Blogs from Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, South America - page 5

wow its the start of our 3rd week already, we have looked at the calendar and we leave for home 2 weeks from today. In some aspects it seems like its been an eternity, and in other ways its flown by so quickly. It was a really quiet weekend around here, it was kinda neat to be here for easter, but at the same time it was a little hard as well, we knew that most of our family and friends at home would be celebrating and we missed that. With the language barrier its really tough to try to figure out what is going on at church and around here at the orphange. Alex is doing so much better at this than I am. He seems to have the patience and memory for the words ... read more

ola, warm greetings from brazil its actually cooled down here today a little bit, its a nice reprieve from the scorching heat last week. It probably is only in the low 20´s today and the humidity has dropped to 50 %. We had an amazing weekend, the break at Torres was just awesome. The rain held off till saturday nite and we managed to do some shopping and spend time at the beach as well. Turns out that Alex is a pretty good boogy boarder. He spent about 3 hours playing in the ocean with some of the other team members that also bought boards while out shopping. Sunday nite was church, and it was just incredible. 25 people had made decisions for the Lord and were baptized. It was so amazing to see so many ... read more

good morning, afternoon or evening, whichever the case may be things here are going really well. its SMOKING HOT.... and the humidity is incredibly high. I was mentioning to another team member this morning that God is likely sick of my prayers everymorning.... please send a breeze, please protect me from cockroaches.... she assured me that he isnt. the work at the new house is moving along well, they are doing the best they can in this heat. at lunch time we walk to a restarant about a kilometer away or so, its not too far, but its a huge hill and it really drains the men that have been working so hard in the morning. herman said this morning though, he wants to be use the mission car and haul 4 at a time ... read more

its hard to believe its already saturday nite. this week went by incredibly fast. we´ve been working long days but the productivity has been really great. the team is just so ready to get in there and get busy. all the tile work was done before we got here and after just 2 days the guys have managed to get almost the entire house grouted. its working alot better this time since alex brought along a trowel*spelling* and sponges making it so much easier than the first year, when he was given half a flip flop to do all the grouting. I´ve been busy already with loads and loads of laundry, the lethbridge team knew that there was access to laundry facilities so they decided to bring only a carry on for personal items. that way ... read more

hey all, after enduring the rain in gramado and canela on sunday, we hiked a bit on monday at parque do caracol, named for the waterfall that is the main attraction. because its so steep there are 927 steps you can take to hike down to the base of the waterfall. it was really cool - there is so much vapor at the base that we got pretty wet just standing there and watching. all the plants on the hillsides were green and wet (they reminded me of the produce section after the grocery store after the misters have turned on) and it smelled great because of the little flowers dotting the greenery. we saw a few humminbirds there as well, flitting about in the mist. in the afternoon we drove south through Novo Hamburgo to ... read more