Five to One: 32 Days

Today marks 32 days until we leave Juazeiro! Things are winding down quickly. Two weeks from tomorrow, Nov. 16th, Chad leaves for Peru. He will be gone for 10 days, getting back on the 26th. That is a Wednesday, and the following Tuesday we leave Juazeiro, go to Fortaleza for 2 days, and then on to good old Pennsylvania! Chad's mom will be flying down and meeting us in Fortaleza to help with the kids on the trip back. What a blessing that will be! Last night we sold our first household item... the playpen. That at least freed up some space in our little bedroom, which is serving as an office too. We have some buyers for some of our other things already too, but we're asking people to wait until the end to get the stuff. The girls were a bit confused as this strange person came in and we packed up the playpen and sent it with them. Please pray with us for buyers for all of our things. We have everything priced pretty low - we're not trying to make a mint off of our stuff, and we want to be able to sell it easily and not have to chase after buyers.

Update on our kids' health: The last 2 posts have been about the stomach flu which came around twice. I'm guessing it was the stomach flu, but medically speaking it would have had to have been two different strands, right? At any rate, Giselle, Larissa and Elysia had it twice, although the 2nd time Giselle and Elysia didn't have vomiting, but just diarrhea. Larissa had it the worst both times. By Tuesday night they were all doing pretty good. However, Larissa continues to complain constantly about her belly hurting. It's gotten progressively worse and this morning she complained all morning. Worms are a problem down here, but I gave her medicine for that about 4 months ago, so it shouldn't be that already again. If she doesn't get better tomorrow I'll probably take her to the doctor on Monday. Please pray for her and for wisdom for me in what to do for her.

This weekend is a HUGE pilgrimage to our city to visit the 'Padre Cícero' statue. Father Cícero was from Juazeiro and the people wanted him to be named a saint in the Catholic church, but then was not recognized as one (I'm not sure why). But even still, the people idolize him very much and they come from all over the country to 'pay their promise' to him. The statue is up on the top of a big hill overlooking the city, and people will climb up the mountain on their knees in hopes that he will answer their prayer in return for their suffering. The climb literally mangles their legs! It is truly sad, the faith people put in this dead person and think that they have to DO something so horrible and mutilating to their body in order to receive an answer to prayer. How opposite that theology is from the free gift of direct communion we have with God through Jesus! I wish I knew the number of people that come to the city for this pilgrimage... they used to say that the city doubles its population, which is 300,000. Chad went with the church to help with an evangelistic outreach this afternoon and evening to the 'romeiros', or the people who have come on this pilgrimage.