Making a Home

 Cleaning Tips and Tricks:

• In my humble opinion, newspaper cleans windows better than paper towels.  (And it's free!)  
• Gel alcohol works well for the stove top and kitchen sink.
• To reuse zip-lock baggies: wash them and rub the baggie upside down against the backsplash of your kitchen.  They will stick and dry out quickly.
• We've been washing dishes with coconut bar soap instead of liquid detergent.  It's really sudsy and natural.  For those of you that will come visit, you have to try it!  

Etiquette in Brasil:

• Greet people with a hug and kiss
• Hold any type of sandwich or hamburger with a napkin
• Offer food and/or gum to others
• Open a present in front of the giver the moment you receive it
• Thank you notes aren't necessary (actually nonexistent)
• And above all else, when you'd like to make a friend, bake cookies.  (Brasilians love them!)

Overdue Pictures of Our Apartment:

What a blessing!  Our very own home... We have 1 big, open room (living room, then dining room, then office), 2 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms.  The apartments and houses in the city have tile in the bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms, and marble or granite counter tops and hard wood floors.  These give the apartments so much character (and make the apts. easier to clean too!).  Looking forward to having American visitors one day!

May Pics!

Vivi (our pastor's wife), Marcela, and I made over 500 typical chocolate Brazilian candies (brigadeiro) for Rebekah's 3rd Birthday Party!  Prince Charming and Princess Fiona came to the party.  Marcela, Princess Fiona, another friend, and myself blew up each balloon you see in the background.  I learned a lot about decorating for children's birthday parties! 

Dinner with friends from church, our teammates and friends visiting from the States...

Some kind of political protest in Centro...

"While there is a man homeless, without bread, without education, all progress is false." -translation by Michelle (be generous, friends)  :)  


May has been a blessing.  We continue to take the same number of hours of Portuguese class 3 days a week and go to campus 2 days a week.  We feel like we're still acclimating to life in the city by taking the bus and learning our way around.  The last couple weeks have been especially encouraging for us because of the presence of the students from Memphis that arrived mid-May.  It's a gift translating when we can and relating to Brazilians with the Americans on campus and at events.  It's been busy but fun. 

Let the Cross Cultural Experience Begin!

21 college students from Memphis arrived a couple days ago.  Their summer in Brazil is called the CCP (Cross Cultural Project).  The students' priorities throughout their time in Brazil are to experience Brazilian culture, seek to better understand the common world views among the students here, facilitate weekly discussion groups, and love people. 

The Americans help our team tremendously with our ministry to college students by developing relationships with Brazilians.  Everyone wants to get to know the Americans!  Mark and I are helping to translate a little when we're not in class.  It's definitely been a needed confidence booster for us to be able to help people that are a couple steps behind us!  Tonight will be our first discussion group.  The theme for the summer is "What moves you?" 
     
I met a freshman on campus a couple days ago, 30 seconds after meeting me she asked if she could have the t-shirt I was wearing.  The verdict is still out on whether or not this is a normal response after being introduced to an American... we think no.  However, I did manage to trade my old highschool t-shirt for a Brazil jersey.  I'm convinced I got the better end of the deal because now I have something to wear during the World Cup! 

CCP from Memphis

No Feet, Please

A Week in Summary

Sunday:  Belo Horizonte has two local soccer teams, Cruzeiro and Galo.  The tension between the teams is similar to Auburn vs. Alabama, but a bit more extreme.  I went to my first game (Galo played) at the largest stadium in our state--conveniently located in BH.  I've never experienced so much energy with 60,000 excited fans in all my life!  It was definitely memorable.

Monday:  We each gave 10 minute long presentations entirely in Portuguese.  We scored 84 and 88 percent on correctly conjugating our verbs during the presentation!  As you might guess, Mark argued why Brazilian men need American football--how football exemplifies masculinity.  Naturally Mark showcased his wit while still defending his thesis.  I spoke about the importance of nursing in the lives of women.

Thursday:  We celebrated my birthday at our apartment.  I had my first Brazilian cake!  I highly recommend it--strawberries, chocolate, whipped cream, very moist and light.  And we taught Brazilians our favorite card game, Peanuts.  It's called "amendoins" (ah-meyn-do-ings) in Portuguese.

