The Art of Being

The importance of technique

2012-01-15T17:41:00.000-02:00

On the 4th of January, the dancers of our new team started training. Each day, we have 4-6 hours straight of intense dance class. In the first week of training, most of us were out of shape. I love dancing, but that first week was difficult. I was sore all over, and my shoulders were sensitive and bruised from doing shoulder rolls. The second or third day of classes, there was a young man who watched most of our class. He`s a singer in Jeova Nissi. I didn´t know why he was watching. It turned out that God wanted to talk to him.

The next day, he came to our class to share what God had shared with him. He comes from a church that doesn´t believe in technique. They believe that if you are doing it for God (music, dance or whatever), then it doesn´t matter how you do it. Yesterday God gave him a picture of Woody Woodpecker, and a lady who made a cake and put it in the window. The smell of the cake traveled through the air to Woody Woodpecker, who then followed the smell to the cake. God said that the smell is symbolic of our technique and that will lead people to him. God said to him ``I don´t care about your technique. To me it doesn´t matter. But to my people that I want to reach and save, technique does matter!´´

He also saw us as an army and every time our teacher gave us a correction, he heard him say ``Chelsea, pick up your sheild. Lucas take up your sword.´´ It was as if our technique was our weapon to take to battle. Then he got a picture of a war movie in which there was a giant map and the generals were planning their strategy. Exept they were saying ``Chelsea will go here and do a devlope, then Gustavo will go there and do a pirouette.´´ They were using technique as their strategy to go into battle.

The audience that we are aiming to reach are the artists of Brazil. How else can we reach them, but with quality? But quality by itself is not enough. They already have that. Our strategy is to reach these people with quality and with our lives full of love and passion for God and his Kingdom.

Encontrart Summer!

2012-01-12T08:30:00.000-02:00

The second week of December Jeova Nissi held an art's intensive that eventually became called "Encontrart Summer" Encontrart is a combination of the Portuguese word for encounter or get together, and the word "art". It's summer here in Brazil right now (yes, I know you're jealous) and since Brazilians tend think that English is super cool everyone started using the English word "summer".

So what was Encontrart Summer? It was where 250 Brazilians and 6 Chileans came to study dance or drama for a week. There were 4 classes per day from 9 am to 6:30 pm with an hour for lunch. Every night there was worship service that lasted 1-2 hours, followed by one of Jeova Nissi's plays.

Before the intensive started, there was a lot of work to do. All 7 Jeova Nissi teams returned to home base tohelp. There were people cleaning, building walls, setting up hugetents for classes and planting gardens all at the same time.

After the intensive started, all Jeova Nissi members worked together to make the intensive happen. Some people cleaned bathrooms, others cooked, others washed dishes and others taught classes. I got lucky and got put on the video and photography team. I spent the week taking and editing pictures. I also got to help teach some dance classes. At the end of the week, we made a DVD of videos and pictures that the students could buy. Our team stayed up all night burning DVDs. I got to go to bed at 6 in the morning, only to have to get up at 9 to catch a bus. I guess being on the cleaning team had it's benefits too....

My first day of Jeova Nissi

2012-01-06T07:58:00.000-02:00

I sat towards the back of the long,narrow church. The stage was dark and 5 or 6 actors stood frozenholding candles. One of the actors had stopped the play to shareword with the church. As the other actors waited, she shared that Godwanted to expand the territory of the church and that God was evengoing to start bringing people inside the church without even beinginvited. I was trying to concentrate on what she was saying, but mymind began to wander. I had arrived in São Paulo 6:30 am. thatmorning after a sleepless night on an airplane.

I had been picked up from the airportand spent the morning at a friend of a friend's apartment. The JeovaNissi team picked me up on the way to the church to perform theirplay about the persecuted church. Stuffed in a van with 14enthusiastic, teasing, playful people (most of whom I didn't know), Iwas feeling very introverted and shy. I wished that I could disappear until I got used the situation, or at the very least that peoplewould stop talking to me. Speaking Portuguese isn't easy afterfurlough, especially when sleep deprived.

After an hour or two of travel, we hadarrived at the church. I was relieved to sit by myself and watch theplay. I didn't have to say anything, do anything or meet anyone forthe moment, and so

there was very little chance for me tomess up, do or say the wrong thing.

The actress finished saying what Godhad given her to say and so the play continued. The missionary couplemade it to North Korea, were separated. When they finally found eachother, they were captured for preaching the gospel and the husbandwas shot as he sang “I'll worship you. No matter the circumstance.”Several stories of martyrs were told. Persecutors cut out the tongueof a missionary, and he used his own blood to write “Jesus lovesyou”.

I had seen the play a few times before, but it was stilldifficult to watch. The elderly lady in front of my gasped in horroreach time a missionary was hit or kicked. The faces of everyonewatching were tense and concentrated. Suddenly a man walked into thechurch and down the asile screaming. I knew the play and I knew thathe was not a part of it. A few leaders stood in the asile, blockinghim from going onto the stage. The actors paused, waiting to see whatwould happen. The man screamed that he was furious at the church andfurious at God. He said that his wife and daughter were there and hewasn't leaving without them. He cursed God because he had asked for ason and his wife gave birth to a daughter. The church thought he was manifesting a demon and they all stuck out their hands at him prayingloudly. He got even madder and started throwing chairs around. People(who were already on edge because of the intensity of the play)started freaking out and leaving the church. “Guys, calm down”one of the actresses said. “Don't you remember the word at thebeginning of the play? How are you going to respond to the peoplethat God brings to your church?”

The pastor was able to take the manoutside. He and a couple guys from Jeova Nissi were able to calm himdown and talk to him. He wasn't manifesting, he was just really mad(and probably using substances). I think that the fact that he wentto the church, expressed his anger and heard what the pastor had tosay is the first step in many as God woos his heart to him.

After the play was over, they assuredme that every performance isn't like that. But I was encouraged thatit did happen. I want to live expecting the unexpected, where thingsmay not be neat and tidy, but God is invited to move as he pleases. I will admit, however, it was an intense beginning of my time with this ministry.

The Story of 2011

2011-12-30T10:30:00.000-02:00

A year ago, I was in a little river town called Porto de Moz celebrating the holidays with some of my best missionary friends, and my little sister. I was doing really well. I was doing exactly what I loved doing in ministry, I was in a really good living situation and I had good friends. I was giving and receiving and very happy.

In the beginning of the year, Xingu Mission experienced some changes. The Plederer family moved to a different mission, the Stevensons moved back to Canada and later the Kubacki's moved to the States so that they could eventually move to Angola. I knew that God was calling me to leave Altamira in April, but I wasn't yet sure where he wanted me to go.

In the meantime, I continued to invest in the lives of young leaders. God has already raised up and is using some of them, and I believe his has much bigger things in store for them. I began to feel called to the Xingu Mission base in Maraba, and planned to move there in April. I began to say goodbye to my dear friends.

One event was very special for me was the "March for Jesus". This was a parade in which tons of people from all kinds of denominations walked through the city worshiping and praying for government buildings, hospitals, etc. It was a powerful day, and I had so much fun worshiping, dancing and interceding for the city that I had grown to love so much.

Only a week before my move to Maraba, I met a team from Jeova Nissi and became friends with Leiliane and André. God started to speak to me and show me things but I didn't have a clue what they meant.

So I moved to help with the Vineyard church in Maraba. I moved without knowing how God wanted to use me, but it turned out that I was able to help the band and I loved investing in the ministry and in the member's lives. I also helped with a cell group. Even though the group didn't last very long, I got to see God moving strongly and it was very fun to be a part of.

I lived with these three beautiful girls. Some of the best times we had was when we orded pizza. Another great time was when I gave them my fake snow (the kind that looks like the inside of a diaper.) These girls spent the whole evening slipping and sliding around the kitchen, throwing the fake snow at each other. I've never seen sillier girls or a messier kitchen.

We had some great times as a church too. Here we are at "redneck night" at our youth group. Despite these good times, I was really struggling. After the Bergens left to spend a year in Canada, the spiritual warfare became really intense and I didn't have the support I needed to function well. It all happened the way God wanted it to happen and he had a lot to teach me through that time. I began to emotionally and socially close up, and I knew I wasn't ok.

God opened the doors for me to go to Sao Paulo to spend a week at Jeova Nissi studying dance at their arts intensive. Oh how I soaked up every second of worship and valued every quiet moment with God. He gave rest for my soul and slowly opened me back up. Job 5:18 says "for he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures but his hands also heal." (see also Deut. 32:39) He taught me that he knows better than I what I need and don't need, and that I can fully trust him to care for me.

While I was at Jeova Nissi, God totally surprised me by leading me to join that ministry. I am still totally blown away by that story and everything God did and said. He completely changed everything in such a beautiful way. I returned to Maraba and started the sad process of transitioning away from that place. Here is a picture of my room and everything I tried to fit into 2 suitcases! My roommates graciously agreed to help me out with what didn't fit ;)

Because Jeova Nissi doesn't give very much time off during the year, in October I went to the US to spend some quality time with my beloved family. I fully enjoyed my time with them. Hopefully it'll be enough to last me a while.

This furlough, I tried not to be too busy and to focus more on family. It was by far my best furlough yet. I also thoroughly enjoyed being back at my church, getting to have some good conversations with my pastors, and seeing supporters and friends. I'm so thankful for this time that I had. I love my family so much!

I moved to the base of Jeova Nissi to start dancing, training and rehearsing. I'm really excited about the play our team is going to be doing... more on that later ;) When I arrived, I started traveling with the same team that I met in Altamira, helping with ministry time and with the merchandise table and learning about how Jeova Nissi works. Even in the little that I've traveled with the team I've seen God move in really cool ways and have seen many people accept Jesus. I've also started translating some English material and working with photography for the ministry. (dancers, please forgive the tension in my hand and other errors in this picture...)

A couple weeks ago, we had another arts intensive at our base and I got to help with it, (and take some dance classes in between helping :). I mostly helped with photography, and helped teach some ballet classes.

Right now, we have some time off and I'm spending the holidays in a beautiful beach town called Ubatuba. Here I am in a surf shop with André. I've been relaxing, reflecting and having fun, and getting filled up a little before the craziness of rehearsing in January.

One of several waterfalls in Ubatuba

I don't think I've ever had a year with so much change or so much personal growth. I've had the privilege to see God work in huge ways both in the lives of those around me and in my own life, more than any other year. And I believe that this is only the beginning. God has more for me, in every area of my life. Let's go further up and further in!

I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who finically supported me this year. You have a part in everything that happened this year, and without you none of this would have happened. God used you, both in the lives of many Brazilians and in my own life. Thank you so much.

To all my family and friends I want to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year filled with God's peace and presence. May he bless you limitlessly.

A quick look at December

2011-12-21T17:12:00.000-02:00

My first month of being with JeovaNissi has gone really well. I started traveling with a team rightaway, which was really good for me. I didn't preform with them, but Ihelped with the ministry time and with the merchandise table afterthe play. It's been really good for me to observe how they do thingsand learn more about the ministry. I'm also helping the ministry with some translating work. They've had me translate a Misty Edwards song for them, and I'm in the middle of correcting the subtitles in English for one of their DVDs.

Early in December, we stopped traveling to help prepare for a week long artsintensive. All 7 teams returned to home base to help. There werepeople cleaning, building walls, setting up huge tents for classesand planting gardens all at the same time.

The intensive was attended by about 250Brazilians and 6 Chileans. I mostly helped with the media team (videoand photography) and I helped teach some dance classes as well.

I got to help with worship a little too. There's a Chilean on the worship team too, and we sang Revelation Song in Spanish, English and Portuguese. I love participating in multi-lingual worship! It went really well. Because it was the last day, everyone on the band used theater make up. It turned out pretty cool.

In January, we will start rehearsingthe play that I will be a part of. The goal of the play is to reachsecular artists. Our play will involve musicians, singers, dancersand acrobats and we will spend several months rehearsing andtraining. I'm excited to see what God has for us.

God of Plenty

2011-12-19T17:12:00.000-02:00

In the last few posts, I told the story about how God brought me to a place where he was my only source of life, and how he blessed me in that place and out of that place. My time in the US with my family was practically the opposite. I came out of a empty place into a place of overabundance. I had my family, a place of love and security. I had machines to wash and dry my clothes and my dishes. I had the freedom and a car to take me anywhere I wanted to go. I had friends to laugh with, games to play, and delicious food to fatten me up. It is absolutely amazing to me how quickly I can forget just how dependent I am on God.

But just like in everything, God is incredibly patient with me. He used the time with my family to bless me generously and teach me who He is in the middle of plenty. I created the picture below to share some of what God taught me.

Even though my furlough ended a while ago, I wanted to share with you some things that happened.

We gained a new addition to our family! Eduarda is a Brazilian foreign exchange student that will stay with our family until June. We are very happy to have her.

William came to visit us from Houston and we had a wonderful time with all of us siblings together. Here we are enjoying Hocking Hills.

I had the pleasure of taking Julia's senior pictures. Personally, I think they turned out rather well ;)

I dressed up as an old lady for a Halloween alternative at our church. Julia was dressed for a victorian tea party and Eduarda dressed up as a farmer.

We went bowling! I started out strong and got increasingly worse, lol. I did get one strike.

In honor of my favorite season, we carved pumpkins. Please note Julia's hobbit hole pumpkin.

I was thrilled to be able to celebrate my Grandmother's 90th birthday with her along with the rest of my family. She is a huge blessing to all of us!

2011-12-13T18:28:00.000-02:00

I´m just stopping in to say hi! I´ve been very busy and have had very little internet access so far. I arrived at the Jeova Nissi base 2 weeks ago and have been involved in quite a bit since then. So far it´s been really good! I have a lot of pictures that I´ll hopefully be able to share with you soon :) As soon as I can, I´ll post more here. I already have many good stories!

My New Ministry: Jeova Nissi

2011-10-30T12:04:00.005-02:00

What is Jeova Nissi?

Jeova Nissi is a ministry that was started 11 years ago by a professional actor who wanted to reclaim the arts for Jesus. They use plays to evangelize, and challenge the Brazilian church to grow in a real and intimate relationship with Jesus. Each of their plays have a different theme, such as the persecuted church, hypocrisy in the church, dealing with tragedy, family problems, the way Satan plays with accusation, etc. They have five teams and each team performs one play.

For example, the Tortura team is invited to minister at several churches in Rio. So they travel to Rio by van and do their play at the first church. Their play, Tortura, is about the persecuted church, and after the play there is a ministry time. They let God direct the ministry time, and nothing happens the same way twice. After the whole thing is done, they clean up, hang out with the people from that church, and eat dinner. In each place they go, someone from one of the churches finds them a house or somewhere to stay. They could stay at someone's house, the church a hotel, split up to a lot of different houses... it varies from place to place. The next day they will do the same play at the next church, and that pattern will continue until they go to their next town.

The churches that invite them provide meals and a place to stay. Some members of Jeova Nissi don't have any supporters and depend entirely on God for everything they need.

At this time, Jeova Nissi has about 60-70 members. Their members are from all over Brazil. They come from different denominations and different backgrounds. A few years ago, they started an orphanage in Angola. Today they have over 500 children. The orphanage is entirely run through donations given through Jeova Nissi. International missions is very important to them, and the countries Angola, Russia and China are especially heavy on thier hearts.

What will I be doing?

I will be joining a team of 10-15 other actors and dancers. Together we will be learning a brand new play that the leader of our company wrote. The play will probably last about an hour to an hour and a half, and will incorporate dance (ballet and modern), and, it is rumored, acrobatics and martial arts. Soon, we will all meet at the Jeova Nissi base to start rehearsing the play. When we're ready, we'll start traveling around Brazil, performing the play in churches, schools, community centers, or wherever.

Where will I be going?

We will eventually be going all over Brazil. Even though our company is based out of Ibiuna, São Paulo, we won't spend a lot of time there. They told me “your suitcase will be your house.”

How long will I be involved in this ministry?

Until God calls me somewhere else.

Oh how he loves me

2011-10-29T14:58:00.003-02:00

The story concludes...

Encontrart, the arts intensive, is any preforming artists dream. Practically everybody there is outgoing and fun loving. You instantly make lots of friends from all different churches, accents and backgrounds. You have 7 1/2 hours of challenging classes doing what you love. Everybody's whole body is sore. Everybody stays up late eating french fries and drinking hot chocolate. Everybody gets woken up at 7:30 by company members singing worship music.

