Manaus...our first stop

Okay... time for some serious catching up! I'm stuck sitting/laying around these days due to a nasty virus that found my intestines, so here is my chance to get back to posting. I guess I'll just start at the beginning of our time here in the US. Our first stop was actually in Manaus where we stayed for 2 1/2 days. Michael's bestest friend in the whole wide world, Lucas, came down by bus with his mom and baby sister so that he could see Michael. It was a long bus ride, but that is what Lucas wanted for his birthday. Isn't that the sweetest thing???? Michael and Lucas were inseparable for those few days and we had a little surprise and belated birthday party for Lucas. We stayed with Márcio and Keila which as a huge treat as well for us! I miss having them in Anapolis! As you will see in the pictures, Mathias and Larissa are adorable and we had so much fun playing with them.

Michael and Lucas

Maira, Larissa, and Mathias

Manaus was awfully hot, so the kids spent a lot of time in this little pool!

Lucas's birthday party with all the Asas kiddos in Manaus

Keila told me that when she met Johnathan, he instantly reminded her of Michael...but in a grown-up version. So there they are and you can judge for yourself! Jonathan is a Moody Aviation student who spent a couple of weeks in Manaus for some field experience.

Formula 1

Formula 1 racing is a big deal here...something like Nascar in the US. Steve and Michael like to watch the F1 races when they can (the races are often on Sunday mornings during Sunday school) and Michael is quite the fan. They watched the time trials last Saturday morning and when it was done Michael had the idea of making his own F1 car. He thought about it all day and finally in the evening he called Steve upstairs to show him his car. His car consisted of the sofa with the cushions off and turned on end, pillows, the remote control of a car, a booster car seat, and a Thomas the Train tent. Steve really got into the spirit and they had a race. Steve and Maira were part of the crew following every part of Michael's performance through their computers and were in constant communication with Michael through microphones. Michael won the race (of course!) and he was awarded with his trophy (can of tennis balls). Maira couldn't be left out, so she got 2nd place. Then the tennis ball can also served as the bottle of champange that they shake up and spray on the crowd.

I've always loved...

horses. I never was around horses growing up, but I have always admired horses. In college I took a horseback riding class and I learned to ride in the English saddle and the Western saddle. It was so much fun...and I even fell off the horse one day because he decided to go right into a run before the trot. While I was working as a teacher in the area of special education, I learned a little about horseback riding therapy and I thought that would be perfect for me...horses and kids. That never did work out because God had other paths for me and I am totally okay with that. So imagine my surprise last weekend when a friend of ours tells me that he is giving me a horse. Just like that. We were talking about seeing the Lippizaners while in Florida and he said he had been meaning to tell me that he wanted to give me a horse. The horse was born in October of last year. Wow. It took a while to sink in and now I am trying to figure out what to do! We went to meet our colt today...he is brown with a white star on his forhead and black on his lower legs. He is quite handsome even though he is no special breed. He has not been around people yet, so he is very shy. I took carrots with me and the other 4 horses loved me for it. Our colt, however, was too shy to even come close enough to sniff the carrots. I was able to touch his hindquarters very quickly, but that was it. There is another colt with him that has been around people more and she kept nudging me, nibbling on my hand, and pulling on my shirt and jeans for more carrots. She just wouldn't accept the fact that they were all gone. So, I guess we need to make many more trips out to see our boy so he will get used to us. I also need to find someone who can break him when the time comes. And I need to read about horses! Here are some pictures of the newest member of our family...he doesn't have name yet, but we are working on it!

The girl colt is the one looking away from the camera.

Claves means "Keys"

I mentioned in my earlier post that I used a program called "Claves" in one of the workshops in the children's program. Ester (responsible for all of the social service programs in Asas) asked me if I would be interested in taking a 3 day training course in November of 2007. I jumped at the chance and was really impressed with the quality of the Claves program. The first two days of the course was spent mostly in learning the facts about child abuse...the who, when, why, how questions and then how the Claves program can strengthen children so that they will not be abused. The moto for Claves is "Through play we are strengthened to confront difficult situations". Studies show that an abuser usually takes 2 years from the time he/she decides to abuse a child to the time he/she actually starts to abuse. These 2 years are spent gaining the confidence of the child and family by building relationships and trust. A person who abuses has hurdles to conquer before being able to abuse a child...he/she first has to deal with his/her conscience, then he/she needs to have access to the child, and finally, he/she has to wear down the resistance of the child. Claves focuses on that last hurdle...building up the child so that he/she will be even more resistant and will have the courage to tell someone who can help. Children are divided into small groups by age (4-7 years old, 8-11 years old, 12 years old and up) and work through 3 stages of the program. The first stage is entitled "My Body", the second stage is "My Intimate Parts", and the third stage is "Others and I". Each stage has 3-4 workshops which gradually build in such a way that the child is prepared for the next stage. Each workshop includes a time of music and dance, group games, drama games, table games, and stories/situations. Everything is very age appropriate and is done in such a normal, matter-of-fact way that the kids are not embarrassed. Here is their website for more information: claves@juventudparacristo.org.uy (Youth for Christ)
Here is an example of one of the stories. I've condensed it quite a bit, but you'll get the idea of it.





This is a story about a little girl, Joana. Her is still at work when she gets home after school so the mom reminds her every day that she is to come right inside and lock the door behind her.































