I came across this very enlightening passage from Job. I'm so funny being surprised by the fact that God would reveal this too me when I look for it...

Matthew 7:7-8
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Silly, Maggie can't you remember? God WANTS you to know more, to seek, to ask questions of Him that He may answer!

So here is the excerpt from Job. Check it out! I have been pondering about the nature of wisdom and the last line 28 sums it all up so well!

Job 28

Interlude: Where Wisdom Is Found

¹ There is a mine for silver
and a place where gold is refined.
² Iron is taken from the earth,
and copper is smelted from ore.
³ Mortals put an end to the darkness;
they search out the farthest recesses
for ore in the blackest darkness.
⁴ Far from human dwellings they cut a shaft,
in places untouched by human feet;
far from other people they dangle and sway.
⁵ The earth, from which food comes,
is transformed below as by fire;
⁶ lapis lazuli comes from its rocks,
and its dust contains nuggets of gold.
⁷ No bird of prey knows that hidden path,
no falcon’s eye has seen it.
⁸ Proud beasts do not set foot on it,
and no lion prowls there.
⁹ People assault the flinty rock with their hands
and lay bare the roots of the mountains.
¹⁰ They tunnel through the rock;
their eyes see all its treasures.
¹¹ They search the sources of the rivers
and bring hidden things to light.

¹² But where can wisdom be found?
Where does understanding dwell?
¹³ No mortal comprehends its worth;
it cannot be found in the land of the living.
¹⁴ The deep says, “It is not in me”;
the sea says, “It is not with me.”
¹⁵ It cannot be bought with the finest gold,
nor can its price be weighed out in silver.
¹⁶ It cannot be bought with the gold of Ophir,
with precious onyx or lapis lazuli.
¹⁷ Neither gold nor crystal can compare with it,
nor can it be had for jewels of gold.
¹⁸ Coral and jasper are not worthy of mention;
the price of wisdom is beyond rubies.
¹⁹ The topaz of Cush cannot compare with it;
it cannot be bought with pure gold.

²⁰ Where then does wisdom come from?
Where does understanding dwell?
²¹ It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing,
concealed even from the birds in the sky.
²² Destruction and Death say,
“Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.”
²³ God understands the way to it
and he alone knows where it dwells,
²⁴ for he views the ends of the earth
and sees everything under the heavens.
²⁵ When he established the force of the wind
and measured out the waters,
²⁶ when he made a decree for the rain
and a path for the thunderstorm,
²⁷ then he looked at wisdom and appraised it;
he confirmed it and tested it.
²⁸ And he said to the human race,
“The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom,
and to shun evil is understanding.”

A good Good Friday :)

Free Hugs at the Virada Cultural (downtown Sao Paulo)

Enjoying a nighttime tea treat at l'Abri


Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais
January Vacations





Friends from Zoe

Lunch at the Sao Paulo Municipal Market

It's Good Friday, and I have the day off, but I got up at 6! I just could't seem to sleep anymore. Might have something to do with having gone to bed at 8...Yeah, maybe so, huh?

But why did we go to bed so early? Am I getting super lame and old? Well, that could be part of it, I mean, I am nearly 24, people! But it was also because we had a massive cleaning day! We really needed it too. We just work so non-stop that there hadn't been a good cleaning time for a while. We woke up around 8, had breakfast and Bible time (we're like 2 weeks behind on reading the Bible in a year, but hey, we keep plugging along) and then we were already washing clothes and using the water to wash the tiled garage, then dusting and cleaning the floors which were totally covered in black dog hair. Thank you, Grafite. Then more clothes washing, bathroom cleaning, kitchen scrubbing, file sorting, and by about 3:30, we couldn't take anymore and we were starving! The whole day we'd been planning to go out for a little date and try out this new seafood restaurant Gui's student recommended, so we dragged our weary selves down to the bus stop and caught a bus just in time. This guy pushing a cart full of pirated CDs and blasting bad Brazilian country music had just pulled up, so we were thankful to escape.