A couple days into the intensive, I felt a huge desire to be a part of the company Jeova Nissi. This made no sense to me, God had clearly called me to Maraba, and I hadn't ever considered leaving the Xingu Mission (unless God called me back to the US.) Beyond that, I hadn't been seriously involved with drama since I was 11 years old. And how would that work with Portuguese being my second language? Plus, I'm a foreigner and it's a Brazilian company. Plus, you can't ask to join their ministry, you have to be invited, which is rare. Why would they invite a foreigner, who can't act and speaks Portuguese with an accent?? It just didn't make sense.

But the desire was so stinking strong that it becoming majorly distracting. So I sat down with God and asked him if the desire was my own, or if he had given it to me. God instructed me to write his response in my journal. This is part of what I wrote: "I know it's hard for you to see, but the plans I have for you are perfect. Your desire to be a part of Jeova Nissi comes from my heart." I protested that it would be impossible for me to join them. God continued "Chelsea, when will you stop looking through earthly eyes? My ways are higher than your ways. You give me everything, and your life will be more difficult, but it will also be more exciting more full of life and you will see the impossible happen. Chelsea, your desires are not a bad thing. I love you. I have the best for you."

That night during chapel, Caique (the leader of Jeova Nissi) announced that their team of dancers had received an invitation to study dance in Russia. (I didn't even know that they had a performance team of dancers.) Caique wanted to make a new team of dancers to take their place in Brazil. For the first time ever, they were having auditions during Encontrart. From those auditions, he would make a new team of dancers who would stay in Brazil.

I still felt like it was utterly impossible for me be a part of Jeova Nissi, but I was surprised by this new opportunity. I was like, "God do you want me to audition??" If God was a mere human being I think he would've said "um, duh!" but what I heard was "yes, Chelsea, that's your part. Take a risk and take action." I reluctantly said "ok, I'll audition. If you want to do a miracle and get me into the ministry, that's your job." (As you can see, I was overflowing with faith...not.) I didn't mention to my Jeova Nissi friends that I was going to audition, for fear of their reaction.

In your audition, you were allowed 2 minutes. I improv-ed to the Shannon Wexelburg song "Take My Life" (an english song.) I don't even know why, but I was nervous, so much so that my legs were shaking (this did not help me dance at all.) I felt like I did a pretty crappy job, but oh well, I did my part. It was a relief that it was over.

The next day, one of my friends from Jeova Nissi called me over to talk. He asked me if I was serious about wanting to join the company. I had to answer honestly that I didn't make any sense to me, but I felt like God was leading me in that direction. He had promised me a year and a half earlier that dance wasn't over for me, he had spoken through my best friend in Altamira, he had repetitively given me dreams in Maraba, he had provided a way for me to go to the intensive when that was impossible, he had put the desire in my heart and confirmed to me that it had come from him and had told me to trust him. My friend told me that the leader had made him the leader for the new group! He said that, if I was serious about joining the company, he wanted me on his team. I was shocked. I think my response was "but I'm an American! I can't participate in your plays [list of reasons why I'm not qualified]..." My friend just chuckled and was like "of course you can. We're not looking for professionals, but we're looking for people who are willing to learn and mostly who want to serve God and follow him wherever he leads."

All these details started rushing into my head "what about the Xingu Mission and Maraba? What about getting financial support? What about me being the only American?...etc." At the same time, I got so so so incredibly excited! It had been 9 years earlier that God had planted that dream in me... the dream to use ballet to honer God and expand his kingdom. And look at what God had done! He had put together a string of events that I couldn't have come up with if I had tried. I thought "God loves me this much to give me this opportunity? He loves me that much to have gone to all that trouble to speak to me in so many ways? He loves me that much to give me the desire of my heart?" I was overwhelmed.

I spent the rest of the intensive talking to God about this new ministry opportunity. I left the intensive almost in disbelief that it was really happening, but with absolute certainty that God was behind it, leading me in it and confirming that I was supposed to join Jeova Nissi.

When I arrived in Maraba, the first thing I did was call my mom and tell her the whole story. She cried because she knew how much this opportunity meant to me. She knew how I loved dancing, and felt God's special love for me in giving me this gift. Then I started the process of talking with leadership, training up a new worship leader, working with my Brazilian pastors... I wanted to leave Maraba well. It was with a heavy heart that I left Maraba, the Xingu Mission, the vineyard churches and all the dear friends I've made in the last 2 and a half years. I thank God for each day he allowed me to work along side the Xingu Mission missionaries and participate in the huge thing He's doing in the Amazon basin. The last 2 and a half years have been one of the biggest blessings of my life. I have grown, learned many things, been blessed beyond words and have truely seen God's miraculous work in me and through me and my brothers and sisters for His glory.

Jeova Nissi gives very little time off per year, so I have come to the US to spend some quality time with my family before I move to Ibiuna, São Paulo.

This move changes everything. I will be in a completely different area of Brazil, with Brazilian leadership, working with only Brazilians, doing a completely different type of ministry. My financial support completely changes, as its not possible to give tax deductible-y. In some ways, all this freaks me out. But mostly I feel incredibly blessed! It's an adventure full of unknowns, and I'm ready to jump into that.

Rest

2011-10-24T14:14:00.006-02:00

The week before I left for the Jeova Nissi arts intensive, I was a mess. I was only thinking about surviving until the day I left. I didn't pack until the morning of the day I left (why do I do that to myself??)

I took a bus from Maraba to Brasilia, Brazil's capital. The 30 hour ride was restful at times and tiring at others. I put only worship stuff on my iPod, and I had much uninterrupted time talking with God. However, it was a long night with a bunch of drunk guys shouting at the back of the bus. We arrived in Brasilia around 9 pm, I caught a taxi and went to my hotel, took a very welcome shower and slept.... until I woke up early to take another taxi to get to the airport to catch my flight. After only an hour and a half flight, I got to 1 airport in Sao Paulo, took a bus to another airport in Sao Paulo and met up with a huge group of people all going to the arts intensive. After one last 2 hour bus ride, we arrived at the Jeova Nissi mission base.

There were no classes that first day, we just settled in. I was exhausted. Physically, emotionally and spiritually. God gave me a good friend right off the bat. She was refreshing just because of the passion she had in wanting more of God. That night we had chapel, which was really just a couple hours of worship. God was there and he said "Chelsea, don't worry about questions or answers, issues or prayers. I just want you to rest in me." I was so tired, that it almost hurt to rest. We sang a song that said "Lord, you are worthy of my whole life." and I had trouble singing that. But I used that extended worship to soak, and that was just a relief. It was so different--worshipping along with hundreds of others without having to lead or organize anything, and without pressure or spiritual attack.

The next day I realized more than ever that this camp was exactly what I needed. What a gift from God to take me out of the desert and put me in that special place, a place with artists and God-seekers from all over Brazil. A place I could learn, rest and find healing.

Everyday, I woke up early and went down to the lake with my bible and iPod. There I had an hour or more of time with God, and everyone left me alone. I felt God stronger in those times than any other time in the day. He was filling me with peace and rest.

Then our classes started at 9 am. We had two classes in the morning, an hour break for lunch and then two classes in the afternoon. The classes were challenging for everyone, me included, and that was so much fun for me. In many of the classes, I was free to use dance to talk to God, and I was able to express my frustration, tiredness and questions without having to find words.

The last class ended at 6 and we had an hour to shower and eat before chapel. This would have been easy except that we were about a billion girls sharing a much smaller number of showers.

Every night, chapel went from around 7 to around 11:30. We spent the first hour or two worshipping. The worship involved music, dance, mime and sign language. Sometimes worship and ministry times blended together. After worship, Jeova Nissi did a different play each night. It wasn't like we stopped worship to watch a performance, though. These plays were like God talking straight to us. After each play, there was more ministry time.

All that time soaking in God's presence was so healing for me! I felt myself opening back up. I felt much more like Chelsea. It was like God was breathing life into me and each day I felt more and more alive.

After being there a few days, I asked God to reveal to me what was going on in my heart. He said that I was having trouble trusting him to take care of me. I felt like I gave him my whole life and obeyed him, and he left me hanging. I felt like he was only providing for some needs, but not all of them. It was true! I knew in my head that God will always provide for all my needs, but at some point in all the difficulties in Maraba, my heart had started to doubt that he was really taking care of me.

Basically, God had taken me away from Altamira--- away from my security, friends, love, fun, ministry, happiness, independence, etc. And taken me to a place where ALL I had was Him. He was my only source of life. I was going to him for life, but I had been feeling like he was witholding some life that he should have been giving me.

So I repented for that attitude and asked God how to change. What should I do now?

He asked me a question. "Chelsea, what does my care look like for the persecuted church? Am I taking care of my children who are being tortured?"

I didn't know how to answer that question. I meditated on it, and asked people what they thought, but I never came up with a perfect answer. But each day, God kept touching me more and more. I felt him doing something. I didn't know what it was, but it felt healing.

By the end of my time there, I did get to the point where my heart could truly say "God I trust you to sustain me. You know what I need better than I do. You get to choose what I need and what I don't need."

Each day I felt a little better. But it wasn't until my last day there did I feel that God had fully done whatever he was doing in me, and I was ready to go back to Maraba.

Learning to trust

2011-10-17T23:58:00.001-02:00

One of the things Jeova Nissi is famous for is their arts intensive in July. They call it Encontrart, which would be something like “Art Encounter” in English. I've talked about it in previous posts before. It's a place for preforming artists to get quality training so that they can grow in their God-given talents and use those talents to expand God's kingdom. When my friend from Jeova Nissi found out about my dance background, she thought maybe I could teach dance there. She said she'd talk to the person in charge of the dance teachers and find out.

This sounded like a really cool opportunity to me, and so I started praying about it. God said “trust me.”

My story continues after about 2 months living in Maraba. When the Bergens (the other ex-pat family) left for Canada, there was a definite increase in spiritual attack. My desire to go to the arts intensive went from “a cool opportunity” to being desperate for some spiritual rest and receiving. I still hadn't heard from Jeova Nissi, and all I could do was assume that it wouldn't work for me to go as a teacher. And yet as I continued to pray about it, God continued to say “trust me.” He didn't give me any more or less than that. Just “trust me.”

I began to look into going as a student. At this point, it was getting pretty close to the intensive and flights had become really expensive. To add tuition on top of that-- I just couldn't justify spending that much money for myself for just a week! Exactly how was I supposed to be trusting God? Should I be pursuing it more? Sould I just sit back and wait for God to do something?

I contacted my friend to see if she had heard anything about me being able to teach, and she didn't have any updates. Another friend from Jeova Nissi asked me if I would go to the arts intensive if it didn't work out to teach, and I explained that it was just too expensive for me.

Meanwhile, I was emotionally withering in Maraba. The spiritual warfare kept getting more and more intense. I was becoming less and less able to connect to people. I was gradually closing up and all I could do was worship. That was my only source of life. I can't tell you specifically what was so difficult, I just know I was doing all I could to seek life in God and still felt like I was drowning.

The deadline to sign up as a student arrived, and it finally hit me that I wasn't going to be able to go. I laid in my hammock and cried for a minute. I had really thought that God was going to provide a way for me to go. But God said, “careful not to have a pity party, Chelsea. You are living for me, remember? It's not about you.” His voice was gentle and full of love.

Then one morning, only 2 weeks before the intensive started, my friend called me to tell me he had talked to the leader of the company and had gotten me a tuition scholarship to the intensive. I was not expecting that! At the moment, my heart was so heavy that I didn't even get excited. After I finished the process of applying/signing up, it finally hit me that God had totally opened a closed door. I was so happy! God saw me and gave me a huge present in the middle of the desert! God continued to open the doors for me to arrange travel plans. To get down there, I figured out I could go half the way by bus (30 hours) and found a really cheap flight for the rest of the way. That cut the price of traveling in half.

It's funny how you can look back at a little event in your life and see how big and important it turned out to be. For me, the arts intensive was a place to seek God, and to seek rest and healing before heading back into a difficult situation. But I found out later that God had bigger plans. Me going to the intensive was his idea in the first place, and he had a plan for getting me there all along.

Getting to know Jeova Nissi

2011-10-11T11:29:00.012-03:00

Part of the Jeova Nissi team

... Continued from the dream.....

In March of this year, I had been hearing some announcements at church about some drama group coming or something like that, but I didn't pay much attention because I wasn't involved in the drama team at all at church. The night before the drama event was to take place, I was at a friend's house. He asked me if I was going to the Jeova Nissi workshop, and said no. He was like, "What?? The are only the most famous Christian drama ministry in Brazil! You need to go! Even if you just take pictures."

So the next day I went out to our church's ranch/cow farm/retreat center and brought my camera with me. I knew nothing about the ministry Jeova Nissi. When they arrived, we all got in a big circle and they explained who they were and talked about their ministry. They surprised me. They were a group of 11 Brazilian missionaries in their twenties from all different parts of Brazil. I felt like I could relate to them... they were my age, and had left their normal lives and their homes/families behind to be in full time ministry. They heard God calling them and they followed.

They explained that ministry Jeova Nissi uses the arts, mostly drama and music. The team is made up of teams, each having 10-15 people and each team performs a different play. Each play has a different theme, such as the persecuted church, wearing masks in church, dealing with tragedy, etc. They design their plays to be both evangelistic and challenge Christians at the same time. After the play, there is always ministry time. Each team travels all over Brazil, performing their play in churches, schools and community centers.

Then the team gave the people there some drama exercises and prayed for everyone. I got to talk to some of them afterward. It was really refreshing. They struck me as a mature and humble group.

That night, they ministered through their play at our church. I use the phrase "ministered" because, although their play is really well done, it isn't performancey at all. That being said, it was really intense. When asked afterward if I liked it, I said it was really really good, but no I didn't like it. It was about the persecuted church and the name of the play is Torture, if that gives you an idea. In the play, they compare the persecuted church with the Brazilian church, which in many cases can be self-centered, lukewarm or hypocritical, even though we have complete freedom to worship the Lord of the universe.

The Jeova Nissi team stayed in my city for a week, and during that time I became friends with some of them. I had a really good time with them. They really left a big impression on me.

After the Jeova Nissi team left to go to the next city, one of my best Brazilian friends turned to me and said "Chelsea, every time I look at you now, I see Jeova Nissi. You're going to be a part of that ministry some day." I laughed and was like "Yeah right, no I'm not. I don't do drama." However, during the whole time I was hanging out with the Jeova Nissi team, I kept remembering God's promise "Chelsea, dance is not over for you. Chelsea, dance is not over for you." This didn't make any sense to me, because I didn't think that dance was really used much in Jeova Nissi's plays. The other weird thing that happened is that a particular verse kept popping up everywhere, in sermons, when people were praying for me, in cards or emails I got....everywhere! The verse was "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."

Shortly after that, I moved to Maraba. Something weird happened then, I started dreaming every night that I had joined Jeova Nissi. I thought it was because I was having trouble getting used to my move to a new city, and I asked God to make them stop. They did stop, but only after a whole month had gone by. I thought it was really weird, because that kind of thing never happens to me. In fact the only other time where I had repeated dreams night after night, was when God was calling me to Brazil. But because it didn't make any sense, I ignored it and focused entirely on the church in Maraba.

..... To be continued.....

The dream

2011-10-04T16:18:00.007-03:00

My dream might have started when I first saw Ballet Magnificat perform. Or it might have started when I started taking ballet classes from a little community center in Whitehall when I was 9 years old. That's when I started day dreaming that I was on a big stage dancing classical ballet pieces. It was a treat to get to touch a pair of pointe shoes.

But the dream fully formed when I went to Ballet Magnificat's summer ballet intensive for two week when I was 14. At that point, I was already in love with ballet, but in those two weeks I fell in love with Jesus. I knew Jesus before, but I didn't know him in a personal way. For the first time, I felt close to God. I learned how to worship. And I learned how to use dance as an expression of worship.

Ballet Magnificat is America's premier professional Christian ballet company. They use professional dance to worship, evangelize and minister. They travel all over the States, and in many different countries, using dance as a way to reach and connect to people.

This was my dream. To use dance as my ministry. I believed that God had given me the gifts and the love for that art form, and I wanted to use it to glorify him and expand his kingdom.

In high school, I trained 5-9 classes per week. But my sophomore year I got mono and it stuck around for a long time, and that really slowed me down. Because of that and because God was just leading me in different directions I walked away from the dance world when I was 19. I was excited about God was leading me to. But I didn't understand why God had me in dance for 10 years, without being able to use all that training.

When I was 20 God sent me to Brasil, which was the fulfillment of another strong dream that God put in my heart. I was content not dancing.

But about 2 years ago, God gave me a promise. I was at a prayer meeting, and the person leading the meeting felt like God wanted to resurrect dreams that God had planted in hearts, but circumstances and criticism had killed them. When I closed my eyes, I saw a picture of me dancing as my ministry, worshiping through dance. I heard God say "Chelsea, dance is not over for you."

