Pictures

I have so many pictures from this past week, so I decided just to do one big post with pictures, rather than different posts with the different pictures. It's faster that way. Late tonight we will be receiving a youth team from The Fireplace in PA, and they will be here for 10 days. It will be lots of fun and I will be quite busy. So you may not hear from me for a little while. We'll see how it goes. Anyway... enjoy the pictures...

Here I am... 29 weeks.
Here's our little thumb-sucker. As soon as she gets her blankey in her hand, her thumb goes right to her mouth.
So proud of herself that she climbed on top of the wash basket.
We got a box out of storage the other day that happened to have a bunch of baby stuff in, including pacifiers. The girls found them and thought they were so much fun to play with. None of them actually suck pacifiers (Larissa did until she was 2), so it was funny.
What is it about boxes that just amazes kids?

Our pastor from our home church in PA, Duane Britton, came to visit and meet Victor & Vânia.
This is Vânia showing all the desserts she made in one day. That's a lot of brownies and cupcakes!! She is doing such a wonderful job and really picked it up fast.

Each dessert gets individually wrapped.

I had taken the pillows of our bed to make it, and the girls promptly decided to play on them and pretend they were sleeping. Elysia managed to get on the bottom of the pile, and her head was actually under Giselle in the first picture.


This is us with Beth in the booth downtown where we sell our American desserts.

This was a hosing-down session after the girls were playing in sand all morning at the church while we were baking. Giselle loves being sprayed right in the face and she flails her arms and runs in place. It kinda reminds me of Tommy Boy at the gas station getting sprayed (for those of you from my generation who know the movie-haha).

Here is a tarantula that was on the back wall here. The leg span (top to bottom) was about 6 inches. We wanted to put something next to it so that in the picture you could really get a feel for the size. So Chad (who was taking the picture) put his hand next to it, but before he could take the picture, it spooked the spider and it dropped off the wall. So the 2nd picture is of it down in the flowerbed, but you still can't really tell how huge it was!

"June festival"

Here in Brazil, at least in the northeast (I'm not sure about the rest of the country), in the month of June there are parties where everyone dresses up as "hillbillies" and we eat a lot of traditional interior foods and there is also square-dancing. These parties are usually for Saint John, but we always do one at the church and we call it the "Saint Jesus party". It's always a lot of fun seeing everyone all dressed up and just having a good time. Here are a bunch of pictures from our party Saturday night at the church.

Chad and I - my maternity wardrobe didn't allow for many options in looking very 'hillbilly'.Here's the whole fam... you can see my belly a little bit here. I'm 28 weeks along now - almost 3/4 of the way!

Here is a picture of the table of the tradional foods we sold.
Elysia hanging out with the older kids. They are (l-r): Lisandra, Lídia, Christine (from Germany) & Bruno.

Larissa & Christine - she leaves to go back to Germany on July 14th... my girls are going to miss her!!!
Chad and the boys: Adriano & Bruno (standing) and Marcio sitting in front.
This is the food stand.


Larissa was NOT in the mood to have her picture taken!
Vanessa (the daughter of the new pastors), Larissa & Elysia
Chad leading a time of worship.

Time is flying by!

I have some pictures to post today. I can't believe how fast June is flying by all of a sudden. May went slow for me, but now that business is picking up and I hardly have time for anything other than taking care of the girls and baking cupcakes, time is flying by. In just a little over a month we will be headed to Juazeiro (our last 'leg' here in Brazil before heading to PA in December). This weekend the pastor from our home church in PA, Duane Britton, will be visiting us - getting here on Saturday and leaving on Tuesday. Then next Monday, June 30th, we will be having a youth team from a DOVE church in Myerstown, PA called The Fireplace come for 10 days. They will be doing a vacation bible school here with us, which should be really cool. I'm sure those 2 weeks will fly by and then we'll be half way through July already. Here are pictures from this week:
Giselle talking on the 'skype-phone' with Grandma Wenger. She had just woken up!












One of Elysia's favorite places to crawl into these days.












Happy playing with her toys.













Larissa getting in the pool at swimming class. She always takes a bit longer than Giselle. Giselle jumps right in, but Larissa needs time to adjust to the cool water.










Vânia making desserts with us. Here she's making whoopie pie cookies. On the counter are chocolate cupcakes, brownies and chocolate chip cookie bars. Back against the wall you can see our industrial oven. We can fit both of those whoopie pie flat sheets in at a time, or 4 cupcake pans.

Larissa playing in the sand while we work.

