My new truck

I will return to the lessons learned, but I needed to share a story from today that was exceptionally funny.

As many of you know we have been looking for a car. Many of you may also know that for many years I drove a full-size pickup. It eventually broke though and since that day I have been looking forward to the day when I can own one again.

Well today, I think I found one. It was a little rough around the edges, but you know. I found this great little truck at the wood store today while I was buying a door for one of the rooms at our new church building. Because I am currently without a car, and more specifically, because I still do not own a truck I had to hire one of the guys there to help me transport the door. (Many people in Brazil do not own trucks and so most woodstores have several guys who own what amounts to an old El'Camino who can help you out for a whatever price you can set.) This wasn't new to me I have done this several times in the last year, but of all the trucks I have ridden in this one stood out.

This remarkable feature is found within the cab of this truck, but it is not necessarily in plain site. If you rock the passanger seat forward it is readily accessable though, which is how I first saw this great little feature. I might have thought it just a 3 or 4 gallon jug of something the driver kept in the truck if it had not been for the two clear plastic tubs coming out of the spout with a rag tightly stuffed around it to keep it secure. But surely my first instinct was incorrect, so I watched as my driver returned the seat to its normal position taking care not to pinch the tubes which ran under the seat and then sat down. Off we went, but first he had to make one stop. He needed gas so quickly pulled in the gas station, he jumped out came around to my door and told me that I was going to need to jump out as well. He then proceeded to learn my seat forward and remove this jug I had been helping to secure in place removed the tubes and the lid and then filled it full of gas. After he was done he then stuffed the tubes and the rags back in place, put the jug behind my seat and told me to hop back inside. So I did and off we went to the building.

I must say this truck stands out from the rest. I have never seen the gas tank of a car so accessable and talk about security. Ot secure the car all you have to do at night is lean the seat forward and take the jug inside the house.

Despite flashes from Dateline's attempt to prove Chevy trucks could explode due to side impacts, I made it to the building safely with quite a memory and story to tell.

How about all of you, have you ever had a similar experience or ridden in a car that filled you with a few doubts about your safety?

Happy Birthday Kelton

Febuary 1, Kelton celebrated his 2nd birthday. We had a grand party in the Party Room of our apartment building. It was a mixture of American and Brazilian birthday traditions. The theme was Dinousaur. During which we had a dinosaur egg hunt, colored dinosaur pictures, drank dinosaur kool-aid, had a dinosaur roaring contest and learned the dinosaur stomp. It was quite a different party for our Brazilian friends, especially the games and food.

Our team of course was present to celbrate with us, as well as some friends from the Bonoco Church of Christ and many of our neighbors and other new Brazilian friends. Our family was especially blessed because Randy's parents, Paige and John Porter, got to be here as well. We loved getting to introduce them to the people they have been hearing about for the last year.

It was a wonderful time, full of opprotunites to talk and share with our Brazilia friends. We are so grateful for our precious, growing, energetic, jumping, climbing, special boy. And for those of you who were worried...he still has his red hair.

Below are pictures of the kids (and adults) doing the dinosaur stomp, Kelton with his grandparents, Kelton with our French friend that lives in our building and Kelton with Mom and Dad. I don't know if Kelton realized the party was for him, but he sure had a good time!

Lesson Number 1

One unmistakable fact about Salvador is the heat. This was not unexpected. We were told it would be hot here, but this HOT?! It is amazing how hot 80 degrees Fahrenheit can feel. I grew up in west Texas with 114 degree summer days, but this is hot. And it is not just hot during the summer, but during what the locals call Fall, Winter, and Spring and what we call not AS hot, the rainy season so at least it is not hot ALL the time, and getting hotter AGAIN. So I will say that adapting to a humid hot climate with very little seasonal variation was difficult for this west Texas guy, but I seem to be adapting. I am even concerned that this winter (your summer in the Northern Hemisphere) I may get cold once or twice and in a way that is a relief.

This year has brought with it great blessings of friends, growth, laughter, language, and appreciation. It has also had its share of struggles. There are always times when you are starting out somewhere new that you wonder if it will ever be home or like a place where you belong. Even in the States when you move you have to make new friends, find out where to buy groceries, watch movies, grab a quick bite to eat. Ever thing seems a little strange at first, but after a little bit you start to learn where things are, you start to develop friends, and before you know it you have even picked up a little bit of the local dialect and can understand most of the signs by the side of the road or the local TV commercials. You start to feel like you belong.

No matter how much I try to blend in I will always appear a little out of place here thanks to my white skin that doesn't really tan and my red facial hair. Thankfully though we have started to find our place. We can speak well enough to communicate in a way that allows our personalities to be seen. We have new friends and people we look forward to getting to know better and when you come to visit I can even take you to a couple of good places to eat. Just as our bodies have started adapting to the heat of Salvador we are adapting to life here as well. We no longer feel like short-term visitors. Salvador is our new home (or at least our current station on our journey to the lasting city). So what have we learned? I don't know if it is what I have learned as much as what I have experienced due to the grace of God that with God's help adaptation is possible even when the place is hot and sticky, has odd food, looks completely foreign, and you cannot understand a thing people say most of the time. God is with us and with His help we will not only survive, but live. He is our constant and that makes all of the other changes livable.