I wrote that promise down in my journal. I couldn't imagine how in the world I could get back into dance, but I was excited to see how God was going to fulfill his promise.

Goodbye Grandpa. God's care and perfect timing

2011-10-02T15:37:00.006-03:00

In my last post, I eluded to changes that are happening in my life right now. Things continue to change, and God is in complete control.

Not too long ago, I decided to take a brief furlough to visit my family. My plan was to leave Maraba September 28. I just so happened that my brother William got a really good part in Houston Ballet's piece Indigo (he's a dancer with their company.) So I made plans to arrive in Houston on Thursday, see his ballet on saturday night, and leave for Columbus on Monday. I was going to bed on Tuesday the 27th and I decided to check email one last time. My mom had sent me an email, letting me know that my grandfather (her father) had passed away that day. I knew previously that he had been in the hospital for about 2 weeks with congestive heart failure and had had a stroke. She asked if she could try to change my flights so that I could be there with family, and go to the funeral. I wrote back and told her I would love to go home.

I left Maraba at 5 am the next morning without knowing which city I was going to end up in, Houston or Columbus. I had a long layover in Sao Paulo, so I checked my facebook and it turns out that my mom was able to send me to Columbus.

I was so thankful to be able to be there to give my mom hugs, see family I hadn't see for years, and be there for the beautiful service honoring my grandpa. It hit me hard once again how God is in control and cares so much about the details. He arranged ahead of time for me to arrive in the States at just the right time, even though I had no idea that this was going to happen. He blesses me in so many ways.

My grandpa, Claude Wiliams, was a great man. He was faithful, hard working, extremely kind and loved Jesus. My Uncle Mark wrote the following:

"The final days we got to spend with dad here were a wonderful gift from God. I mentioned in my recent email about all the hand squeezes, kisses, hugs, Scripture Reading, hymns and prayers. Also, some of his last words were very meaningful to us such as: “I love you. God knows. Amen (after my Scripture reading), Praise the Lord. All of my children are a joy. It’s working out. Wonderful (several times when asked how he was doing.) How can a person be so loved…as I?”

My Uncle Mark and Grandpa, Claude Williams

Please pray for my mom and our family.

Coming soon: An Explanation!

2011-09-19T09:00:00.000-03:00

So why did I spend 2 whole months without writing on my blog? Well, I've been a little distracted. Big things are happening! Please forgive me for my blog neglect.

Look at a status I put on Facebook exactly a year ago.

"lighhhht buuuuuuuulb..... radical people make often mistakes, and by definition are willing to seriously mess up. Could my efforts to be "good" and do everything correctly (from a desire based in perfectionism) be keeping me from living a greater life that God wants for me?"

Since then I have been more willing to make mistakes, take risks and leaps of faith. Not a LOT more willing, but I see some progress there. I want to live a radical life! I want to be open to go and do whatever God tells me. I want to learn how to love those who are difficult to love. I want to be sent on crazy God assignments. I want to give God every opportunity to use me in his kingdom, whether doing hard things, easy things, big things or small things. I want to dream God's dreams, and live them.

And it blesses me to see God helping me, one step at a time, live that way. When I spent 3 months living with the Kubacki family in Brazil in 2007, I told God "I don't want to be a missionary. I want to have a good experience and serve for these 3 months, but I don't want to do any long term missions. I want to get a degree, get married, have a family and have a normal American life." I praise God that he changed my heart. But he didn't just change my mind about living in a different country. His work was deeper than that. I wanted a normal life, a life of comfort and I didn't want to some day not be able to relate to people of my own culture. Basically, I wanted to stay away from weirdness and I wanted to have control over my happiness.

God didn't tell me I was wrong at the time, but he was slowly wooing me to something greater. He changed my heart about long term missions and brought me to Brazil. As I have said before, I thought I was going to Brazil to help other people, but really God wanted to work on my heart in ways I wouldn't have let him while living in my comfortable home country (and in his grace he used me along the way.) Slowly, he is turning my desires away from comfort and towards adventures in his kingdom.

Today, my heart is to live a life of adventure and risks for the rest of my life. Spiritually, emotionally, physically, I want to go for it! I don't ever want to get settled and comfortable and content with staying in the same place spiritually. I will move wherever God tells me to move. If God tells me to do something, I want to go for it. In the future, I will raise my family wherever God tells me to. My life is not my own. I'm giving him permission conduct my future as he sees best and I'll jump into that.

He will provide for me, I will lack nothing.

Pretty soon, I'll post more about what's happening. Check back soon!

In the meantime, I wanted to show you one of my projects from an online photoshop class I took this summer quarter. The class was a minor, but time consuming component of the craziness of late. But I really enjoyed the class. The assignment for the images below was to create an image using 3 or more photos.

Welcome Rae Family!

2011-09-16T12:44:00.001-03:00

About 2 weeks ago, the Rae family arrived in Maraba! They are Xingu Mission's newest missionary family, and we are so glad that they have joined us. They are from Canada (cool, eh?) Art and Cyndi brought their two sons, Daniel and David, but their 2 daughters, Sarah and Beth Ann, stayed in Canada.

Now they are moved into the Bergen's house on our church's base, and they have started the challenge of learning how to live in Brazil. It's not easy moving to a different country. For example, today Cyndi and I were talking about tomatoes. She was informed by a brazilian that she shouldn't buy the red ones... the green or redish green were better. She said to me "the tomatoes here are so hard! Do you put them in the sun until they get soft?" I said that I throw them in the fridge and they are pretty much just hard. I looked at her a little confused "Is that weird?" I asked. She laughed and explained that she never puts tomatoes in the fridge, but she puts them in the sun till they get nice and soft. I had to admit that I don't remember what tomatoes are like in North America.

Now imagine that senario with every type of food that you see in the grocery store... meaning that it's different than you expect and you don't know what's normal or how to use it. Now imagine that same feeling applied to everything you do throughout the day. Cleaning house is different, communicating is difficult, people don't respond to situations the way you expect them to because of cultural differences, traffic rules (and lack of rules) is different and the North American routine is just not possible to maintain.

But this family has jumped right into things and they already have a head start on the language. Please pray for them! Pray against discouragement, pray for grace as they adjust, pray for the boys online schooling (and the parents, who are helping them) and pray that God would supernaturally fill them with peace and joy.

A time to give and a time to receive

2011-07-18T08:22:00.000-03:00

]This week I'll be in Sao Paulo attending an arts intensive by the Christian theater group Jeova Nissi. The overall goal of the arts intensive is to equipe people to effectively minister through art with quality and creativity. My focus will be on dance. This should be an extremely valuable week of receiving and learning for me. I hope to come back to Maraba renewed and inspired (I'm needing that!) I'm particularly looking forward to participating in worship without leading it, dancing ballet again, and making new friends with people my age. In Maraba, I am mostly 'giving' and hardly ever 'receiving'. I am greatly looking forward to a time of receiving.

I met this team of Jeova Nissi in Altamira right before I moved to Maraba.

A scene in their play Torture, which is about the persecuted church.

Cowboy/redneck/country night!

2011-07-15T08:34:00.000-03:00

Recently, our youth group had a Caipira night! What is caipira, you ask? Well, I'm not exactly sure what the correct English word would be. One translator came up with: hayseed; hick, yokel. But there's a bit of cowboy in there too. Basically 'em unedumacated 'n unsophisticated folk from the countryside. Exaggerated x 10. At least 10. (Culturally, it's not offensive to have a caipira night, in case you were wondering.)

That means that everyone was supposed to show up dressed like a caipira. This means high colored mismatching socks, painted black teeth, straw hats, boots, button up shirts with patches and lots of braids or piggy tails (the uglier the better, it seems.) We had caipira music, decorated the church with paper chains, talked hick portuguese and square danced.

Here is our band!

We worshipped

We played games

Our fearless (and stylish) leaders!

Here are the voted best dressed cowboy and cowgirl! (And the chocolate they won!)

It was a lot of fun!

Happy Birthday Julia!

2011-07-12T04:57:00.000-03:00

This beautiful young lady is one year older today! Soooooo PARABENS PRA VOCE NESTA DATA QUERIDA MUITAS FELICIDADES MUITOS ANOS DE VIDA!! (That was the happy birthday song in Portuguese in case you missed that.)

3 of the many things I love about Julia: She's GoRgEoUs! Inside even more than out, which is saying something! I love her sweet heart. She's always thinking about others first. She has a sincere love for her savior, and seeks to know him more. She's a worshipper. She's a joy-spreader. She's a servant.

She's a bookworm. If anyone is worthy of that title, she is. I brought down a bunch of books when I moved to Brasil and after 2 1/2 years I haven't read all of them yet. She went through all of them in about a month and a half. In addition to the books that she brought. Disgusting. No, wait, you want to hear something really disgusting? She has LOST TRACK of how many times she's read the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The count is somewhere in between 9-15. And last time I talked to her she was reading them again. She's probably done already.

She's intelligent. She learned more Portuguese in her 3 months here than I did in my first 3 months (Brazilians liked to remind me of that.) I always knew she was really smart, but she proved it recently on her ACT. Julia got an 33 on her ACT!! She is way to humble and simple to tell anyone, but I'm her sister and can use my blog to announce it to the whole world so HA!

I have been thinking of all the fun we had together while she was here visiting me for 3 months. She is incredibly awesome and we had good times. Here are a couple HILARIOUS (to us, at least) quotes that we came up with while she was here.

Julia: Maybe he couldn't read the "no nonsense" sign on your forehead. I guess some people can't speak forehead.

Me: Julia, you've taught me to look at the positive and make happy comments.

Julia(incredulously): And.... do you like it?

Me: Crap.

Julia: ....Isso mesmo.

Julia (talking about Louis Armstrong): I can't believe they let Cookie Monster record music!

Julia (making fun of my weird sounding horn on my scooter): [to other drivers] Drive safely! Or I'll quack at you!!

Getting Indian tattoos with Ava

Us, very excited about homemade bread! (Made by Sharon, of course :)

Julia, I love you SO MUCH and miss you SO MUCH! I wish I could have kept you here in Brazil with me fo'eva! Ok, yes so you should probably finish high school and go to some flipping Ivy League school and all that. But you need to come visit me again ASAP! (What does that mean anyway? Probably Act Swiftly Awesome Pachyderm! KKKKK!!)

Deus te abencoe MUITO nesse ano! Sei que ele tem coisas maravilhosas pra voce! Que cada dia voce tenha mais e mais intimidade com ele, e cada dia ele te enche com alegria, paz e sabedoria. TE AMO!!!!!

TE-I LOVE YOU!

The Beauty of Your Peace

2011-07-09T09:06:00.004-03:00

Thanks for praying! We leaders feel like the spiritual atmosphere has lightened quite a bit and our church seems more responsive. Yay God! The war isn't over, but Jesus has the victory.

I'm still fighting against discouragement and the sudden desire to give up. Most of all, I've been fighting the horrible attitude that I know better than God, or that he's not doing a good enough job taking care of everything I think I need. I know these are not good things to have in my heart, but honestly, they're what I'm fighting against right now. Many times, I've compared my easier and more fun life in Altamira or Columbus with here. No doubt about it, Maraba is harder for me.

Through this, God continues to tell me 2 things.

It's not about you, it's about me. Your life is not your own.
Trust me.

Yesterday I was reading my journal and came across something I had written more than a year ago. When I say "came across", really it came flying off the page and hit me like a 2x4.

With more of God comes responsibility

More of God could mean more difficulty

More of God could mean an unpredictable life

How much of God do you want?

What are you really saying when you say "I want more of God?"

What part of God do you want more of?

Do you truly want all of God?

Then are you willing to give him everything?

Prayer request

2011-06-30T16:59:00.006-03:00

Our pastor describes it as a black cloud over our church. You can feel it in the spiritual realm more than you can see it. Our church has all of a sudden become unresponsive and uninterested. It's like everyone gets there with an attitude of really not wanting to be there. Lies and rumors are flying like crazy. I'm dealing with personal attacks (nightmares, sickness, emotional heaviness) and I think other leaders are having similar experiences. The leadership (me, Aline, Monica and Ivanildo) agree that there's a spiritual battle going on. Personally, I think it's because God's kingdom is breaking through the darkness and the darkness doesn't like it.

As Aline pointed out, Jesus has already won, we just have to go through the battle.

We're fasting and praying, worshiping and fighting! Will you pray along side us?

Our Brazilian pastors, Monica and Ivanildo

Aline, the other member of our leadership team

Please pray for us as leaders, for protection, wisdom and for Jesus's light to break through the darkness. Please email me if Jesus tells you anything. Chelsea.newton@xingu.org

A day that sucked

2011-06-27T10:10:00.000-03:00

I did not have a good day yesterday. I woke up really sad and heavy hearted. I really miss my family. I miss my friends from Altamira. I miss having fun. I miss having a church in which I can receive (not just give.) I'm frustrated with the house I'm living in. The list of my complaints was rather long. It's been building for a while, but yesterday I woke up wanting to quit everything here and run back to my parents house. (Not that I'm at all considering that, but that's what I felt like.) Starting out the day like that made it even harder to deal with the usual teenage drama and disrespect of the day, and a weirdly unresponsive disinterest during the service at night.

Mopping the floor, I said aloud in English (I'm not sure what my Portuguese speaking friends were thinking) "God, you said that you weren't sending me here to be miserable! But here I am, not happy. So what do you have in mind?"

A familiar picture popped in my head. I saw a pressure cooker, lid shut, steam hissing and escaping from the top. I couldn't see inside, but somehow I knew that there were beans inside and the beans were symbolic of my life.

And I'm like, "God, I'm feeling the pressure!" But suddenly a couple of things made sense to me. God's "cooking me", softening me, refining me. And it's a GOOD thing. Because he has abundant life for me. In his wisdom, God knew that the absolute best thing for me is to go through this time of cooking. I trust him!

He has bigger things in mind for me later on, but whereas I'm most interested in my outcome, God loves the process! He's not afraid of my bad days and he's not in a hurry to get me changed!

This morning, I was meditating on some verses in Philippians 4.

And the peace of God, which surpasses every thought, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is any praise—dwell on these things. Do what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you. I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last you have renewed your care for me. You were, in fact, concerned about me, but lacked the opportunity [to show it]. I don't say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know both how to have a little, and I know how to have a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret [of being content]—whether well-fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens me.

So I find myself in this battle: a stuggle to fix my eyes on Jesus. He is so beautiful, but for some reason I find it so much easier to stare at my own belly button, worried about me.

I KNOW that God sent me here. I KNOW all his promises are true. I KNOW that he is good, and that he has the best in mind for me. His ways are higher than my ways.

When my eyes are fixed on him, my mind is at peace and my heart is absolutely content. He is my source. In him, I find absolutely everything that I need.

It's somewhat easy to write these things down, but even with some understanding, I'm still struggling. I would really appreciate your prayers as I try to live this out. Thanks!

Adventures on the Transamazon highway!

2011-06-24T12:00:00.003-03:00

We had to get out and walk across this piece of road first, before our bus tried to get through.

Recently we had the AWESOME opportunity to take a group of our teenagers to Altamira for a conference. Many of our youth had grown up in Maraba, and never traveled anywhere. So this was quite an adventure for them. For a long time, we didn't think that we'd be able to go, but God worked everything out and provided everything we needed, and at 4 am Thursday we all piled into the van and were off on what we prayed would be a smooth trip!

Driving from Maraba to Altamira is kind of like driving from Columbus to Chicago. Actually, it's nothing like it, but the distances are about the same. Columbus to Chicago is about 35o miles, and the trip takes 6-7 hours. Maraba to Altamira is only 310 miles, but our trip took 26 hours!

The Transamazon highway is not exactly like I70. If you are heading to Chicago you can expect really smooth roads the whole way there.

(Doesn't that look lovely?)

The Transamazon highway looks a little different.

Above is the van we took to Altamira. About 6 hours into our trip, we had a delay. It wasn't like a delay we would expect in the States.

Our traffic jam looked like this.

And it was due to this:

(Appearances may be deceiving, but don't be fooled. This is the road.)

A gigantic puddle of waist deep mud. A huge line of cars, trucks, motorcycles and busses were backed up on either side, unable to pass.

A single tractor was in the middle of it all, slowly pulling one vehicle at a time across the mud lake (for the price of about 20 bucks per vehicle.) It was noon, and we knew we weren't getting across anytime soon so we decided to cross on the side of the muddy mess and head to the nearest "restaurant" (which really means bar) to eat the lunch we brought. I had to laugh at one of our friends, who was wearing bright white crocks.