Baking and Bugs

This week has been a rollercoaster, as our lives seem to be right now (emotionally, and in any way possible it seems). Right now we've been praying for guidance with this dessert business and even trying to decide if it is something that we should keep investing into or not. The vision from the very beginning was for this business to prosper in order to bless the church financially, bless people with jobs, and then hopefully be able to help finance Chad's future trips down here. At the store location where we opened up at a month and a half ago, sales have been extremely low. It is a very new mall, and the administration has been very corrupt and hasn't been advertising to get people in. So the main problem is a lack of customers. What Beth has been doing, is going out with the desserts to a market nearby to sell. This has been working ok, but we still aren't selling enough to be able to offset our expenses. So we've been brainstorming about what we can do differently (without incurring more costs) to sell more. One main idea we have come up with is to find people to go out to various open-markets around the city selling, and they would just earn comission. So that is where we're at right now - we're praying for God to show us who those people are. Our big selling item has been cupcakes. We started making them the "filled" cupcakes, where you cut a circle out of the top and fill it with icing and then put the top back on. People just think they are so pretty. So right now we make chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting, banana cupcakes with vanilla frosting, pumpkin cupcakes with cream-cheese frosting and lime cupcakes with a lime custard filling. We also sell cookies, brownies, yum-yum cupcakes and apple danish squares. Sometime soon I will try to post some pictures of the goodies and of us making them. We are training Vânia (the new pastor's wife) to make the desserts, and she is catching on really well. On Thursday, Chad was downtown all day helping Beth sell desserts, and Vânia and I made 255 cupcakes!! That was a really long day on our feet. We started at 8am, took 1 hour off for lunch (in which time I fed the girls, showered them and put them down for a nap) and it was nearly 7pm until we finished wrapping everything in plastic wrap. I learned that I need to wear sneakers when I'm on my feet all day instead of just my flip-flops! We have renewed excitement for the business, as Chad just learned today that the shopping mall where our store is located is getting new administration and that things are really going to get better there. So our hope is that in the future Beth will be busy there and will be sending others out from there to sell at the markets. We just continue to pray and do our best to leave it in the Lord's hands and believe that He will make it prosper.

In other parts of our "world", things are going well. We had an incident with Elysia on Wednesday night. We were over at the church making desserts and the 3 girls were outside playing in the sand. All of a sudden Elysia started crying. I realized she had a dirty diaper, so I took her home (just across the street) to change her. As I was carrying her over, she started to really cry hard and kick her feet and pull at her hair. It was odd, and as I was changing her diaper, I noticed that her left arm from her elbow down was bright red and her hand was swollen. I decided to run to the pharmacy with her (down here there are little first-aid/nurse's offices in the pharmacies to attend to minor injuries). She pretty much screamed the whole time I was there with her, but the nurse there said it looked like she was bitten by a bug and she sold me an allergy/insect bite cream to put on it. It was almost bed-time, so soon after I got back home with her I put her to bed. It took her a while to settle down, but she finally did and by morning she was back to her normal happy self. There are a lot of poisonous insects/animals down here, so it always scares me a little more when something like this happens. Then on Thursday morning while Vânia and I were making desserts, Giselle & Larissa called for me saying, "Mommy, look, a big caterpillar!" I went to see it, and here it was one with really long hairs on it. I showed it to Vânia, and her eyes got big and she said "that is what they call a Fire Caterpillar, because its hairs burn your skin really bad". Thank goodness the girls didn't touch it! I've learned that insects are "Super-sized" down here!!

Medical Clinic

Last week was a hectic but exciting week. We were able to help translate for a medical team of about 25 Americans who came down to do a week-long free clinic. It was held at a church in a very poor neighborhood about 20 minutes from us. The team consisted of Medical Doctors, Nurses, Pediatricians, Gynecologists, Eyedoctors, a Dentist and Pharmacists. They had a huge stock of medications shipped down ahead of time to go through customs and be ready to go when they got here.

Here is how the system worked. People lined up outside the church (the line would start the evening of the previous day and they would spend the night in line so they could get in the next day). As they came in, they would fill out an information sheet and check off their symptoms. Then they would go to "Triage" where a nurse would ask them some further questions, take their temperature, blood pressure and in some cases do an insulin test. Then they would be sent to the proper doctor. After their consultation with the doctor, if they were prescribed medications they would go to the in-house pharmacy to pick up their medications... all of this for FREE!! Then if they were not yet Christians, they had the opportunity to be presented with the gospel in one-on-one evangelism. At least 350 people gave their hearts to the Lord last week through this evangelism!! I never heard the figures, so I don't know how many people were seen by the doctors. I believe last year they saw 2,300 people and they were hoping to get more through this year. The system was very organized, and I was very impressed with it!

Chad and I took turns going - he went Tuesday and Thursday and I went Wednesday and Friday. On Wednesday I was in Triage translating for a 22-year old girl by the name of Hanna who is a nursing student in Texas. On Wednesday I was in pediatrics translating for a nurse from Nashville, TN, who works in a burn center. I learned so much from her - I loved it!! We saw so many sick little children and babies. Leah listened to the heart of a little 3-year old girl, and was a bit perplexed when she was hearing the heart more on the right side than the left. She had the other pediatrician listen and he confirmed that the little girl probably has a condition where she was born with her organs all on the opposite side of her body than normal. Several other doctors came in to take a listen, and the poor little girl got a little scared with all those people around her with their stethascopes listening to her heart. Her mom got a bit scared too, but the doctor just encouraged her to take the little girl to the hospital to get an x-ray to confirm it, and also just to make sure it isn't a symptom of something more serious going on. It seemed to me that something like this should have been picked up in a routine medical exam sometime in this little girl's life before now. But this is just one more instance of the quality of the public health system down here... another case and point...

