A few of the things that have kept us busy and entertained recently...

 Annika turned 23 at the beginning of this month and we had a party for her at the church.  It's a tradition here to stick your finger in the cake before they cut it.

 Valeska likes to help us cook.  This was Annika's birthday as well...we were making chocolate chip pancakes! Alzenira, Valeska and Marlene thought they were too sweet, but they liked them a little bit.  We LOVED them.

 

 This is a little view of our house.  Probably the cleanest it's ever been and the cleanest it will ever be. We were having some people over and making Mexican food for them to try!

 We got to go to a Brazilian wedding a few weeks ago and had fun getting all dressed up.  

Daniel and Dara were the "little bride and groom" and got to walk down the isle and be beautiful all night long.  We love them.  Also, they spent most of the day scared that they were actually going to marry each other that night...luckily their parents were able to assure them that they were not the ones getting married.  

Ever tried popcorn covered in condensed milk? It's delicious!

Our other neighbors bought three little chicks one day...then their dog killed them the next day.  It was sad.

We helped make a lot of little gifts for Mother's Day :) We also got to put some Banana Bread inside the bags for everyone to try.

A Churrasco: A Brazilian Night of Grilling

Last weekend the men from our church went on a men's retreat...so the women decided to have a party :)  Sandra, a woman from the church, invited the women and kids over for a night of grilling, conversations, and fun.  

 Everyone brought a different kind of meat, so Annika signed us up to bring shrimp.  Which proved to be a difficult task and one that we needed a bit of help with.  Luckily Alzenira and Valeska (our neighbors) were a huge help in teaching us how to prepare the shrimp.

 We even found a little surprise for Cassie among all the little shrimp, but she refused to eat it.

 Then we skewered some vegetables to take along with us as well.   

 The lovely grill (and griller).  Everyone took turns making sure everything cooked and nothing burned.

So much food! There were all kinds of different types of meat and it was a wonderful dinner. Oh, and that white stuff in the middle-back is queijo coalho (it's a squeaky cheese that you grill and eat with bread or on a stick)...I'm obsessed with it.

Lots of wonderful women!

Meet Some of Our Animal Friends

We've encountered lots of bugs and animals here.  Some of them are fun and some of them are not so fun.  Above-- Annika with a giant frog that was hanging out in our street the first week we arrived.  They make fun noises.

 This is a turtle we encountered in a bread shop one day.  We thought he was adorable and bought him to take to the family we were staying with that night.  We've seen some other giant turtles in the park as well, but sadly we don't have pictures of them.

 There are a few horses that like to hang out in the street.  Sometimes they like to eat the trash before it gets picked up.  This is a regular occurrence for chickens as well.

 Lizards are a pretty common animal here and we've seen a lot around our house.  So far I don't know that we've seen any inside our house, but when we first arrived we saw a lot of lizard poop lying around.  We were assured by many people that lizard poop is clean and we shouldn't be worried.  Once our ceiling was installed we stopped seeing it lying around and are quite thankful :)

This is our cat, Cassiopeia, who appeared a few weeks into our stay on our neighbor's roof and hasn't left since.  It might help that we feed her pretty often and pet her :) She likes to kill animals and bring them for us to see. 

There are lots more that I could introduce you to, but these are the only ones I have pictures of.

Easter in Derby

We take part in a worship gathering each week with a street ministry downtown at Derby Plaza. Typically about 30 of us gather in the plaza for a time of singing, a message from Dennis (long time missionary), food and fellowship.  We help serve food and drinks, engage in conversation and get to know the stories and struggles of the people here.  We are all struggling with different issues and are glad to be able to share God’s love with those who have been rejected from family and society. 

On Easter we had the pleasure of participating in a touching morning for everyone. Dennis shared a message about Jesus washing the diciples’ feet, the relationship they had in friendship and how he wanted to make himself less to serve them. After the message he told everyone that we were going to wash their feet.  The faces in the crowd were painted with expressions of surprise, confusion, and resistence. They remarked in varying tones, ‘why would anyone do this?’ We proceeded to get out basins, soap, and pitchers; then Dennis and Edison started washing peoples’ feet. We helped pour water to clean their feet and distribute towels that we had gotten for each of them.  One of the guys asked if they could wash Dennis’ feet as well.  After everyone else’s feet had been washed one of the little boys washed Dennis’ feet.  It was spontaneous and sincere.  We are looking forward to spending more time with this group.

Language Difficulties

We've heard so many stories about people going to different countries and saying ridiculous things in their new language that we knew it was only a matter of time until we would have our own silly stories to share.  Today you get to hear about a few of the crazy things we've said since arriving.

One Sunday, Boa Vista (another church we attend) had a meal after service to raise money for their new roof.  Annika was eating a cupcake and someone asked what was inside the cupcake.  She replied that there was "cerveja" inside the cupcake when in fact she meant to say that there was "cereja" inside the cupcake.  Cerveja means beer and cereja means cherry.

Just a few days ago I was talking to a few people and they were asking where I lived before I came here to Brazil.  I've been trying to use my past tense skills, but I'm still almost always wrong when I use it.  So, I started answering her question by saying "eu morri" and then immediately realized that I had just told her that "I died" instead of saying "I lived."  We laughed for a while before I was finally able to answer her question.   Morei = I lived      Morri = I died  

Portuguese uses masculine/ feminine forms for pretty much everything.  I am always messing it up...usually at my own expense, but one day I was trying to tell two guys to smile for the camera and used the feminine form of "you two" implying that they were girls.  Oops.  Someone had to tell me later why everyone was laughing so hard because I couldn't figure out what had happened.

I'm sure there will be more to come  :)