Our bus driver claimed that the "restaurant" was only 100 meters past the mud, but it felt like a whole kilometer in that hot hot sun. But we all made it there, ate lunch, played guitar together, I read my book, and we waited. And waited. And waited. . . .

After three or four hours, we found out that when it was finally our van's turn to get dragged through the mud, the tractor decided to stop towing and start clearing. Another tractor showed up to help clear away the mud so everyone could pass.

The hours continued to pass. We heard tiny bits of news. "It's 'almost' done."

"The small tractor got stuck in the mud."

"If you manage to get through that area, there's another muddy section of mud not too far away that you'll probably get stuck in."

This was all very encouraging. The sun went down and the "restaurant" turned into just a bar. A bar filled with drunk truck drivers who were irritated after waiting in the hot sun all day. So we gathered our 20 teenagers and all sat in the dark a ways away from the noisy and potentially dangerous bar. We ate a little dinner, played guitar, sang, and waited. And waited. A group went back to the bus to get some stuff and came back all muddy.

Finally, after waiting 9 hours, our bus got through and we all joyfully hopped on. Only to get stuck in more mud 15 minutes down the road.

Luckily, this mud wasn't near as bad and our strong men were able to push us out. Actually, we had another bus tow us across, but our guys helped push.

Being such an interesting trip and all, we were very very happy to arrive in Altamira 6 the next morning!

Saying goodbye to the Bergens

2011-06-21T17:28:00.002-03:00

Last Sunday, we had to say goodbye to a very special family. Early monday morning, the Bergens left for Canada. They'll be spending a whole year there, and the 2 oldest girls will be staying there for college. Because their girls have lived in Brasil basically their whole lives, this year is to help them acclimate to Canadian culture. Please pray for their whole family, as this will be a big transition.

The Bergens are a generous, hard working and lively, happy family who have invested everything they have into the lives of everyone around them, missionaries and Brazilians. It's because of them that this Vineyard church exists here in Maraba. They will be missed!

Now that they're gone, I'm the only foreigner around. Please pray that I'll make good friendships here, and not forget English!

On a happier note, this is officially post number 100 of this blog! Yay!

A difference of perspective

2011-06-05T03:24:00.001-03:00

If you could look through God's eyes at your life, what would you see?

Have you ever thought about how different something looks from different perspectives? For example, a laptop screen can be dim or even inverted unless your looking at it dead on. God has been showing me that our lives are the same way. I don't see things clearly, until I let God show me from his perspective.

We so freely accept church concepts that are US focused. WE need to do this, WE need to stop doing that, WE are called to bring the gospel to the end of the earth, WE should be involved in ministry, WE need to be in community, etc. All these things are good and they aren't lies. But it's amazing how those same concepts change when you switch the focus from US to JESUS.

"Take care of my flock" becomes "I will take care of my flock, and I want to use you to help me do it."
"Stop sinning" becomes "stop focusing on yourself, focus on me, at let me change you from the inside out."
"Love and forgive everyone" becomes "spend time with me, and ask me to help you see people the way I see them."

We see a mirror image of the world most of the time, because we look at it putting US first. When we see the world putting Jesus first, forgetting about ourselves, we see the same world the right way around.

Thanks for letting me share something I've been learning lately

Soccer

2011-06-01T03:19:00.000-03:00

Soccer is one of our biggest ministries. The church was basically started with soccer. It's a huge draw. Just about all our youth are obsessed, and some of them are really good. There are a bunch of teens that come into our property to play or watch that don't go to our church at all. Most of our youth started out that way.

I hear stories all the time of how hot-headed our guys used to be out on the field. I hear about fights that used to happen. One who used to be one of the most dramatic and explosive guys is now on my band and has come pretty in respect and patience. He once led fights and now he leads worship. Another guy who used to scream in anger at missed goals now laughs and continues to play. The team in general has come a long way. We still win most of the time, though.

I will admit that I don't like soccer. They haven't gotten me to play yet, and they'll find I'm a stubborn person. If they ever do get me to play, they'll find that I'm not athletic whatsoever and regret asking me in the first place. I don't even like watching it (or listen to the girls gossip while watching) but I've found that I do like taking pictures of soccer! So that's been my way of enjoying it. I'm sure watching it will grow on me in the future. Until then, I'll be getting some experience in sports photography.

How he loves us...

2011-05-27T03:28:00.001-03:00

Building off the last post...

This is one of our beautiful children, and also one of our rascals.

Sometimes my church astounds me with their desperate hunger for Jesus. Sometimes my church astounds me with their immaturity.

It's an interesting situation. Most of my band members are mostly there because they like playing music and being part of a band, not to mention getting attention and showing off. One hour they are hyper sensitive, self focused troublemakers, and the next hour they are crying in God's presence. During the whole service, the kids will be making so much noise that even I have trouble paying attention, and yet during ministry they are so eager. During a prayer night, all the youth will jump into worship head first, and the next night at youth group during worship those same teens will be outside talking, completely uninterested.

Most of the leaders we are raising up are inconsistant, immature, two faced, gossip spreaders who are burdened down with so much guilt, abuse and generational curses that they sometimes have difficulties even accepting that Jesus loves them.

Sometimes, I think, 'where we supposed to even start with this baby church?'

But if we're honest, underneath our practiced appearance, are we really that different?

I've been thinking about the differences between church back home and this little Maraba Vineyard. And I came up with 2 differences:

1. We Americans are better at hiding our junk.

We Americans have beautiful and controlled church services. We are trained to sit quietly even though we're not paying attention. We are good at this appearance thing. We know how to make our lives look the 'right way'. This Maraba Vineyard church is visibly a mess and the American church is secretly a mess.

2. These kids understand better that they are messed up and that they need help.

Even if your childhood was as rough as these kid's lives are, our culture has probably told you from day 1 that we are capable of turing our lives around by our own strength.

Do I prefer this messy, chaotic, broken and unresponsive church to the States side neat, tidy, sleepy, broken and unresponsive church? I don't think that's a good question. Let's look beyond that. The point is so beautiful!

Jesus is in love with his church!

Every single church in the whole world is screwed up and Jesus passionately runs after them all, loving, wooing, calling, healing and awakening.

Don't judge a book by it's cover

2011-05-24T13:19:00.001-03:00

Our church is truly unique.

We break common church etiquette every service. We don't start on time. There is talking the entire time. Our band is not polished. Most don't understand what worship is, so they walk around and talk during worship. Kids jump up on stage to mess with instruments or request songs during ministry time. Drunk guys come in mid-service, talking loudly.

Our congregation varies wildly week to week. 90% of us are beneath the age of 17. We don't know exactly who is going to show up, but we know that the front 4 rows will be filled with squirmy, chatty, distracted children. Scattered throughout the middle are a smattering of girls 12-15, band members, a small handful of adults, and our faithful leaders: the Bergens, our pastors Ivanildo and Monica, then there's Aline and me. The teenage boys, and a few cool girls, have dragged their chairs to the very very very back of the church, and some of them are standing outside the doorway.

Why are they there? Some seem genuinely hungry for God, some seem interested in the social time (which occurs during the service as much as before and after) and some appear to not want to be there at all.

Our church building is big and filled with everything we need, but it isn't pretty. It's half built walls are gray concrete, kids jump in through the big holes we call windows, and we made temporary wooden gates at the doorways so the dogs would stop coming in to leave us surprises on the floor and stage.

So what's so special about a half built church where most of the attenders don't pay attention most of the time? What's so special about a particularly broken group of people; the angry, the abused, the unloved, the possessed, the arrogent, the lonely, the addicted, the thief, the self condemning, the trouble maker, the disrespectful, and the shunned?

The only reason the church is special is because Jesus meets us there.

The only reason we are special is because Jesus thinks we're special... and loves us, just the way we are.

Do you know what happens during our church?

During worship, even when the majority of the church is in a state of distracted chaos, the shyest guy in the room is unashamedly worshiping, lost in Jesus's presence.

For ministry time, every single kid rushes to the front to receive prayer, every single service. The majority of the rest of the church comes forward too.

Our own youth, still broken and struggling, cry as they tell the stories of how much Jesus has changed their lives already.

A month ago, nobody on the band wanted to pray out loud. 2 weeks ago, our band started the normal prayer before practice and ends up praying for 1 hour and a half... a time of blessing, deliverance, and prophecy. No one wanted to stop praying. No practice- Jesus had other plans.

Last Sunday, our pastor's wife invited anyone who wanted prayer to come to the front. A drunk guy behind me immediately jumped to his feet and said "That's what I want!" (And don't think that praying for someone that's drunk is without value. We've seen drunk people accept Jesus and continue to follow Jesus. In fact, our pastor was saved this way.)

Our unsaved neighbors are commenting on how different these teens are. They say "that church must be doing something right."

Things aren't always as they appear. Jesus finds value in what we've already given up hope. Jesus never relents. Jesus restores. Jesus loves. Jesus loves. Jesus loves.

And loves, and loves, and loves, and loves...

Key words

2011-05-19T11:55:00.003-03:00

Some photoshop fun.

Let's do some really BIG little things!

2011-05-14T09:03:00.000-03:00

This morning, I was enjoying reading the Kubacki's blog. The Kubackis are a dearly loved family that came from my church (VCDC) and have been with the Xingu Mission for several years. They will soon be taking a leap into the next chapter of their lives: kingdom adventures in Angola!

On their blog, Tim frequently updates a collection of his proverbs. I was reflecting on them, and many popped out at me.

If something or someone promotes or encourages fast growth, beware! It is likely not of your Father. He prefers trees to grass.
We are not called to teach, evangelize, disciple, heal, build, counsel, etc. We are called to love, and while loving, God will direct us as to how we can best serve those that we are loving.
Do you want to impact a lot of people and be used greatly by God? Pour yourself into a hungry few.

Around the time that I moved down here, almost 2 1/2 years ago, God said something to me that changed my vision for ministry.

"Look for the few."

He said that I wasn't here to change the lives of hundreds of Brazilians. I was here to have an influence on, plant in, love on and invest in the lives of a few. What those people end up doing and how God uses them is out of my hands. A year later, I was getting prayer from a small group and someone had a picture of a match that ended up lighting a huge fire. My ministry was that match, and the message was "Don't worry if it looks small to you. God can make a big fire out of it that will spread."

Before I left Altamira, I got to see a little fruit that I helped plant. If God chooses to grow and multiply that, then yay!

I was walking around my new neighborhood here in Marabá, discussing potencial ministry with God. He said "Chelsea, let's do some really BIG small things together!"

The world often mistakes really big things for small things. What the world considers really big things, are often quite small. In God's kingdom, things are often subtle and easy to ignore, but they have great value.

What are we running after? Big things according to the world? Or big kingdom things that are easy to miss? I warn you, seeking after the invisible, and giving value to the weak and small are not often encouraged. Are you willing to go against the current?

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matthew 7:7)

Here are 2 more of Tim's proverbs to contemplate.

Mistakes are made by those courageous enough to step into the arena.

The only opinion of us and of our performance that matters is that of our Father. We have an audience of but One.

YOU

2011-05-06T06:40:00.002-03:00

Invading all my weakness

You wrapped me up in grace

The worst of me succeeded by the best of You

My heart is overtaken

My soul is overwhelmed

The worst of me succeeded by the best of You

My dreams have found their purpose

My future in Your hands

This life would have no meaning if it weren’t for You

So I lay me down

For kingdom come

Steal all that is within me

‘Cause all I want in this world is more of You

In the less of me it is You

Increasing as I fade away

Your light for all the world to see

It is You who breaks the chains

It is You who lights the way

And everything I am cries out for You

Lord make my life transparent

Your life in mine displayed

And let every earthly glory go back to You

I would highly recommend that you buy Hillsong's album A Beautiful Exchange. These are the lyrics to the song "You" on that album.

Some thoughts from Danny Meyer

2011-05-02T10:43:00.002-03:00

Danny is the pastor of my American church, Vineyard Church of Delaware County. As you saw in the post below, he and his wife, Penny, came down to visit us. Here are some of Danny's thoughts about the base.

Goodbyes and Hellos

2011-05-02T06:47:00.005-03:00

I wish life weren't this way. But it is. Life is full of hellos and goodbyes. The hellos are typically wonderful, and the goodbyes are typically terrible (although we've all had to experience awkward hellos and relieved goodbyes ;)

My year started out with one goodbye after another. At the very beginning of January, I had to say goodbye to my dear friend and Brazilian sister Denise. She had been visiting us for the holidays, but then she had to return to Santarem to study. She is a particularly special woman of God, and it was a difficult goodbye.

A few weeks after that, my good friend, the Pflederers, moved to Manaus (still in Brazil) to be apart Mission Aviation Fellowship. Brin is a really good friend of mine, and I had helped homeschool her girls for the past 2 years. It was really sad to see them go. But I am happy for them because God blessed them with such a clear calling.

A huge group of friends at the airport, gathered to say goodbye to Brin, Ella, Ava, Mia and Cleny.

Me and Brin showing off the biggest registered leaf in the Brazilian Amazon. Yes, the context of this post has nothing to do with the picture. I was just looking for a cool picture of me and Brin, and good opportunity to show you guys this leaf ;)

With them went my best brazilian friend Cleny. In Manuas, she will get much better education opportunities than she would ever get staying in Altamira. She now has the opportunity to study, get a degree and have a good job. I had seen God do some great things in her over the last 2 years, and I know he has big things planned for her. I praise God that she was able to take advantage of this opportunity God gave her. For an update on her, click here to read the Pflederer's blog post about her.

Then at the end of January, one of my other Brazilian brothers, Jonathas, moved away to go to college. He is a lot of fun and definitely left our house feeling emptier. We are happy for him though, because he was able to got into a college that's not easy to get into! RIGHT after he left, my sister had to go back to the States after a WONDERFUL 3 months living with me. That was the hardest goodbye for sure!

In March our beloved Jim and Sharon moved back to Canada after 2 years running the guest house. I really miss the edifying conversations with both of them, and the delicious iced coffees Sharon always made. In reality, we ALL miss ALL the food Sharon made... she is such a good cook! I could go on and on about this couple. I'm so happy they were apart of our mission.

Most of our Altamira missionaries here at the airport to say goodbye to Jim, Sharon, and Dillon- a short termer.

The beginning of April was getting closer.... my moving date was fast approaching. After saying so many goodbyes already, I was really struggling to process moving away from so many other precious friends.

In my last week in Altamira, God blessed me with a fun "hello" experience. A Christian Brazilian drama company stopped in Altamira for a week while touring northern Brazil, and presented their play about the persecuted church. I had fun getting to know many members of the company-- it was fun to get to know Brazilians missionaries, especially since they were my age. I particularly got to know Leiliane. We quickly became good friends, and had a lot of fun in the short time they were in Altamira. Amid so many goodbyes, it was so refreshing to make new friends.
Me and Leiliane

Some of my best Altamira friends, and the members of the company that I got to know best.

Then I moved! I said goodbye to everyone, and got on the plane. The woman beside me asked me at one point "do you live in Maraba?" and I replied "well, I do now!" Within an hour I was saying hello to my new team. The Bergen family is extremely welcoming! And then I began getting to know my new church family. Now, a month later, I'm still trying to learn names! (But I've made great progress.)

Another exciting hello was when my pastors came to visit us here in Maraba. Danny and Penny stayed for almost a week and preached over the weekend. I had a blast hanging out with Penny. Danny had a blast taking pictures of all of us with his iPhone and giving people mustaches, making them fat, making them bald, etc. The brazilians thought that was great!

God is blessing me with everything I need here (although I'm still asking for more wisdom!) I am building friendships with my roommates, and I'm so grateful for them.

Me, Aline and Luana. My other roommate, Karen, was taking the picture.

The theme God has been teaching me through all of this is that he is everything I need. I only need him. He can fill me up completely when I'm lonely, if I invite him to. And so I will choose to trust him with every relationship I have, as he weaves them in and out of my life. He blesses me with hellos, and holds me during goodbyes. But HE is my source of life.

My faithful companion.

My Happiest Moment Yet of Maraba!

2011-04-29T10:38:00.002-03:00

I had been rather discouraged about my cell group. Around here, cell groups are used as an evangelistic tool. (Read my older post about cell groups here) Brazilians in this region at least are much more open to talking about "religious" things than Americans are, so people who don't know God yet are open to attending a basic bible study in front of one of their neighbor's houses. Thus, we have cell groups at a bunch of houses around our neighborhood.