A little 3-year old boy came in and his mom said he was having really labored breathing and that this happens often with him. They usually take him to the hospital, they give him a shot and he gets better and they send him home without any further explaination. Leah asked him to take his shirt off so she could listen to his lungs. We saw right away that his little belly was going in and out so fast, and as soon as she started listening she said, "this little guy has asthma". When I translated that to the mom, she was completely shocked. We counted his respirations and that little belly was going in and out 74x/min. The doctor hooked him up with an inhaler immediately, although that was a bit scary for the little guy. Hopefully by now he is used to his inhaler and is having a much better time breathing because of it.

One thing that frustrated me was how many moms came in complaining that their child doesn't want to eat right - "he/she just wants to eat cookies and candy" - as if the doctor could give a magic pill to make the child eat right!! The problem is that the moms allow the children to eat like that, and it starts at a very young age. Then when the child starts getting older, mom expects him/her to start eating well-balanced meals. And then when the child doesn't want to eat good food, mom starts yelling at the child and can't figure out why he/she doesn't want to eat. We need to start training them early on so we don't have to re-train later. In our house, cookies, candy and snacks are REWARDS for having eaten a good meal, and they aren't even given every day. We see this in the area of discipline down here too. So often, babies and young children are not disciplined at all because "they are innocent and don't understand". Then when they get older and start blaintently disobeying, the parents get verbally (and sometimes physically) abusive. But it is just a logical sequence - if the child was never held responsible for his/her actions before and could disobey without any consequences, why is he/she going to all of a sudden start obeying? Elysia is 1yr. and 1mo. and we are already starting to see her little "human nature" come out. We are already needing to teach her that she doesn't always get her way (and that it is NOT cute when she throws herself on the floor in a fit), and just because she "can" crawl up the steps doesn't mean it is safe and permissible for her to do so. Anyway... just a little ranting from me :) Being a mom, and parenting in general is something I am a bit passionate about. I enjoy reading books on it, and am currently reading "On Becoming Child Wise", which is on parenting your child from 3-7 years.

Back to the clinic. I felt very privileged to be able to be a part of such an amazing project of compassion. The people that came in were certainly the poorest of the poor. There were at least 2 families that I saw on Friday that I would guess by their appearance that they were probably homeless. But yet they were so happy! Something that I want to definitely take back with me from our time here in Brazil is to remember how many people are out there in the world in need. I want to do my best to give of my time and resources whenever possible to help those in need around us. There in the states the poor & needy are so well hidden, but they are there! One of my biggest prayers right now is that God helps me to not just get into the daily grind of life and forget about reaching out to the lost and hurting in this world. I also have such a desire to see the church rise up and do more to reach out to the needy.

On another note, please pray with us about the dessert business. We had a few good days 2 weeks ago, but things are pretty slow again. We just need a lot of wisdom in how to push forward and what contacts to make to boost sales. We need to see it take off a bit by the end of June here to continue. We have been investing so much personally (financially & physically) into it, and just need confirmation from the Lord as to whether we are to continue or not.

This post ended up being much longer than I expected, and I don't even have any new pictures for you all. Sorry about that. But trust me, the girls are as cute as ever and haven't changed much since last week :) Elysia's new thing is that she nods and shakes her head to answer questions... and does so correctly. It's really cute. She also follows simple instructions well, i.e. "shut the door" "put it back/away" "give it to me".

Hope you all have a great week. Not sure if I will post again before next Monday. We'll see how the week goes.

Cute Pictures

Here are a few fun pictures from last night. Sunday nights are my best picture times with the girls because that's when I get to dress them all up for church. During the week we don't go out much, and here at home they are often in just their underwear/diaper (especially Elysia) due to the wonderful tropical heat. So I love dressing up my little girls - I think they look so cute. Just the other day when I was doing their hair, I had to think about how much time I am going to need in the future to do 4 little girls' hair for church!! They are all 3 sporting their new shoes that we got them this week. Elysia is wearing her first pair of flip-flops (complete with the elastic strap around the back, which does not always prevent her from taking them off).


Elysia in her cute outfit sent for her birthday from G-pa & G-ma Miller.



















The two buds - they are soooo into playing pretend and wrestling these days. It often ends in crying, and we often find ourselves saying... "it's all fun and games until...."


































The three happy sisters.













Eatin' some pizza in front of the tube... see what I mean about the panties and diaper attire??

Bakery...

So this is what it feels like to have a bakery or bread-store, etc... Chad has woken up at 5am the past 2 days to start making desserts!! This is a good thing! Yesterday (Saturday) Beth sold our new record high of 65. Monday was 50 and the other days in the week were a little weaker. But yesterday she also got an order from a restaurant for 44 chocolate cupcakes for this morning. Chad also made contact with 2 restaurants nearby here who are trying out our stuff. If they would really start selling, our wholesale sales could really skyrocket. We feel like this business is just on the verge of really taking off. It's exciting!! As our responsibilities here in the ministry are gradually being taken over by others, it's nice to have something else to throw ourselves into. Please pray for wisdom for us in all of the decisions that need made along the way! Our desire is to see this business up and running smoothly by the end of July when we go to Juazeiro.