Joan wants to be obedient but every day their friendly neighbor wants to visit with her. She quickly goes inside, but....


























soon the neighbor is knocking at her door wanting to come in to talk and play some games. She used to like talking to him, watching television, and playing games, but recently she hasn't liked the games that he has wanted to play. He also makes her promise not to tell anyone about his visits or their games.













That evening her whole family is together but she is in a bad mood and doesn't want to talk about anything. When her mom asks her if she got her homework done, Joana just gets even more mad and runs off to her room.




























Joana's mom talks with Joana and tells her that sometimes it is okay to have secrets, but if a secret makes you feel bad then it isn't a good secret to keep.





















This is a board game to play with the 12 year olds and older. This games involves working through a wide range of situations and prejudices.

Back to the Dump in Brasília

Michael (official photographer) and Carol (friend and children's program team member)


On May 17, Asas coordinated a 3rd Project "Go Ye" at the city dump of Brasília. Steve, the kids, and I left on Friday evening for Brasília after a rough time of getting backed up because we were without energy in the house. But we finally got things together and made it to Brasília at 10pm. We spent the night with some friends of ours who live in an apartment not far from the dump (Herberth and Carla). Steve and the kids were coughing and congested due to head colds and Maira woke up at 2am complaining of an ear ache. I tried giving her more decongestant medicine, but it did no good. By 5am she was shaking either from too much decongestant medicine or from the pain in her ear and she was asking me to call the dentist, call Aunt Otnaracy (our doctor from Asas), or anyone else who might give her relief from the pain. I asked Steve to wake up our friends to see if they had any pain killers that might relieve the pain. All they had was pain relief medicine for adults, so we cut it in 3rds and gave her 1/3. This finally helped her enough to enable her to sleep, but that only left us about 1 1/2 hours of sleep before needing to get up and get ready to go to the dump. Ugh. Thankfully, Carla was not planning on going to the project, so we left Maira at the apartment with her for the morning. Herberth went with us, but returned to the apartment a little before lunch to get Maira and bring her out to us. She at lunch with us and wanted to stay, so she stayed the rest of the day and was just fine. Aunt Otnaracy was there attending the people who live at the dump and she made time to see Maira and determined that her ear was not infected. Apparently, the congestion in her head had settled down towards her ear as she slept and was putting pressure on her ear and that is what caused so much pain. Anyway, we had a great day! Michael was in charge of taking pictures all day and he took that seriously....he took 103 pictures! He also helped out with the kids' program, telling kids the meanings of the colors of the wordless book bracelets and the general "go fetch..." guy. I put Maira in the group of 4-5 year olds to accompany all that they did in their workshops and she loved participating and answering the questions that the different "aunties" or teachers asked in the workshops. Steve went door-to-door evangelizing and was the coordinator for that. He also put together a program in the evening for the youth of the church with testimonies and the projection of the short version of The End of the Spear. I coordinated the children's programs and I had a great team . Everything went so smoothly in spite of last-minute potential stresses. I found out as we were leaving for Brasília that one of the girls on my team couldn't go anymore because she was sick and had gone to the hospital. She was responsible for the story workshops. Thankfully another girl on the team knew the story that she was to tell in the morning and then I asked another team member to do games instead of the story in the afternoon. Then in the morning I found out that yet another girl on my team was sick and hadn't come! Anyway, I had a great, flexable team who kept the focus and didn't let the set-backs get them down. We had 80+ children in the morning program and 150+ children in the afternoon program! We told the 80+ in the morning to bring their friends for the program after lunch...and they were very obedient! I took the kids back to the apartment just before the program for the youth in the evening...they were both so tired and so DIRTY! How wonderful it is to have friends that live in Brasília! Now for the pictures:




At the end of the afternoon, we handed out these bags with popcorn, coloring book, 2 toys, and streams with the colors of the wordless book to all the children who came to the program.
















Herberth and Carla













Look at those attentive faces!














The children made a mural about the salvation story.








This was part of my workshop. I used "Claves" for the first time. It is a program that was developed by Youth for Christ in Uruguay with the goal of strengthing children against abuse. I'll tell you more about it in another post.














So sweet!












Daniel, our safari man!


























"Claves"












One of the homes with the clean laundry hanging over the wall to dry.













Yep, another cutie!










Children listening to a presentation about how to brush their teeth before getting floride treatments.















singing













"Claves"












The "artist" explaining salvation













Explanation of the colors of the wordless book














Salvation story













Part of the team












More of the team, but without Michael who is now taking the picture!














I just loved this picture of the girls taking a picture!

Mother's Day

I woke up on Mother's day to a wonderful fruit breakfast in bed! Then we went to a very nice restaurante for lunch. They were having an all-you-can-eat shrimp bar... too bad I don't eat shrimp! But I ordered off their normal menu and it sure was nice not to cook or wash the dishes! Then at church that night the kids put on a special program for Mother's Day with singing and a "parade of moms" of which Maira was the mom of many children...

The four of us at the restaurante

Maira shaking those music eggs as she sings

Don't they look thrilled??? They actually were not so serious most of the time, but we just clicked at the wrong moment!

Maira was taking care of 4 dolls...one in the stroller, one in the basket, one in the kangaroo, and one under her arm!

She just had to walk from one end of the stage to the other and back again. She did a great job and said later that she wasn't as embarrassed as she thought she would be!