I co-lead my cell group with a very nice but very shy guy named Francisco. I had been discouraged about the group because the only people who were coming were a couple youth from our church (helpers), the lady who's house we meet at and her sister. I never felt much direction from God during our weekly meetings, nor had I seen any fruit from our (in my opinion) boring worship and teachings.

Yesterday I asked Francisco to teach for the first time, thinking it would be good for him since hardly anyone comes. Even then he didn't know if he could do it.

I arrived right on time, walked over the little wooden "bridge" covering a ditch of dirty water, and approached the circle of crude wooden benches. The area was lit by a light bulb that had been strung up in a tree with custom made extension wire. If the fire department were ever to see the set up I'm pretty sure they'd have a panic attack, but it's pretty common to see that kind of thing here.

The only people there were Francisco, his younger brother, the hostess and a various assortment of kids running around everywhere. I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, and I had to admit I was really sleepy. All 4 of us shyly made small talk, waiting to see if more people would show up. After a while, we finally decided to start. We prayed and played a memory name game with the kids. At the end of the game, the hostess's sister showed up, then 3 men who had never come before showed up one by one. We awkwardly sang and clapped to a song (I had left my guitar at home.) When it came time for Francisco to talk, he just couldn't. The adults started chit-chatting to fill in the silence and I scrambled to think of some sort of teaching to give, since I foolishly hadn't thought to make a plan B ahead of time (it didn't help that I was so tired!)

Then I overheard one of the women ask Francisco if he knew if the church's campus had some source of water running through it, a creek or spring or something. He works there and knows the campus really well and answered that no, the only water source there is the (dirty) river on the far end. The woman replied that there had to be, because she dreamed that there was a source of crystal water on the church's campus that she was supposed to drink for her kidneys to be healed.

I was amazed that this woman (who, as far as I know, doesn't know God yet) was so sure that there was a water at the church that was going to heal her. The thought 'It's a symbol of Jesus' popped into my head and I decided to run with it. I scrambled to find the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, thinking 'awesome! Now I have something to talk about!'

The teaching was really simple, but we talked about how we try to satisfy our thirst (our emptiness) with a ton of worldly things but He's the only source of fulfillment. We talked about a few aspects of who Jesus is: healer, savior and that he's alive and wants to be active and involved in our lives. I was commenting on who Jesus is to me personally, and the oldest guy commented softly

"He's beautiful."

Then he basically talked about the gospel message in a sincere and fairly unchurchy way. He wasn't preaching, just sharing (and I was very happy to have the help!)

Then we prayed in a circle and I asked everyone who wanted a touch from God to go in the middle of the circle. None of the new guys did, but the two women and a bunch of kids did.

We finished, and I started chatting with the older guy (who was asking me the inevitable question "You're not from here, are you?") Then all a sudden, one of the other guys rushed up to me with a crying baby.

Now, to be honest, I had already developed a first impression of him in my mind. He looked like the stereotypical man from this area: alcoholic, no job or bad job, no commitment to family, and I had further assumed that this guy wasn't paying attention and had no real intrest in what we were saying. He had not said a thing and not made eye contact. But God forgive me for judging by appearance.

He got my attention and talked to me very quickly.... and unfortunately I didn't understand all of what he said :(. But this is what I got out of it:

Man: You've got to [pray for] this baby! He's not feeling well.

Me: What's going on with him?

Man: I don't know but look--somethings not right with him. He's sick with something.

The baby was certainly crying and squirming around

Me: And you want me to pray for him? (hoping I had understood him right) What's his name?

Man: Yes! You've gotta pray for him! His name's Wesely-- he's my son!

So I put my hand on the baby and started to pray for him. It was awesome to be able to pray for the baby, even though I didn't see much of a change. But what made me really happy was that the father was so eager to get prayer for his son.

So it seems that God really can use boring cell groups and the imperfect leaders who run them. Go figure ;)

YAY JESUS!

Happy Easter!

2011-04-26T12:29:00.000-03:00

Our pastor Ivanildo gave a quick Easter explanation before breakfast

We had a Easter breakfast as a church. Hot chocolate, coffee, cakes, bread, desert bread, cheese bread and colored hard boiled eggs (the biggest treat.) Here the line is just getting started.

No, this isn't the end of the line! These kids make up the greatest part of our church.

Then in the afternoon, we had a candy hunt for some of the kids

The hunt was immensely enjoyed by the kids...

...and not just by the kids :)

Do you ever get the desire to be crazy?

2011-04-23T09:29:00.004-03:00

I don't want to ride the fence anymore, between a practical life and a life of taking supernatural risks. I don't want to play it safe. I want to swim to new depths. I want to go on adventures that God has for me. I want to shake peoples ideas of 'Christian'.

I don't want to care about this world, what people think of me, how I can accomplish what I want, worrying about what I need. I want to use my spiritual eyes just as much as my physical eyes.

I always hear that God has big things for us. Why then, do so many people live boring, boring lives? I'm not talking about earthly accomplishments, I'm talking about working in His Kingdom. There are quests to be taken, invisible treasure to be found, lives to be saved, new territory to be claimed, unseen beauty to be discovered, and an unthinkable romance waiting...

We work hard to do what is expected of us, but do not bother with anything beyond that. We love our friends, but not those who are hard to love. We lend to those who are responsible and will pay us back. If someone hurts us, we demand an apology rather than turn the other cheek. We might even go the extra mile, but no further. That's for radical weirdos. But I long to be radical, not because I do radical things, but because my heart has been radically changed from the inside out.

And what is this fear of failure? We cannot disappoint God. What is this fear of looking stupid, or doing the wrong thing? Of what worth is the opinion of a man? It is inaction that has made us ridiculously spiritually obese. What is this longing for comfort? Is not the greatest comfort we have being wrapped in his arms? And what better way to live in his embrace than to drop everything and work beside Him? Alas we have been deceived! Our treasures, our titles, our accomplishments, our belongings, our security, our positions, our comforts, our upgrades, our technology have no value! We fight to gain mold and rust, too distracted to notice our King's invitations.

Our King needs no help. He conducts the sunrises, juggles the stars and breathes life into the earth. He holds the hands of lost children, blesses us behind our backs, wipes the tears of his persecuted, and relentlessly pursues and woos those who hate him. He needs no one. But he longs to use us. Our King humbled himself to a poor man and died, so that we his precious children, though we are only dust, could work beside him-our glorious King!

And as our glorious King sings his invitation over us, unceasingly.... 'Come be with me! Work beside me! Join me for adventures! Be consumed in my loving presence'.... do we respond?

New house tour. And cat woes.

2011-04-19T12:44:00.004-03:00

My new house in Maraba. It's on the campus of the mission/vineyard church plant.

Well, I have been in my new house for a couple weeks now, and I'm pretty much settled. There are still several things I'm still getting used to. For example, I am now the unhappy owner of a kitten with half a tail. After having to clean up it's diarrhea all over the house for 3 days, I was calling it Jezebel, but after it finally learned how to use the sand box, I settled for Chloe.

I don't like cats.

But it's rather necessary to have one. Although I would much prefer a no-pet house (one of my roommates agrees with me), we are forced to make the choice between cats and rats. As much as I don't like cats they are so much better than opening your cupboard and finding a rat jumping all over the place. The way my roommates deal with rats, is everyone grabs a broom or mop and chases the rat around, whacking at it until it's dead. I couldn't do it. Actually, only one of my roommates is brave enough to do it. The other helps chase it around, screaming the whole time, but can't get herself to hit it. So in the first 2 weeks, we have encountered 3 rats, and disposed of 2. We didn't know where the third one went. And the truth is that as long as we don't have a cat, rats will continue to occupy our kitchen. It was time for a cat.

Chloe

The kitten my roommate found is a little sickly and scrawny, and only has half her tail. Me and my roommate Aline are rather disappointed that it's a girl. We are not going to pay to get it fixed, and one day we are going to have to deal with a bunch of kittens :( But I'm not convinced that it'll live that long... what with it being sick already and the mission campus being filled with ferocious dogs (okay, they're not ferocious, they are either strays that come and go or our very friendly mission dogs. Either way, no little kitten is safe.) After I cleaned up all it's disgusting poop all weekend, it'd better make it. So now that I've just offended any cat lover that reads my blog, I'll move on to another subject.

There are several things I really like about my new house. It's big. I have a roomy room and a roomy living room and roomy kitchen. I never felt cramped at my smaller home in Altamira (well, okay, when there were lots of visitors I felt cramped), but now I have room to dance! I also really like having my own room with a door that I can lock, and I really like that my room is painted sage green. The kitchen is nice because there is plenty of room and (incredibly) it's the coolest room in the house. The bathroom is awesome because, unlike my last house, it has a mirror and you can flush the toilet paper. In general, the house lacks a few things my last one had, and has a few things my last one was laking. Like now I do have a DVD player, a full length mirror, and a fridge that actually works well and keeps things cold.

My room

My bookshelf/closet :)

The living room

One side of the kitchen...

.....and the other side of the kitchen. We could make better use of the space.

The biggest problem is that my current house is lacking the family that I had in Altamira. I really miss my Brazilian family, which makes me miss my real family even more, but I also miss just being a part of a family. There is something about having the mom, dad and sibling roles filled in my day to day life that is very comforting. That situation was unique because I didn't just live with a family, they included me as a part of their family. I am so looking forward to my next visit to Altamira so I can spend a week living there with them again.

Life here is quite different than my life in Altamira. It's challenges are more intimidating. But I'm excited, because I still am getting this sense that God has invited me here to participate in something big.

Fun with words

2011-04-09T06:00:00.003-03:00

A bad picture of us adults at the New Years/Fictionary party

My very favorite game to play is Fictionary. You might know it by the name balderdash. We spent hours and hours playing at our New Years party at the Kubacki house. It's played like this: one person finds a rare, unknown word, and everybody else writes a fake but real-sounding definition and gives it to the word finder. The word finder then reads all the fake definitions with the real definition mixed in, and everybody votes on which definition is the real definition. Ready to play? The word is suberose. These are the definitions that we came up with at New Years. The following definitions are from Luke, Ben, Betsy or Tim Kubacki, Brin or Josh Pflederer, Clyde or Kelsie Berquist, Julia or me or the dictionary.

Is the correct definition of suberose:

a.) Suberose- being allergic to shrimp.

b.) Suberose- macabre, pertaining to death.

c.) Suberose- erosion of the ocean floor.

d.) Suberose- to cut in line at a buffet.

e.) Suberose- Looking like something chewed.

f.) Suberose- A term coined during England's House of Tudor to describe royalty fraternizing with commoners.

g.) Suberose- Degradation of the water table.

h.) Suberose-The substance that accumulates inside the ears of giraffes.

i.) Suberose- A lesser titan; the titan of music.

j.) Suberose- ocean plant life that grows below 5,000 meters sea level.

Now, no fair looking it up! The correct answer is one of the above ten definitions. Want to do another? The word is nipperkin.

Is the correct definition of nipperkin:

a.) Nipperkin- A small ornament hung in a doorway of Egyptians.

b.) Nipperkin- Amount of liquor, roughly equivalent to a half pint.

c.) Nipperkin- Person who pretends to be poor to receive handouts.

d.) Nipperkin- A public spanking.

e.) Nipperkin- The cousin of the leprechaun.

f.) Nipperkin- An old practice in Holland on getting ones tubes tied.

g.) Nipperkin- One who receives an inheritance from a non-relative.

h.) Nipperkin- To be tricked into buying a house filled with fire ants.

i.) Nipperkin- Shared cloth in Ireland for wiping one's hands and face after eating.

j.) Nipperkin- Dutch word for someone confused about his/her identity.

What do you think? Without looking it up (I know, google is so tempting) comment on this post with your guesses. First one to guess the correct definition of either word wins!

While we're on the subject of words, let me share a funny Portuguese blunder with you. A little while ago, I was telling one of my friends a story about when me and my brother almost got into a really serious car accident (God saved us and nothing bad happened.) So I was telling her the grave story: "we were on our way to church. I was driving and my brother was beside me in the front seat. We turned on to a road where people go pretty fast, 55 mph+, and I was going about 60. There was a hill coming up and we couldn't see the other side of it until we got to the top, but when we did, we found another car heading towards us in our lane. It was going really fast and was already so close I knew we weren't going to be able to stop in time. The other car was in the process of passing a huge, gigantic shrimp in the other lane!" At this point, it wasn't really worth trying to continue my story, because my error was so comical. As you might have guessed, I had meant to say "a huge, gigantic truck" but I had traded the word for truck, caminhão, for the word shrimp, camarão.

Not all of my Portuguese mess ups are funny, but it's always better to laugh anyway.

Here I am in Maraba!

2011-04-05T13:29:00.006-03:00

Last Thursday I safely arrived in Maraba. I found a good price for a plane ticket and I'm so thankful that I did! A year ago there was no flight from Altamira to Maraba. This time of year the dirt Transamazon highway is pretty nasty. It's been rainy for several months and it's common for buses and trucks to get stuck in the mud. When the road's at it's best, it's a 12 hour trip, but it could take days depending how the conditions are. The road is filled with potholes, most buses don't have AC, and there isn't a decent bathroom to be found the entire trip. Needless to say, I was very happy about my 1 hour flight.

This is the little plan that runs from Altamira to Maraba

Ever since I've arrived, I've worked on unpacking, getting used to my new surroundings, and getting to know the people who make up my new church. I am feeling much better now that my room is fairly organized.

Having lunch with my fellow gringos, the Bergens. They have been working in Maraba almost 3 years.

Today is Maraba's Birthday. One crazy thing about Brazil is that there are a ton of holidays, and most people don't work on holidays. I've been told that Maraba celebrates even more holidays than Altamira. So neither of my roomates had to go to work today. Me and Aline spent the whole morning talking about the challenges and difficulties of our church, and dreaming up new ideas. There is a spiritual war in every inch of this earth, but I see it clearly here. None of these kids deserve a childhood like they've had, but nothing is beyond the reach of God.

The worship band

Our church, still in process

Me and Deanna Bergen. Whoops! Bad English grammar. I should say Deanna Bergen and I.

Cristoval in Marabá

2011-03-21T10:43:00.001-03:00

Look what God's just done where I'll be moving!

Every year there is a weekend retreat called Cristoval during Carnival (you can read about Altamira's Cristoval last year here.) These kids spent 3 days together playing and going to the retreat services. This is some of the stuff God did with it. I wasn't there, I was in Altamira, but I'm really encouraged by hearing these stories. I hope you are too!

The Going

2011-03-18T16:33:00.007-03:00

This story that God's orchestrating for me has two parts as of right now; the leaving and the going. I like smilies, so I'll write it this way: the leaving :'( and the going :). My last post I talked about having to leave my beloved city. Now I get to talk about my destination! As you could probably tell from my last post, I had to take a while mourning having to say goodbye, and I couldn't get excited about the new thing God was offering (I'm not trying to be overdramatic, just honest!) But God was faithful and got me to the other side of the sadness and now I'm starting to get really excited about getting to Maraba! So here I am, sitting cross legged on my red and purple flowered sheet, sipping my Starbucks cafe moca Via (that my dad sent me for Christmas :) and I'm excited to share my new vision! First, here's a quick recap of how it all started.

Last April, God spoke clearly to me "You have 1 year left in Altamira. Then you have to leave." Two weeks later, he said the same thing to me. "In a year, you have to leave." I was really sad to think about leaving, and he didn't show me where I was going. The question was, where was I supposed to go to? After months of praying and not knowing, April was getting closer. I still didn't want to leave Altamira, and I still didn't know where I was going. After a faint idea that God might be calling me to Maraba, I visited there at the end of January. I am VERY happy that my sis Julia got to go with me. She now has a first hand experience understanding of my next home is going to be like.
Maraba is a fairly new base with the Xingu Mission. The city of Maraba is approximately 310 miles southeast of Altamira, and more than twice as big. Altamira to Maraba is about the distance of Columbus to Chicago, except it takes 12 or more hours to get there (depending on the condition of the roads) instead of 5. Our church plant is located in one of the not so great neighborhoods of the city. I think the church is around 3 years old. The mission base is a several acre campus that runs from the dirt road all the way to the river. On the campus are 3 houses, an office, the old smaller church building, the new bigger church building, a volley ball court and most importantly, a soccer field. The missionary family and Brazilian pastors family lives on campus. I'll be living in the third house, which is already a home to a couple girls who's families are too dangerous to live with.

When I attended the church, my first impression was of a wild, hyper elementary school class. My second impression was that half the church was kids and the other half was under the age of 16. I didn't really count, but I'd bet there were less than 5 non-leader adults. The band was young and enthusiastic. The front few rows were crowded with active, talkative, bouncing off the walls 6-10 years olds, many of whom seemed ecstatic sing and dance to worship.