The restaurant was really good! We had crab cakes, fried potato and cod croquettes, and a really tasty seafood risotto full of fresh octopus, squid, muscles, and shrimp! Mmmm, and there are leftovers! Since we really never go out during the week, and weekends we're busy with our church, Zoe, and class planning, we decided to go to the mall and try to find some Easter chocolate for Gui's mom. Brazilians are all about chocolate at Easter! Not bunnies though, and no peeps, they just have dozens and dozens and different brands of giant, hollow eggs. Every candy bar makes a giant egg version. The grocery stores all construct these covered walkways inside the store with the eggs hanging down right at face-level screaming, "Buy me!!" It's a bit much. And, they cost like $30 reais!! And it's the same amount of chocolate as the $3 reais candy bar. Congratulations, candy industry, you've outsmarted us again. Well, almost all of us. We were going to just buy some normal chocolate bars for Ana but the line was insane! Oh, Easter...

After our unsuccessful attempt to buy chocolate, we gave up on the mall. Never liked malls that much anyway. Plus we were feeling incredibly tired! More tired than before, in fact. Maybe a strange combination of working all morning in 90 degree weather and lots of heavy seafood. Fortunately, the return bus was there in 5 minutes, and we were bumping and rattling our way back home. Normally I don't even notice the rickety Brazilian buses, but I was so tired I couldn't keep my head straight and it just bounced along with the bus.

So that was yesterday, but to give everyone an update on things in general (since I so diligently neglect writing blog entries), 2011 has started off well! We spent the January holidays mostly at home, but then traveled for 2 weeks around some historic cities in a beautiful state called Minas Gerais (General Mines). It's the state where a lot of Brazil's gold and jewels were excavated and shipped off to Europe. There we also spent a week in the Brazilian l'Abri. What a cool experience! A whole week of meeting people from all over, studying, attending lectures, and talking through ideas with some really wise people.

Then it was back from vacations and back to work! This time both of us are working at the language school. Gui's teaching night classes and some classes that meet Friday and Saturday. He's enjoying it, and we thought it'd be smart for him to try his hand at teaching if he's setting himself on a career path to be a philosophy professor. The skills should be pretty transferable. It's just a lot of work for him between teaching and doing his own academic work.

Meanwhile, I have two groups of middle schoolers and a bunch of private students. I'm doing about double the private classes, which is great because I really prefer them anyway. I have some very cool and supportive bosses which helps a lot. Still, middle schoolers are a real challenge. My best luck has been to incorporate tons of games into lessons and try to act silly to keep their attention. Trust me, waaaay harder than it sounds.

Beyond teaching, (though that's pretty much what I do right now :P ) on weekends we're always really busy with Zoe. Gui's one of the teachers so every other Saturday he's leads a talk/discussion. It's a really small church (only around 20-25) so we have a more informal style of "worship service." It's the community God has provided for the time we're in Brazil. Most all of our close friends are there. They're the people we celebrate with, they help us out, and we spend the most time with them.

Last weekend instead of doing a service, we just got together to make sandwiches and then went to Sao Paulo's huge all night festival called the Virada Cultural. There we did free hugs, met a ton of people, gave out sandwiches to people who needed them, and played some music in the middle of the crowd. At one point our little handful of guitarists and bongo-ers were totally surrounded by people joining in to sing. Bob Marley and classic Brazilian rock were big crowd pleasers. :)

Next weekend on May 1st, a big group (a lot of Zoe people, but others too) will be going to the Sao Paulo Zoo with me to celebrate my birthday! It's going to be a lot of fun! Zoo and picnic- two things I love! And the weather's been really mild lately so let's hope it stays that way for a little longer'; we're almost in winter! So you know, it could get down to 55 or something! So cold! haha Still, I think living in Brazil has made me a pansy. I always prided myself on enjoying cold temperatures but now even 60 feels like bundle-up weather.

But our biggest exciting news for the moment is this: we're coming to the States for the summer...I mean, winter, no, wait, I'm confused, ok, but we're coming in July! So get ready for me to come by and visit! I'll do my best to see everybody! Gui got into a very prestigious summer philosophy course given by the University of Colorado which should really boost his chances at applying to American Master's and Ph.D. programs for next year!

Hope to see everyone in the States while we're passing through!