One Year

Believe it or not one year ago today a plane touched down in Salvador carrying five families of Gringos who were extremely wet behind the ears and not a little wide eyed from the past several days of packing, crying, and traveling. Well here we are one year later still in the same city. (sign of relief) we made it through our first year. It has been a great year, not an easy year, but a good year which is a testimony to our God and thousands of prayers that have come before the Father on our behalf. Thank You! I wish to record some of my favorite memories and do a little reviewing of our lives and what we have learned thanks to our Lord this past year. I will try to do this over the next couple of weeks.

Cultural Miscommunication

As is true with every person I know, there are things we do sometimes that make our friends and family role their eyes or shake their heads. Sometimes we do these things on purpose and sometimes they come by complete accident. I am happy to say that as I have grown up I think I have gotten better and at being more socially acceptable (at least fewer people seem embarrassed to be seen with me). And then I moved to Brazil where the rules are a little different. That is fine and after almost a year I feel I am starting to learn most of the rules and customs.

There are some rules though that I would inherently see as rude in any culture. One of those would be to impose on a family two days after they have experienced a death of a close family member unless absolutely necessary. And even more unacceptable would be to invite yourself over for dinner at their house two days after a death. Well thanks to the desire to help of our wives and the cultural gap that still exist within our language that is exactly what happened this past week.

This last Wednesday our dear friend Otovio lost his brother. It has been very difficult for this family since they also lost his mother two weeks earlier. At the funeral on Thursday Jennifer and our friend Mary Virginia wanted to help in some way and so told Patricia, Otovio’s wife, that they wanted to bring them dinner on Saturday night. They left believing everything was clear and understood. Then on Friday Jennifer informs me that what Patricia understood was that we had not simply volunteered to bring food, but had invited ourselves over for dinner. (just wait it gets a little worse) Embarrassed we decided we would just make the most of our cultural misunderstanding and work to take food and love on them for the evening. So Saturday night we get our food ready, pick up the Maberys, and go to Otovio and Patricia’s house. When we arrive though we find out that they had actually thought we invited them over for dinner and we in fact at the Mabery’s house.

We soon got everything strengthen out and they came back home, we eat, we prayed, and shared a very special evening together. We and they laughed when we explained and apologized for inviting ourselves over so soon after losing Otovio’s brother, but all was fine. Even though inviting ourselves over for dinner might not have been the most socially acceptable thing to do, we had a blessed evening. One I will remember for many years as an evening we were able to spend with our friends in the presence of our Lord for He was there and our evening was blessed.

We are back

After reading the blogs of several of my friends tonight I decided i ought to put a little something on my own. Yes believe it or not the Porters, Randy and Jennifer, are going to try to reenter this world on the internet to share with you what is happening on the bottom half of the world (or the top half depending on which way is up.) I could give plenty of excuses for our absence most of which you would probably accept, but i won't or I might not actually get around to saying something tonight.

We do hope that you have joined us in prayer for our friends. In this world death has power and it will capture us all. This past month though seems full of tragedy with the young. As you pray for Kerri's girls and for Russell and his little girls let me also add the VanRheenans (Gaylon and Becky) who lost their son and Otavio who lost his mother and brother in a matter of weeks. I was reminded today of the promises of life found in the resurrection of God that one day we will be swallowed up fully by a life that is not subject to death. In Christ we walk in the truth of that life today and one day we will fully know that life as our friends do today. Come Lord Come!

Let me fill you in on a couple of the things that have taken place since we last posted about our life:
- we celebrated our first Christmas in Brazil and to celebrate we went swimming
- We finished out a great year and watched as the city and many private citizens put on a great light show to bring in the new year
- we went to the annual South American missionary conference where we saw old friends, make new friends, and shared our lives with others who know what it is like to live in a foreign country.
- we took a little family vacation while we were already on the road and saw a very cute little village that had some of the markings of Brazil's move towards independence
- We welcomed our first Brazilian house guest for a couple of days as a brother and sister from the church in Itu stopped by on their "way through" (in reality Salvador is not on the way to anywhere) and we had a great time
- my parents came to visit for 2 whole weeks, ROCK ON!
- we celebrated Christmas again, saw the sites, played in the ocean many times, eat some good food, and enjoyed their company beyond words
- rented a building for our church
- started fixing up the building
- set an inaugural date (April 2, 2006)
- went on a church retreat with the local Churches of Christ in the city
- experenced Carnival in Salvador (kind of different and kind of the same from what everyone explained)
- lived life, grew in love, blessed beyond measure, challenged to grow in maturity of faith and Christlikeness in loss and conviction, loved my God, my wife, and my child, was love by them

what a time.