I went to Maraba asking "God, is this where you are sending me?" and his answer was a clear "Yes!"

From what I've been told, pretty much every kid's family is unstable, and the neighborhood is filled with drug trafficking, violence and alcohol abuse. I've heard lots of stories of demonic activity. The mission campus itself is a safe place for kids to come and play soccer and of course participate in church. The kids there are obsessed with soccer! There are several teams... little boys team, girls team, older boys team, etc. The soccer field's schedule is filled with practices and games. From my understanding of the system, anyone is free to check it out, but to be apart of the team you have to participate in a small group, youth group or church. It's a good thing the Brazilian pastor, Ivenildo, loves soccer. Too bad I can't, and have no desire, to play.

So where do I fit into all of this? This new church has very capable, but few leaders. There are the Brazilian pastors, Ivanildo and Monica. Then there is the Canadian missionary family, the Bergens. Then there is Aline, who is in her mid twenties and participated in the Vineyard in Altamira for many years. They are the main team to care for this numerous and young flock. In June, the Bergen family will be leaving for Canada for a year. My hope is to be able to encourage and help the Brazilian leaders. I'm excited about getting to invest in so many precious girls! That's truly what I love doing. The ministry will probably be more intense than in Altamira. And that is a major source of excitement for me. It's an opportunity for me to step back and watch God work in me and through me. It's putting myself in a situation where I'll have to depend more on God. It's like taking a big risk with no fear of failure... because God's already got it all figured out, and if I take a leap, he'll catch me.

The Leaving

2011-03-18T14:25:00.010-03:00

The definition of sublime is: of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe. No words can describe my God, but I like this word. It's new, I haven't heard a worship song describe God that way. A song may (and should) exist, but I haven't heard it. Maybe I should write one...

But getting back to the point, lately I have been reminded that I tend to see things backwards. How much does my level of happiness affect my view of God and how I respond to him? Does my worship change drastically when I'm feeling secure, versus when nothing is for sure? Do I look through my situation/emotion glasses to see God, or do I look through my God glasses to see my situation?

Last April, God spoke clearly to me "You have 1 year left in Altamira. Then you have to leave." Two weeks later, he said the same thing to me. "In a year, you have to leave." I was really sad to think about leaving, and he didn't show me where I was going. I never really considered staying, because I was sure that God had told me I needed to go. The question was, where was I supposed to go to? After months of praying and not knowing, April was getting closer. I didn't want to leave Altamira, and I didn't know where I was going. After more prayer, a trip or two, seeking confirmation, and more prayer, I felt sure that God wanted me to move to Maraba, which is a new base with my mission (Xingu Mission.)

Altamira

First I want to explain something. I love where I am. It's hard to explain, but my love goes beyond contentment. There are many things I like about where I live. I like the small town culture, the beautiful river and my house. I like being close to everything, and I like knowing people almost everywhere I go. I love my church, and I love my ministry there. There are young people who are hungry and desperate for God. They hunger for worship and dive in. They're fearless in evangelism and quick to serve.

Our band doing worship for a retreat

I'm sure that my greatest love is for my friends. In my first year of being here I fought hard to learn Portuguese and the culture. I fought those barriers to have friends, and people fought the same barriers to have me as a friend. I spent my time, from when I was barely conversational until now, investing in those relationships. I have seen much fruit in their lives. I've seen changes in my friends, not because of me, but because I've been close enough to them to see it. God's used me and used them. And we've had fun. Playing music, writing songs, long beautiful walks, swimming in the River, surprise birthday parties, teaching them to roast marshmallows, hiking to the waterfall, cooking together and eating together. A LOT of eating together. We've sought God together, worshiped and prayed together, and spent hours talking about what God's doing in us. In a culture of shallow relationships, I've sought depth and found it.

Playing with my friends in a creek. This day was so much fun!

Me and a bunch of my girlfriends after a wedding

Fish just waiting to get gobbled up!

And then there is the family I live with. They are fantastic. I feel at home here, content, cared for and loved.

Me playing around with Junior's glasses. He's my youngest Brazilian bro.

God has showed me that he sent me here and blessed me here. It was hard to leave my parents house and my own country, but God was gentle and overabundantly blessed me. I am happy and comfortable-- it's my home now.

All the while, I know that God has more for me than I'm experiencing right now. There are deeper depths and higher heights and I want to go further up and further in. I sing to God, saying:

Jesus all I have is you. You're the hope I'm holding to.

And roughly translated from a Portuguese song,

Where your Spirit blows me, I will go. Closer to you is where I'm secure. The one place where I want to go, the one place I want to be, is the center of your will.

I mean it when I sing it, but it's harder than I realized.

The Portuguese phrase for "letting go" is literally "to open hand". That's where I find myself right now. I need to open my hand and release everything about living in Altamira that I'm clinging to. I was laughing with one of my friends the other day because we were talking about giving stuff to God. We sincerely want to give God whatever it is, and so we ceremoniously open our fists and lift it up to heaven. Except that it's like our hands are covered in glue, and we stand there shaking our hands, scraping them on the nearest surface, etc, because the whatever it is doesn't seem to want to leave.

So I'm trying to keep my hand open. In it is my Brazilian family, my friends, my church, cheap ice cream, my secure routine, stability, support system and familiarity.

And so, even though I didn't ask to get sent away, I got an invitation from my God. And he is of such excellence, grandeur, and beauty as to inspire great admiration and awe. The letting go and leaving is difficult, but think about the going! I got a divine invitation to participate in a new thing my sublime God is doing. He's in Maraba, and has the best in mind for me. How can I resist accepting his invitation?

I'll be writing more about the going in my next post.

Dengue Fever Weight Loss Program

2011-03-05T18:16:00.002-03:00

Frustrated with diets and weight loss programs that just don't work? Have you given up on your dream to be thin? I just personally tested out a new way to lose those extra pounds and can say from experience that this really works! It's called Dengue Fever! The Dengue Fever Weight Loss Program, or DFWLP, is all the rage here in Brazil. It's spreading like wildfire in Altamira! Weight loss guaranteed!

I am on my 7^th day with the program and have already lost many pounds! (I'll know how many just as soon as I'm able to leave my house.) I haven't been able to,IMEAN, I haven't had to do anything so far. In fact, all I've done for the past week is sleep and watch Star Trek Next Generation episodes.

The most difficult part is getting enrolled in the program. Membership is limited to those living in participating areas of the world. All you have to do is get bitten by the Dengue Mosquito, and if that mosquito has already bitten someone in the program, it will automatically transmit membership to you. It's really that simple! Leaving still water in your yard may increase chances of membership. Just ignore those old tires, unused buckets and other containers that catch and hold rain water.

Do you struggle with perseverance? No problem! With Dengue, there is no turning back. Your membership with the DFWLP will last about two weeks, and during that time, participation is not optional. It's fast and guaranteed weight loss*!

The secret to the program is that Dengue takes away all desire to eat! In addition to loss of appetite, many people also have reported that food doesn't taste good to them, further reducing the temptation to over-nourish. But it doesn't stop there! After eating even the smallest amount of food, members may experience abdominal pain and diarrhea. It's never been easier not to eat!

For the first week after joining the program, you may experience intense headaches, body aches, high fever, itchy rash that covers your body, dizziness, stinging/needle-like sensation, appetite loss, diarrhea, exhaustion, upset stomach and weakness**. The weakness, body aches and exhaustion may remain for several weeks. You can only transmit membership for the first 6 days.

While participating in our program, it is advisable to drink plenty of liquids and get lots of rest. Participants may not take aspirin. The program is not recommended for those with poor health, those who need to work, those with somewhere important to go in the next 2 weeks, those who care for others in their household, or anyone who doesn't like being sick.

If you do not wish to participate in the Dengue Fever Weight Loss Program, it is recommended that you live in a non-participating area of the world, such as the United States of America, or that you constantly use insect repellent.

*It has been reported that some cases of Dengue do not result in weight loss.

**Symptoms are inconsistent, and vary from person to person.

***Please pray for strength for me as I recover. Please also pray that my Brazilian mom wouldn't get it, as she is already in poor health. Thanks!***

My day

2011-02-23T10:50:00.000-03:00

Denise and Jonatas, two members of my Brazilian family

I think I've mentioned before that I live with a Brazilian family. I love that situation. It's fun, it's crazy and it's an awesome opportunity to learn and grow. A typical day goes something like this...

7-7:30: I wake up and start my physical therapy for my shoulder. I try to find somewhere to do this alone if possible, or people look at me weird. It's hard to be alone in our house, however.

8ish: We have breakfast as a family. The mom is already at work at a school, but the dad and the rest of us kids eat fresh bread with butter and drink very sugary coffee. The dad, who is the pastor of our church, likes to discuss his latest idea or theory with us, which I enjoy.

8:30-12: Work. Mornings are for work, whether it's washing dishes, sweeping, mopping, washing a mountain of clothes by hand, or cooking lunch. Everyone jumps in and helps. Everything is more time consuming than you probably think it is. When Julia was here, I often took her to the mission office to do school because our house is noisy and crazy. People are constantly stopping by to visit, or because they need something. The craziness could be common for any brazilian family, but probably even more so for a pastor's house.

12: Lunch! This is the biggest meal of the day and the whole family eats together almost always. We could be eating rice, beans, beef, farinha (manioc), fish, potatoes, spaghetti, chicken, salad of cabbage, carrots and cucumbers. Basically a combination of those things. People often stop in spontaneously to eat with us. It's a fun time to talk and laugh together.

12:30ish: We are already tired. Most of us rest and I usually try to sleep a little. Meanwhile, there is another mountain of dishes waiting to be washed and more people are stopping by, needing attention.

2ish-5ish: For me, this time period varies wildly. I could go to the mission for internet time (email, blog, blog, email). Or I could go visiting people. I show up at their house, normally just to build relationship, but sometimes church business is involved (stuff like organizing activities, or resolving issues). I could also use this time to plan a teaching or work on translating something. Often, an unexpected opportunity will walk in our gate and my goal is to be flexible to be able to talk, help, or hang out as these opportunities show up.

Me and Jhyssica

5ish-7ish: I take a break at my house before my evening activity. I get something to eat and I either spend time with my family or gladly spend a little alone time. My family doesn't really eat dinner. We all just get ourselves a snack of some sort or eat leftovers from lunch.

Jonatas messing around at home

7-9: Every night I have something else. Monday: youth group planning meeting. Tuesday: worship team practice. Wednesday: missionary kinship. Thursday: cell group. Friday: prayer service. Saturday: youth group. Sunday: church.

9-11ish: Depending on how tired I am, and what's going on that day, I hang out with friends.

A group of my friends gathered for a surprise birthday party

Lica, Nelson and I hanging out after church

You might have noticed that my day is very people and relationship focused. In the States I was very goal and accomplishment focused, but here I have learned to focus my energy on relationships. They are my investments. They are my job and my preferred way to spend free time. Through them, I learn more about this culture, which is essential. Although I am involved in plenty of "ministry" with my church, it seems to be through these relationships that God works in me and through me.

Third guest post by my sister Julia

2011-02-10T12:56:00.005-02:00

Me, Julia, getting a indian tattoo (it lasts 2 weeks)

Hello All!
I have come to my third and final guest blog post on Chelsea's page. This is because I left Brazil last week, I'm sad to say. So in honor of the amazing trip I just finished, I'd like to give a little re-cap of my time here, if you don't mind an incredibly long post. :)

When I first decided that I was coming to Brazil for a whopping three months, there were quite a few moments when I thought I was crazy, or at least not being practical. Before this trip the longest time I had been away from my parents was a two week vacation to England, and that was with my best friend/cousin to visit her sister. But I kept praying about it, and I felt sure that God wanted me to come.

And then, after a crazy amount of preparation, hard work, and packing, I arrived. I wish I could say that those thoughts of going coo-coo stopped, but they didn't. They increased. The truth is that living in Brazil is hard! There is no way to prepare someone for the culture shock, the many little differences in the lifestyle, and how really, really difficult the language is. After an entire weak of being in a haze after the continent-switch, I started on the real journey seeing if the work-filled summer was worth it.

Looking back, my stay had three stages, almost exactly one to each month. The first month, October, I was only here about a week, so that was committed to soaking in and beginning to adapt. November was hard. If you've ever met me, chances are you've realized that I'm a people person. Over the years I've mellowed a bit, but it's still difficult not to give a smile to anyone that happens to be walking on the same path. I get energy by being with people, by talking with them and just giving and receiving love. I always knew I liked people, but I didn't know the bit about getting energy until I came here. It is incredibly difficult to hang out with people when you don't know the language. Chelsea is an introvert, so she gave me as much attention as she could and then looked for alone time. Although almost over her people-limit, it wasn't nearly enough for me. I got lonely. I didn't feel like I had come for a reason. I just followed Chelsea around listening to her babble with her friends. I started actually looking forward to school because it was all in English and was something I was used to. ( That bad, I know.)

Our help-us-learn-Portuguese white board

But God has the really good habit of taking a really difficult time and making something beautiful from it. In that time that I couldn't talk to anyone, Jesus and I got closer than ever. I needed it to survive. I was depending on him more than ever before. It was such a sweet time of intimacy in the day to day life.

December was crazy. I thought that we would have a more relaxing Christmas season because everyone here is less materialistic, but nope! Hectic it was. I was getting kinda stressed out, but Jesus was on top of it. A little more than a week before Christmas I was talking with my dad on the phone, and he asked if I was going to be able to go on a boat trip on the river. I talked to Chelsea about it afterward, and she realized that there was a family in the mission that was going back to their home the next day. They were the Berquists, and they live in the Bush, which is another name for the middle of nowhere. They were going back for a week to check on
things before coming back to spend Christmas in Altamira. Twenty-four hours after my dad talked to me about a trip, I was on my way to Maribel to help them however I could.

It was quite a jungle adventure. After nine hours of a road you can only experience in the Amazonian jungle, we arrived to a house that did not have indoor plumbing or electricity during the day. At night they turn on a generator for a few hours to enjoy the electricity if the generator decides to work. All laundry and the majority of the dishes are washed in the river. I LOVED it. Granted, I probably couldn't say I would enjoy it if I lived there permanently, but there was an entire family to talk to in English, there was the excitement of doing new things, and I actually felt like I was being useful. There's so much more to what happened there, but I'll have to write that on another blog.

On the ride to Maribel, me with 2 Berquist daughters

The youngest Berquist child licking the cake bowl

After I got refreshed in Maribel, we had a good Christmas and went to Porto de Moz to visit missionary friends. After a wonderful time of talking in English, eating way too many sweets and reading five books in five days, we came back and settled back into normal life. When I got back, my Portuguese started getting better than even I thought possible. I started being able to communicate without Chelsea, and started making friends of my own. As my fear of not being able to explain things slowly left, I started going out on my own more. This was great for both Chelsea and I, and I started really getting involved more in the people there and getting connected more. Though this became arguably my favorite time of the whole vacation what with my improving Brazilian relationships and having a ton of fun with my sister, it made it even harder to leave. After we got back from a week long trip to another city, I had only 5 days to pack, speak as much Portuguese as possible, and say goodbye (or rather, "tchau!").

My last weekend just proved to me how awesome all of my new friends are. They gave me a surprise party after church the day before I left. We had a "churrasco", which is a Brazilian barbecue, and it was the best churrasco I've ever tasted! We laughed, chatted, and took pictures while I looked back and remembered all my good times with everyone. A few of my closest friends even went to the airport to see me off. I cried multiple times, especially when hugging my "Brazilian family". They truly had let me become one of the family, and I hated to leave. What made it even more touching and difficult was that they didn't want to see me go either. They are a pretty amazing family. I will miss them so much.

Our Brazilian family. Jonatas, Pastor Clenildo, Denise, Pastor Angelita, and Junior

And so there it is. After 3 1/2 months, a few thousand miles, and a huge amount of growth, I'm now back in The States. I'm a little cold ( under-statement, by the way), and I miss everyone in Brazil, but I'm transitioning pretty well I think. It was such a great experience, and there are so many things that I can continue to implement into my life here too. I'm so so glad I went, because of so many reasons: the great people, the important lessons I've learned, the wonderfully warm weather! And most of all, spending time with my amazingly awesome sister Chelsea! I definitely never could've done it without her. Not only did she take care of me and protect me from everything from crazy people on the street to two very large wolf spiders, but she also taught me so many life lessons and helped me learn what it is to be a good sister. We became really good friends while I was there, and it's going to be really hard living in the States without her to whisper to at night. I love you, Chelsea! Thanks so much for letting me come and follow you around for three months. :)

Us eating one of my favorite treats: Passion fruit ice cream!