Friday:  Lastly, we had, yet again, another interesting language blunder.  Mark went to the butcher shop to get chicken breasts for me.  When Mark asked for one [kilo of] chicken, the butcher weighed a bag of chicken, explained it was one kilo, and so Mark gave the thumbs up gesture ("It's a deal!").  To Mark's dismay, the butcher then began to take the ENTIRE chicken out of the bag he weighed and began cutting the chicken's toe nails.  The chicken only lacked feathers and a head!  Mark, thinking on his feet, -pun intended- quickly informed the butcher he didn't want the feet.  (At the time it was the only body part he could remember.)  And so Mark came home with Chicken (capital "c").  I can handle a lot of things, but a whole, raw, dead animal is not one of them.  This is a video of Mark graciously dealing with the chicken for me!

Disclaimer: This video is a little boring and for whatever reason I sound distraught.  I really thought this was a funny situation; don't know why my voice doesn't show it!  Watch at your own risk :)

End of April Pics

The picture doesn't do this sundae justice - it was huge!  Very rare to find a dessert so large in Brazil.  Don't worry, the Americans rose to the challenge and cleaned their plates.  We celebrated Anselmo's wife's 11th year anniversary of the day she moved to Brazil.  

I went to a breakfast picnic with girls and students from our church on campus.  I made sugar cookies with chocolate icing.  For some reason, my dessert looked (to Brazilians) like a biscuit type thing with ham.  I kept telling the girls that the cookies were sweet.  I'm sure they thought "Ham... sweet?" until they tried it!  Cookies are special because they're uncommon.  I think my baking confidence increased exponentially that day!   

A little craft during the picnic.  Each flower had a different virtue - specific for women.  I unknowingly picked the shortest, easiest word to say!  I laughed to myself because usually this never happens.  "Faith" is pronounced "Fey."

Portuguese class again... Sam, me, Claudia, and Mark.  Claudia is making us each give a 10 minute long presentation next week!

Why is this big tank of some kind strapped to an ambulance stretcher?  

New Apartment!

We can hardly believe we're now living in our very own apartment!  It's on the 4th (top) floor of a small building with only 7 other apartments.  It's within walking distance to the church, 3 other families on our team, the office, grocery stores, and a bakery.  We spent the night for the first time last Friday and the boxes we shipped from the U.S. arrived the following day (much earlier than we expected)!  I would compare opening the boxes to Christmas morning.

We went to an apartment meeting last week - entirely in Portuguese.  Our neighbors spent close to 45 minutes explaining that recyclable items go in a special bin in the garage.  We have some interesting, not-so-brazilian names in our building too.  One of our neighbors is Gladstone and another Jackie.  Ironically Gladstone is the person and Jackie is the dog.  When I commented that "Jackie" is an American name, his owner said "Oh yes, Jackie Bauer... from 24!"  Mark and I loved to watch 24 before we moved here.  We feel much safer knowing that Jack Bauer lives next door.  

These are the "before" pictures of our apartment.  We've cleaned and organized for the past 4 days.  It looks so much better now.  We plan to have "after" pictures and/or video footage to share soon!

1. Mark humored me by carrying me over the threshold

2. View from the front door of the living room and office

3. Kitchen

4. Putting together our TV stand

5. Hanging laundry to dry 

Easter Weekend

We went to a beautiful retreat center, Dom Bosco, in a small town outside the city for Easter weekend.  Frank and Barbara Barker, Pastor Emeritus at Briarwood, visited this past weekend to teach during the retreat.  Our church has 50 members but 90 came!  The Barkers told story after story of God's faithfulness to their family and church over the past 45 years.  Mark and I were able to spend a good amount of time with them during meals.  It was an encouraging time for everyone.

Claudia translating

The retreat center, Dom Bosco

Quaint room!  The musty and scratchy blankets were a slight inconvenience for Mark's allergies and my stomach.  Mark woke up with bad allergies and I with little bug bites on my stomach.

Dr. Barker and our Pastor, Raul

Yum. Rice and beans

I made a popular Brazilian dessert (really easy and only 3 ingredients) a couple days before Easter weekend - Passion Fruit Mousse (Musse do Maracujá).  I learned about the passion fruit flower from our Portuguese teacher, Claudia.  I had no idea the flower was named after the passion of Jesus.  In the 1500s, Spanish missionaries used the flower to teach indiginous people in Latin America about the passion and crucifixion.  There is a lot of symbolism!  If you get a chance, look into it.  It's fascinating.

This is the passion fruit I used.  It's so good!  They even have passion fruit milkshakes at the mall.

Passion Fruit Flower

Click here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion_flower