The Last Post

Tomorrow is the big day of packing. We haven't really started actually packing yet. I have it pretty well organized in my head where things will go, but tomorrow morning we will start boxing stuff. Our wonderful neighbors are going to help out with the kids so we can work efficiently. We have started saying our good-byes... not the most fun part of the process. This could very well be my last post from Brazil. What a journey we've been on, and we are just beginning another leg of it. God has been so faithful so far, and we know He will only continue that. We look forward to see what He has for us next.

Finally, an updated family picture (if only we could get everyone to look at the camera at once)!
This was today at a hotel that we went to with our good friends Paulo & Priscila. You can't see the view too good on this picture, but there is such an amazing view out across the valley.

Callie!

Patrícia holding Callie - she just started coming to the church around the time we got here, and she has grown sooooo much since we are here.

Oh, how I will miss Suely! She has got to be the sweetest person ever!

Chad sharing at the last cell group meeting before we go. He lead this youth cell group while we were here. It is now passed over to his assistant leaders, Damião & Suely.

The girls with their fun hats that Chad got for them in Peru. They keep wanting to put them on here, but I don't let them because they get so hot sweated! But they will soon need them!

The Last Churrascos

Brazilians like their grilled meat, and this past week we got to participate in two 'churrascos' - one at our house and one at a friend's house. We will miss the chicken hearts.... maybe Chad can make them in the states. Our good friend Damião, grilled the meat at both churrascos. Here are some pictures.

Sitting next to me is my good friend Amanda. Her and her husband were our Portuguese professors 7 years ago!
Our girls also love the chicken hearts, as you can see.

Damião grilling the meat on a very typical Brazilian grill... quite simple.

mmmmmmmm....

Chad standing next to a tray of meat at our house.

Damião making the meat at our house - but here he used a big gas griddle.

"Oh, the Lord's been good to me...."

I nearly broke out in the Johnny Appleseed song this morning. Our car has been sold, just one more thing that sold quickly and fairly effortlessly. Through word of mouth, a friend of a friend of ours is buying it. Chad gets home tomorrow afternoon and will probably be going to transfer the money and title of it right away. We might be without a car these last few days, but that is the least of our worries... that's why God invented taxi's, right?!? So up until now, that just leaves us with a highchair, toddler bed and filing cabinet to sell yet. Not too bad! We have just one more week here in Juazeiro - next Tuesday night we take the bus to Fortaleza, meet Chad's mom there on Wednesday, and we all leave on Friday! Here are a few more pictures...

11 days...

Chad is in Peru and will be getting back on Wednesday afternoon. Once again, the girls decided to get colds while he's gone. Thank the Lord, I haven't felt anything. Yesterday our parents had snow and they sent us pictures of it. It is soooo beautiful and we are so excited to see snow and feel the cold again after 3 years of straight heat. When I showed the pictures to the girls and told them that the snow is at Grandma's house, they started squealing with excitement. They are so excited to go. They constantly ask about Molly (our dog) too, who went up with Chad in October. It will be fun watching their reunion with her. We are down to just 11 days here in Juazeiro, and we have pretty much everything sold. All we have to sell yet is our highchair, toddler bed and a filing cabinet. You can be praying for a buyer for our car though. We were planning on taking it to a dealership, just so we would have less headaches and would be able to use it up until the end. But Chad went to a big dealership here and they told him they aren't buying cars right now because they just went 20 days without selling a single car. He said that because of this financial crisis, people aren't buying cars. So there is a guy at our church that is helping us to try and sell it. Pray that God sends the right person with the cash to pay for it.

As the girls' language is developing, they are saying some really cute things. Yesterday Giselle was singing a song that at one part goes "My Jesus is alive". When I listened closely to her singing, I realized that she was singing, "My Jesus is my life" and she kept singing that line over and over. I thought that was such a good line, so I let it go and didn't even correct her :) The other day when Larissa was putting her sticker on the countdown calendar, she was trying to take off the backing of the sticker with no success. She looked up at me and said, "Mom, can you take this skin off for me?"

Elysia loves playing with baby dolls and likes to wrap them up in a burp towel, sway back and forth holding them up to her shoulder and singing to them. The girls also like to pretend that they're breastfeeding their baby dolls - haha.

The Countdown Calendar!!

Elysia taking care of her baby.

I found Elysia sitting like this watching TV.

Here we go again...

I am once again on my own, without my 'better half', for 10 days. This time he is headed to Peru... sure wish I could go along. I'm sure one day when our children are a little more grown up, I will be able to travel more with Chad. He left this afternoon for Fortaleza and will be there until midnight Tuesday night. That's when he flies out for Peru. He'll be there for almost a week. He gets back home on Wednesday afternoon, the 26th. And the following Tuesday we move!!! It is so crazy. There are days when it feels like time is going really fast, but at the same time there are days when I think to myself 'can't we just go already?!'. The grace that God has granted us is starting to lift and we are ready to move on. We are super excited for what lies ahead for us in PA. We are really excited to watch the girls' reactions to all of the new stuff - especially the cold weather! They have absolutely no idea what 'cold' is. The coldest it gets here is probably in the mid to upper 70's. Patience is something that runs thin when living in extreme heat like this. In fact, friends of ours were telling us that there are more murders in the city during this time of the year because people just flip out over every little thing. I even notice it with my patience with the girls, and have to watch myself. There are days where I am just miserable because of the heat and there's NOTHING you can do about it! Something Chad started doing recently to be able to fall asleep at night, is that he takes a hand towel, makes it wet and lays it on his chest as he lays in bed with a fan right by his side blowing over him. It is going to be quite the temperature shock for us, leaving the hottest time of year here and arriving there at the coldest time of year. Here are some more pictures...

Callie, Giselle, Larissa & Elysia
The two buddies

9 weeks old already!

Chad's 31st birthday!

Chad with his Spanish teacher, Marta, from Peru.

the girls figured out a new way to 'ride' their tricycles

these next few pictures were taken at the neighbor's house where they were playing with a skateboard. These neighbors have been such a blessing to us - the girls love it there and they help us out with the girls so much.

Monkeys, etc.

Time sure is winding down. 26 days from today until we begin our journey north. We leave Juazeiro on the 2nd. Chad's mom meets us in Fortaleza on the 3rd, and on the 5th we fly out! This first picture is of the countdown calendar I made for the girls and have it hanging on the refrigerator. Each morning we put a sticker over the previous day. Chad informed me that the calendar looks very 'girly', but I guess that's what happens when you have 4 little girls!

Here are the girls ready for night-time devotions.

Callie and I getting a little shut-eye

Can anyone guess what these two pictures are??? The answer is under the next picture...

No, not gum...... they were crayons that were left lay on the concrete outside in the hot sun. Just to give you an idea of the intensity of the heat here!

Elysia with the kitten across the street.

Elysia

Priscila's little Giovanna & Callie sleeping next to eachother.

This was at our friends' house on Sunday afternoon. They have mango trees, and there is a big family of little monkeys that live in them. We got bananas for them, and they came down really close to us to get them. There were even 2 that were carrying little babies on their backs.

Priscila feeding the monkeys

Here's one with a baby on its back.

Giselle trying to feed the monkeys.

Priscila & Giovanna

Callie

"Romaria"

I mentioned in the last post about the pilgrimage (called Romaria in Portuguese) we were having here in Juazeiro because of the statue of Padre Cícero we have here. Chad was actually out with a group from YWAM distributing evangelistic material at the time I was writing the post. He had the camera and took a few pictures...

Here are busses that brought the people - lining a normally fairly empty street.