A dear, dear friend

2011-01-26T06:58:00.009-02:00

Today it's Lauren's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAUREN! I hope your day is filled with love, happiness, and blessings.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Every time I think of you, I thank God for you. Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Lauren is truly one of the most special people that I have had the pleasure of getting to know. She is a worshiper, a seeker of God's face. There are so many qualities that I could write about, but one of the things I appreciate most about her is that she is such a good listener, and her counsel is careful and wise.

Lauren, you are a beautiful, amazing friend! Thanks so much for being my friend. I appreciate you so much. May your year be filled with growth, love and success.

Guest post by Julia

2011-01-23T16:55:00.005-02:00

The sisters... Julia, Chelsea and Denise

I think that one of the biggest struggles here in Brazil is the fact that so few people at home in The States can really sympathize with our daily lives. I think that's why missionaries appreciate blogs so much. Instead of the once-in-a-while phone conversations or just waiting until the missionaries return on furlough, a few clicks on the keyboard and photo transfers, and a slice of Altamira comes into your home. More or less. But anyway, that's my thanksgiving for the day.
And so I shall try to give you a taste of Brazil.

A HUGE part of Chelsea and my life here is learning Portuguese. Before I go any further, I would like to give a friendly word of advice; if you ever decide to stay in another country for an extended amount of time, do not under any circumstances allow yourself to put off learning the language until you arrive. I learned this the hard way. I thought that once I got here, it would become magically easier. It doesn't. All it changes is your mind-set, which goes from, "Hmm, I think I would like to learn a foreign language!" to "AHHHH!!! I have to learn this language to survive!!!!!!" Don't be deceived by my many cheesy exclamation marks; it really felt like that sometimes, and those words frequently came up in my mind. :) However, if you are smart and intelligent and actually try to learn as much as you can before you leave, then living in the land will help you a LOT through experience and exposure. So don't let my scary punctuation marks scare you away from letting God take you somewhere amazing. ;)

Anyway, as I said, the word "Portuguese" describes most of my life here. In fact, most of my life is described in Portuguese. ( Ha!) So, to reach out to you guys and let you have a taste of my life, I have decided to give you a Portuguese lesson.

Quente - ( CANE-chee) Hot.
As you've probably heard by now, Brazil is hot. Very hot. I don't know how far away it is from the equator, but I do know that I feel no need to get any closer. It's so hot that Brazil doesn't have four seasons - it has the rainy season, which is rainy and hot, and the dry season, which is (you guessed it) dry and hot. Once you get used to it it becomes fairly bearable, I'm glad to say, but now I better understand how the people in Texas feel. Never again will I tease my brother for complaining about the heat down there.

Igreja - (ee- GRAY - sha) Church.
Chels and I go to church a LOT, and it's not just because she's a missionary. Nearly all of the people go to church three times a week or more for the prayer gathering, youth group, leadership training, ministry meetings and regular church services. Because of Chelsea's amazing vocal skills, she's also on band a lot, which gave me a lot of time just chilling out there especially in the beginning when I usually followed her around. This gave me a lot of time to pray, study Portuguese, and build relationships with whoever passed by. The people there are really awesome, and nearly all of them reached out to me from the beginning. Our church is a wonderful place to reach closer to God.

Amigos - (A- ME - goes) friend
This is probably my favorite part of Brazil. The culture here almost totally revolves around friends, or at least more so than in in the States. Here, people show up at your door at all hours of the day, and everyone always stops what they're doing and talks with them. Other things might be important, but they choose friends to be more important. Not only has this made my time here absolutely amazing, but it's also something I hope I can take with me. I would like to live where my world revolves around other people, not what I'M doing or what I want. Kind of like Jesus lived.

Merry Christmas and Happy First Month of 2011!

2011-01-04T11:44:00.004-02:00

Julia and I with my gigantic Christmas tree

I know it's a little late to say Merry Christmas, or even Happy New Year! So instead, I'll wish you a very Happy First Month of 2011! My lack of holiday greetings is perhaps due to lack of discipline before Christmas, and a lack of internet afterward, and then a case of forgetfullness. I'm sorry that I'm late. It's the thought that counts, right?

This was my first Christmas away from home, and even though I missed my family very much, I still had a very nice Christmas.

I'm not a big fan of December in the States. It's crazy, it's busy, it's stressful and chaotic. Please don't be offended, but I don't like singing traditional Christmas carols during a church worship, and I don't like all the materialism. Here, we didn't sing carols for worship, and there isn't quite as much materialism here, maybe. But I feel like my December was just about as crazybusystressfulchaotic as it would've been had I been in the States. I don't know how busyness creeps up on me so fast. My goal is to have a much less stressed out January.

Christmas Eve, we had a Christmas lunch for us foreigners. We wanted to stay away from rice, beans, etc. So we made soup, fruit salad, twice baked potatoes, and other fun stuff like that. Oh it was so yummy! All of us adults worked together to make everything and even the kids chipped in and made the fruit salad all by themselves. We had a great time playing games after the meal. We sang Christmas carols (I like them in that context ;) had a white elephant gift exchange, and played musical chairs (even the adults!).

The MKs making fruit salad all by themselves. Clockwise starting at the boy in the blue shirt is Nate, Ava, Maddy, Ella, Makenna, Hannah and Mia

Julia making pumpkin pie!!!! What a treat!!

That night, Julia and I went over to Brin and Josh's to open stockings and the next morning, we went there again to open presents. It was really nice to spend Christmas morning with a family. Especially a family I love so much!

Julia and I with the Pflederer family. Notice the acai tree in the background

Me and Julia with Ella and Mia, and Ava being Ava

Ella with the special wrapping she made for my present. It had real guitar strings!

At my Brazilian family's house, we had a gigantic lunch complete with barbecue and really awful wine. Driving around on was a little weird. I've never been so hot or seen a sky so blue on Christmas. No snow, but lots of pretty green.

After Christmas, Julia and I took an overnight boat to Porto de Moz to visit the beloved Kubacki family and take a vacation. We had a rockin' new years party including Fictionary (balderdash) until almost 2 in the morning! The rest of my week there was very relaxing. I really needed that time to rest and reflect.

So sorry this is SO SO late. Way later than Vineyard time, or even Brazilian time. But hey, if your reading this that means that I actually published it. So thanks for reading :D

A new perspective

2010-12-14T20:19:00.006-02:00

A guest post from my sister!

Hello everyone! My name is Julia, and I am Chelsea's sister. I have the extreme pleasure of staying with her for three months here is Brazil. My time is already half gone ( oh no!) and I feel like I've only scratched the surface of her life here. There are so many things that I like here: the friendly people, the beautiful sunshine followed by sudden downpours, hanging out with Chelsea's awesome Brazilian late onto the night. Not to mention the constant soft-serve ice cream runs we seem to make at least three times a week. :)

Despite the many awesome aspects of Brazilian living, no doubt one of the best things about being here has been spending time with Chelsea and learning more about her life. Now that I've come here, I've been on the receiving and giving end of saying goodbye for missions; that is to say, I've had close ones leave and I've left myself. There are so many frustrations on both ends that are difficult to understand if you've only seen one half of the big picture.

For instance, internet. In the States I have internet in my home, and usually the only thing that could keep me from doing whatever I wanted was if someone else was already on the computer. Then I would have to wait maybe a whole, entire 30 minutes before I could get on and kill hours on Facebook. Oh, the things you see in a new light when living in another country.

Here, we don't have internet in the house where I'm staying. The way we can get connected is to go to the mission base, which is only maybe a drive of 5 minutes up the hill of Altamira to the compound. All in all, not bad, but it's a five minute drive I never had to experience in Ohio. Meaning, I've not had to drive all the way up the hill just to check email. If that was the only thing about getting on the web that was different, I wouldn't have a problem with it. However, internet seems to have its own personality down here, and a rather grumpy one at that. It'll go off for days at a time without warning, or, if we're lucky, just go at a snail's pace. This makes good internet connection extremely valuable, and we scramble to use every last moment of it emailing, blogging, connecting and reconnecting with friends that we would otherwise not be able to talk to. When Chelsea left, I was surprised at how little she messaged me. Now I totally understand. She wasn't ignoring me; odds are that she had so many things on her computer to-do list that she just didn't have any time to go through her list of people she loves and misses and send countless emails. Now that I've experienced it, I hope I'll be more faithful in sacrificing a few precious minutes of my hours on Facebook and shoot her more messages.

Another thing like that is culture. Before I got here, I never understood the difficulties with relating to the Brazilians. To be honest, I had always thought something like, "Well, sorry Chels, but you signed up to be a missionary so that's what you get with the job." Somehow I thought that it must be somewhat similar to the United States. And if it's not, what's the big deal, right? Oh, how silly I was.

Almost the moment I got here I took back every thought about cultural similarities. It's like going to a different world, not just a different country. Things that are easily figured out at home become complicated riddles. The small thing s become huge. My breakthrough of this literally came when I didn't know what to do at meal time. Do you ask for people to pass the food? Do you get up and get it yourself? Will they think you rude if you get seconds, and a downright glutton if you get thirds? Eventually you learn, but when you first arrive you know nothing. You could be desperately offending someone without even knowing it.

This what I've found to be the most important part of culture troubles. With culture, you're not just messing with customs and traditions and battling against looking silly. You're messing with people's feelings. Thankfully the people usually understand that you're a foreigner and give you grace, but the reason still stands. Yet another lesson that this trip has taught me.

Me and my brazilian brother, Jhonatas

I could go on and on: language, discipleship, theology, budget, relationships. This adventure has given me a whole new viewpoint on how missionaries live. Not only that, but now I have a new appreciation for how much I have at home, and a list of improvements for my own life to work on when I get back.

Happy Birthday William!

2010-12-06T12:50:00.007-02:00

Today, my brother is turing 21! In the above picture you see him with the street that was named after him. William Newton the Fourth of the Houston Ballet Company. Okay, so the street is not actually named after him, but don't tell my mom that *wink*

I have so many fond memories of William when we were kids. We're only about a year and a half apart so we were really close growing up. Although I think we fought just as much as we played. He was the playful lil rascal who was obsessed with swords and I was the bossy leader as I dragged him into my imagined world. We played army in the wood behind our house, hide and seek in the corn field, built huge mazes in the snow, and I once tried to convince him to help me make a snow dinosaur. I think we got as far as the tail. My favorite, though, is when we pretended our swing set was a pirate ship.

Thanks for being patient with me, Will. You were a blast to play with!

While I was home this year, I got to go visit him and watch him preform. My little brother now has an awesome apartment, an orange scooter, and is the owner of an adorable but pathetic basset hound named Holly. Watching him dance blew me away. I hadn't seen him dance for more than 3 years, and he was stunning. Stanton Welsh might disagree, but I thought he was perfect.

William, I miss you so much! You are an gentlemen, a good listener and a loving brother. I wish you a very awesome birthday, and when you survive Nutcracker season, I wish you a lovely holiday and a good rest.

Why have I not gotten a hang of this by now?

2010-11-09T18:20:00.003-02:00

My good friends Lica and Jhyssica and me backstage

It all started when a friend of mine stopped by my house last Wednesday. He told me that on Monday there was going to be a concert by a Christian artist and that a few churches were going to put bands together to open for him. He was putting a band together that included a few of my friends and he asked me if I wanted to sing with them. Heck yes I did. He said that we were going to probably practice on Saturday and Sunday.

Please observe: This is a band pieced together from members of two different churches. We have never played together before. We get 2 practices 2 days before the event. Thank you for your observation.

Thursday night I ran into another friend that will be playing bass on the band. He informed me that we were adding another practice the next night. I thought this was fantastic, now we had an extra practice. Friday and Saturday's practices went great. We were starting to sound really good together, and I had a blast practicing.

I had Americanized expectations for Sunday's practice. I expected us to polish everything and define what exactly we were going to do, when we were going to sing the next day, what time we needed to be there, and any extra information that would be helpful. Practice went along like normal, except we seemed to be messing up more than usual. Practice ended and we went home without a word said about the next day. I have learned through experience that asking too many detailed questions is looked down upon, possibly because it's seen as freaking out. Actually I don't know why, but for whatever reason, I've learned that I need to wait for them to tell me the details.

So Monday I set about waiting. At lunch time, I began getting really antsy. My motorcycle had a problem with it, and I thought I was going to have to take it to a workshop. I thought that was a perfect excuse to call my friends and say I didn't have a ride and ask them to pick me up. That way, I would know what time I had to be there. Josh ruined my plan by being awesome and fixing my bike. So at 2:30 I called one of my girl friends just to talk and someone from the band came up and told her to tell me that the band was meeting at 3:30. So I did what I needed to real quick and headed over there. I didn't know what we were doing, but it turned out that we were just supposed to do a sound check. But when we got there, the stage was pretty much empty and the crew were just taking their time setting up. It was decided that we would meet for a sound check at 7 since the show started at 8.

Even though I know that Brazilians are often late, I felt a little bad as I got there at 7:10. But no one from the band was there yet. I walked around the place alone for an hour until half of the band showed up. Now, I knew that the show wasn't going to start at 8, but I didn't quite see that coming. Another guy showed up at 8:30, and the last guy showed up at 9. The show started at 9:30.

This seems to be the rhythm to which Altamira operates. Most of the time, I am still stuck to some American rhythm. It took me until like, 9:15 to figure everything out and then ask myself "Why have I not gotten the hang of this by now?"

The actual concert part was a ton of fun. Our band sounded pretty good at a billion decibels, if I do say so myself. An interesting aspect of the night was that one of the songs has a rap part of it, but the guys couldn't pull it off. But rather than take that part out of the song, it was decided that I would sing rap in English. Yup, that's right. I told my band members that they should be ashamed that they had to ask the whitest girl in town to sing the rap part. I ended up singing the beginning of "Joyful Noise" by Flame. I sounded like a very white girl trying to rap, but the Brazilians still loved it and I enjoyed it as well. I mean, when else, in my entire life, would I get an opportunity to rap at a concert?

The concert was held at... a place. I actually don't know how to describe it. County fair? It has lots of booths with expensive tractors, cars, four wheelers, etc. My friends had quite a good time taking pictures with these. It has lots of food, and a couple rides and a couple games. It also has cows. And an area that looks like a corral.

Julia, on top of a cow

Geidson and Luan dreaming big

I didn't know they had John Deer here..

The whole night was really fun. Julia got to go and experience everything. I'm so glad she's here with me. I'm also thankful that I have good friends here that I can be silly, have fun, and rap with.

Julia, Deborah, and my Brazilian brother, Junior

Brasil Novo

2010-11-01T11:46:00.010-02:00

Hello from Brazil! Julia and I have arrived safely in Altamira after 5 long but uneventful flights. Our first week here was mostly spent settling in at Clenildo and Angelita's house, in addition to getting some school work done and reconnecting with friends. Julia has met almost all my friends now, and remembers many of their names. I have had a blast seeing everyone!

Last Saturday, Julia and I went on a little trip to a town called Brasil Novo that's about 45 minutes away. Our church has started a small group there and is working toward planting a church there. Saturday, our youth group went to do a big service, hoping to encourage the people from the small group and add to their number. After inviting a bunch of people, we had worship, a skit, and a dance. 5 clowns took the kids to the backyard and did a special service for them while the adults listened to a teaching. 4 people came forward to become a Christian and many more want prayer for healing or other things.

Meanwhile the kids loved their service. One of the clowns was Julia, and even though she didn't understand what was being said, she played the part wonderfully and the kids loved her.

Middle Earth

2010-09-07T23:03:00.007-03:00

A couple weeks ago, my amazing mom took my sister and I to Middle Earth....er, I mean Hocking Hills. It is so gorgeous there! That place is soaking with inspiration, and Julia and I spent a lot of time thinking up ideas for stories. But if I'm perfectly honest my mind spent the entire time pretending I was an elf.

I've always loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy, not just because of the amazing story, but because of the nobility, artistry and maybe even the formality of the culture of Middle Earth. There, nothing is gray, cheap or lukewarm. One is either black or white, good or evil. And the good are dignified in living life to the fullest. Each race seeks very different lifestyles, and yet each culture is rich in purpose. To me, the books have a very regal feel to them.

Here are some Hocking Hills pictures that reminded me of lotr places.

Rivendell

The Forbidden Pool

The Winding Stair of Cirith Ungol

Loth Lorien

A shortcut to the mushrooms

I have always loved elves. They are a wise, powerful people with special gifts such as healing and prophecy. They are immortal so they have immense experience. It seems that they have the best of everything: the fastest horses, the best weapons, the coolest language, etc. There is a quote that I love from The Fellowship of the Ring that Frodo says to Gildor. "Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes." In other words, even though they're much more wise than any other race, they know how dangerous advice can be. They are wise enough to know they don't know everything and they keep their mouths shut. I could definitely learn a thing or two from them. They have lived too long, however. They have seen too much sorrow and evil and so are a sad people. It seems to me that they've become a tired, solemn people who see having fun as frivolous.

The other fictional race I admire (though slightly less than elves) are hobbits. They are a content, innocent and humble people. Rather than seek greatness, they seek to enjoy and celebrate life (especially the parts of life that involve food.)

Hobbits and elves have been spiritual symbols to me for quite some time. God clearly calls us to be wise and seek for deeper things of God (spiritual growth). He also calls us to be like children. So here's the question I've been asking for over a year: How do you become an elf and a hobbit at the same time? In other words how can you pursue maturity and still stay childlike?

The answer came to me during worship last Saturday night. I got a picture of Arwen living in the Shire, pretending to be a hobbit. She was still an elf queen, but she was choosing to live a simpler, smaller life. She was still wise but she humbled herself to enjoy the company of oblivious hobbits. She never changed who she was, but she changed how she lived.

I wanted to explore this concept further. I tried to think of more examples. I thought of Vulcans vs.... but realized that humans were the most simple Star Trek race and even they pretend they know everything. I asked God to tell me more about this. He told me to read Micah 5.

verse 2: Bethlehem, Ephrathah, you are small among the clans of Judah; One will come from you to be ruler over Israel for Me. His origin is from antiquity, from eternity.

verse 4: He will stand and shepherd them in the strength of Yahweh, in the majestic name of Yahweh His God.

Do you get it? Thats the ultimate picture! Jesus, still being awesome God, became a small man in a humble situation. He was childlike and incredibly wise and powerful at the same time, but his greatness and strength came from God.

All this to share something cool God's teaching me.

Contentment

2010-07-31T05:59:00.005-03:00

Something I get to enjoy in the States is picnics with good friends :)

This is a post I wrote in May and just never published. Now that I'm in the States, I get to enjoy different and wonderful things. Here is a contrast, a description of some of the simple things I enjoy while in Brazil.

My day started with a light shower taking me by surprise as I was taking a walk in the cool morning. This was followed by seeing on of the most intense rainbows I've ever seen. I was convinced that I saw exactly where it touched the ground and if I hopped on my scooter I would find a pot of gold at the end of it. At the moment, I'm watching a formidably low, deep gray cloud blow over most of the sky. But through my window, I can still see sunshiny blue beyond the edge of the coming rain.

Not actually the same rainbow, but this is what it looks after a short rain :)

And now the rain has started. It starts all at once, silence to a hammering on the roof and a near wall of water streaming in front of the window. I'm left watching my motorcycle getting drenched, wondering how long I'll be stuck in the office, wondering if the rain will last and if there will still be cell group tonight. I can no longer see my patch of sky.

Today, I visited one of my friends at his work and we started talking about other places we lived. He once lived in the south of Brazil, and we compared our old lives to Altamira. We talked about chapped lips, rains that last days instead of minutes, and not living close to water. Here, we live right next to beautiful river, in a warm area full of life.

I'm so thankful for being right here, right now.

There's a first time for everything

2010-07-29T23:25:00.005-03:00

My "first" for Tuesday, July 27th 2010 was traveling to the ER in an ambulance. My shoulder has popped out before, but this time it would not go back in. I happened to be laying on my back on a trampoline when it happened (no, I wasn't jumping, just laying there.) My good friends Austin and Lauren were with me when it happened and were so much help. They stayed with me for a half an hour praying for me while I tried to get it back in. In the end they called the squad and I headed off to the emergency room. After taking x-rays it actually went back in by itself after being out more than 2 hours.

Tomorrow I'm going to an Orthopedic specialist. If you could pray for me, that I could find out how to prevent this from happening again. I especially don't want to get caught in the middle of no where, Brazil, without help and dislocate my shoulder. This is the 5th time its popped out just in the last 2 or 3 months, so I'm feeling a pressing need to get answers.

Update: After my appontment today, we found out that surgery is a good option, but we are not sure whether I have enough time before I go back to Brazil. Please pray that we can make a good decision.

Family Vacation!

2010-07-19T09:34:00.009-03:00

Just three days after I arrived in the States, my whole family left on a big Newton family vacation! We headed down to Ft Peirce Fl, to go beaching and chill out in our condo. I was literally chilling, as the rest of our family wanted the AC down allllll the way to 75. Every time I passed the thermostat I would turn it up a few degrees, and every time my brothers passed they would turn it down a few degrees.... until my brother taped the number 8 over the ones place. So the thermostat appeared to say "78" when it was actually set at 73.

Exhibit A

But it was an awesome and relaxing week at the beach. There were days we spent indoors just playing cards together, and eating alot of yummy food.

Us playing Dutch Blitz

We also played on the beach, hung out at the pool, played Bocce Ball, and (of course) watch Brazil play in the world cup.

To put the cherry on top, we spent our last couple days in Orlando. The first day, just the 4 of us kids went to Universal Studio's Islands of Adventure. This was my personal favorite, and we all had a blast together.

The last day all 6 of us went to Disney's Hollywood Studios, which was also a blast. Andrew and my personal favorite was the Rock'n Roller coaster, for those of you who have been there. I mean, really, what could be better than riding a roller coaster while listening to Aerosmith? Oh wait! That wasn't quite as fun as throwing virtual 3D darts at virtual 3D balloons on the Toy Story 3 ride. Andrew and I getting ready to win sky high scores because of our awesome 3D shooting skills on the Toy Story ride.

Look I'm Snow White!

Andrew and I getting ready to win sky high scores because of our awesome 3D shooting skills on the Toy Story ride.

World Cup 2010

2010-06-28T15:56:00.002-03:00

Someone flying a huge flag around the city after a Brazil victory

The effect the World Cup has on Altamira, a town in the middle nowhere, is amazing to me. Weeks before the Cup started, people started talking, streets started being decorated, and craft stores started selling Brasil paraphernalia including, of course, green and yellow mohawk wigs.

Right before the first game, the city had a contest with a prize for the best decorated street. All over the city, people hung yellow and green streamers and flags above the streets, and painted the streets with the brazilian flag, african animals, soccer balls, world cup trophies and the like.

The day of the first game, my friend warned me that the city was about to shut down. People were running around, getting stuff done before the game. I don't think schools were even open during the game. If so, everyone skipped.

The game started out with fireworks and lots of firecrackers. I was up at the mission, on the top of the hill that overlooks the city. When Brazil scored the first goal, you could hear the entire city cheer along with the fireworks booming. I found out the fireworks go off after every goal, and then when Brazil wins. For those of you not keeping track of how Brazils doing, they won against North Korea 2:1.

I was still in Altamira for the second game against Côte d’Ivoire. This time Brazil won 3:1. Immediately after the game, the boys rushed into their street to play their own game. People rode around honking and yelling. Later that night, there was a whole lot of partying. The main streets were crazy. The next morning they were absolutely trashed.

Some kids playing in the street after the second game

The game against Portugal ended scoreless. I was not in Brazil any more, so I don't know whether the city still partied.

Right now, it's just after half time and Brazil is 2:0 against Chile. One of my Brazilian friends wrote me today to inform me that Brazil would win 3:0.... lets see if he's right.

Blogging

2010-06-23T15:13:00.003-03:00

Writing a blog involves creativity, a good internet connection, a good amount of time, inspiration, photography and attention. Lately, I have been lacking in many of those areas. Mostly, writing a blog is very difficult when you don't have internet at your house. This is not a good excuse, it just requires more discipline.

Soooo, please forgive me for being undisciplined.

This is my second day in the States. I live in a house that has internet (along with a dryer and a washing machine that rinses and spins!). All this to say 2 things:

#1 I should be much more consistent in blogging, at least for the next 3 months. I also hope to write about some of the things that happened in the last couple months in Brazil. AND...

#2 I want to see YOU! I miss all of you and it will be soooooo awesome to reconnect with many of you :D I will be spending the majority of my USA time in Ohio, so if you happen to be in Columbus, shoot me an email and we'll catch up.

Blessings

2010-05-13T17:29:00.003-03:00

It has been forever since I've written on this blog! I'm sorry I haven't been faithful in writing consistently... I hope my thousands of faithful readers haven't given up on me ;)

There have been a few changes in my life lately. First, about 2 months ago I moved in with a Brazilian family. I made the change so that I could be more immersed in the language and the culture. I was also living very far away from many of my friends, which made relationship building difficult. Now I'm living with Clenildo and Angelita, pastors from our church. Their daughter, Denise, is a good friend of mine and it's been awesome growing closer to her. Her 13-year-old brother and 15 year old cousin also live there. They have a little house behind their house. It has a bathroom and a bedroom kinda separated into 2 rooms. It's perfect for me! My life has grown busier, which is sometimes difficult, but it also has a bunch of blessings. Portuguese is already a lot easier for me, and being closer to church and closer to my friends has helped me alot.

Above is the family that I live with, and below is the door to my house.

Another help is my scooter. I was able to buy my "biz" a little while ago which is a HUGE blessing. Up until now I would walk everywhere, normally 1/2 hr walks, which in the hot sun is really long. I was also very dependent on my friends to take me everywhere. That got old really fast...

So look how God has blessed me!

Ugly hands

2010-04-15T13:51:00.003-03:00

Life in America is filled with lots of annoyances. Gas prices, always having to be on time (or always being late), long lines, etc. In my day to day life, these things used to add up, stress me out, and ruin an otherwise perfectly good day.

When I moved to Brazil I was very happy to be free of a lot of these thing. But the truth is that I just traded American annoyances with Brazilian ones. This week, I admit that I have been more irritable than usual. Nothing terrible has happened. None of my relationships are falling apart. I think it's just because I have a lot little things building up.

First of all, I have a cold with a really annoying cough that has kept me from sleeping. Then two different rashes appeared on my hands. On my left hand, I have a possible lemon burn. Apparently, here, if you get lemon juice on your skin and go out into the sun, your skin will burn wherever there is lemon juice. About the same time, the my right hand broke out in a mystery rash of red dots. Luckily they don't itch. One thing that annoys me about life here is that there are a lack of answers most of the time. In America, there are answers in the form of doctors, dermatologists, books, libraries, cremes, etc. Here, I already know that I have very little resources to deal with rashes. I have missionary friends with medical backgrounds, some medication that's very easy to get a hold of, but other help could be hard to come by. If it doesn't bother me, and if it goes away on it's own, I have to be okay with not being able to do anything about it.

The annoyances are different here then they were in the States. I'm annoyed that my city is so dirty, and it takes me like an hour to clean just my room and bathroom everyday. I'm annoyed that my friends plan everything last minute, or back out of commitments last minute. I'm annoyed that my bank in the States cancelled my debit card and sent a new one to my parents house where I can't get it or use it (which makes getting money much more complicated for me.) I'm annoyed that I can't figure out how to keep frogs out of my bathroom at night. I'm annoyed that the frog visitors poop on my bathroom floor. I'm annoyed that I haven't been able to wear my favorite shorts for the last 4 days because it's been raining so much that they haven't gotten a chance to dry. We keep yanking them and a truckload of other clothes on and off the clotheslines outside.

I'm annoyed at myself for letting these things get to me.

These are my normal, everyday annoyances for me. So where am I going with this? We all have rough days and get annoyed. Sometimes it helps me to remember that even though my friends back home might not be dealing with frogs in their bathroom, I'm not the only one who has difficulties dealing with everyday annoyances.

Rest

2010-04-10T05:55:00.000-03:00

Wayyyyy back in January, the right when I got back from my visit to the states, Luke Kubacki wrote the following on my facebook wall:

-- "mmk so yeah.. you need to come visit me before you get back into the swing of things and before you get too busy!!!"

My response:

--"well, idk... I got back today, and am just about already in the swing of things. We had a missionary lunch, then I went to the meeting about cristoval, then ate supper at Marcilene's and tomorrow I have someone to go visit, lead worship for kinship then worship practice at church afterward.... all I have to do is add homeschooling :) But I'll find sometime soon to come. Probably after cristoval..."

He was like:

--"wow chels. hahaha you don't waste any time!"

A couple days later I updated my status on fb saying that I'd just got back and already had a fever. Luke commented saying "I told you so."

So all of February pasted by. It was jam packed with Cristoval, splitting our worship ministry into 2 bands, weekend mission trip, etc. Then March came, equally busy. But I finally got to get away and visit the beloved Kubackis.

Now, if you have never met the Kubacki family, your life is not yet complete. This family is incredible! Unfortunately, they live in Porto de Moz... a town about 9-10 hours up river. The only way to get there is by boat... we take the public line boat. Just hang up your hammock, pray that your neighbor gives you a little breathing room, and try to sleep through the night till you arrive in Porto de Moz at around 4 in the morning.

I arrived on Saturday. In Altamira, my weekends are pretty busy. I didn't realize how busy until I got to rest for one. I did NOTHING but hang out with the Kubackis, chat with Betsy, and eat. Sunday came and again I did nothing!

It was so good talking to Betsy!!

And of course hanging out with Luke is always a blast :)

Being away from my routine, friends, ministries, ect, gave me time to think. I realized how little I'd actually been thinking, due to simply being busy. I'm not called to "doing". I'm called to "being". God used that time to teach me how to rest.

I got back to my town, Altamira, and life continued just as busy as ever. But I'm learning when to say no. And I'm learning how to rest and "be", even in demanding life situations. God is good. I have a long way to go, but God is faithful and I know he'll continue to teach me and help me.

Here are some pictures I took on the line boat heading back home..

One night at youth group...

2010-04-05T17:18:00.006-03:00

Ever since Cristoval, I've seen a real difference in the youth of my church. The youth ministry (anyone around the ages 15-30) has been my focus here for a while now, and it's really exciting to see God moving in them so strongly. Last week we had service outside the church with the purpose of attracting the attention of people passing by. Now, let me start by saying that I'm not a big fan of evangelistic events basically because I prefer other ways to reach the lost. But yet again I watched as God worked through what I considered a less than perfect situation.

Like I said, we had service outside our church, but it ended up being just worship. This was the first test for me, because the speakers that we were able to take outside with us were awful. They had the sound turned up so high that the sound was super distorted, and where I was standing I could barely hear myself. (Someone recorded a video of us playing one of the songs, which confirmed that I was off key at least half of the time.) But in spite of all that, God's spirit was there really sweet. I was soon lost in God's presence.

While we were worshiping, there were around 4 teenagers passing out tracts. Again, let me say I'm not a fan of tracts. I prefer a much more relational way to reach people. But then I watched as the youth brought person after person who joined our service. As a result of conversations they had in the street, at least 5 (but I think a couple more) came in to participate or just watch us worship. I saw three people readily accept prayer, and it was evident that God was touching them. All three come from really rough backgrounds and are in tough situations right now. One of them came to church the next day and prayed with our pastor to accept Jesus. The others haven't come to church yet, but some of the youth have kept in contact with at least 1 of them, and who knows what God will do. :)

Regardless of the outcome, whether they ultimately let God change their lives or not, I can't deny that God used that night to touch those 3 lives. I saw them crying, I heard what they said, and I heard what God used others to say to them. What's awesome is that, in God's passionate pursuit of those 3 people, he chose to use us to touch them, hug them, pray for them and love on them. The rest is in his hands.

Under the star fruit tree

2010-03-10T12:50:00.009-03:00

Every Thursday night I help lead a cell group in a neighborhood called Mutirao. It meets in a front yard of a teenager who goes to our church, and we sit under a star fruit tree. Isn't that cool? I had no idea it what kind of tree it was until one night a fruit fell. I looked up to see star-shaped yellow fruit!

This group has been going on for a least 6 months and is composed of several moms who live on that street and friends of the teenager. Our goal is to reach people on that street who don't know Jesus. Most people who go there are shy and closed, so it's been a challenge for me to get to know them.

We sing a song or two, do an ice braker and a short teaching. I teach every other week, which at first was a major challenge for me and my Portuguese. One particularly difficult night, I couldn't say anything the way I wanted to, I couldn't explain anything well, and it seemed like nobody was understanding me. I was so embarrassed to give so awful of a teaching. Afterwards, I told the other leader that I was giving up teaching until I learned Portuguese better. He just shook his head and said "If you don't start now, you'll never start and you'll never learn." So I've stuck with it and I think I'm slowing getting better at teaching in another language. Just recently I started a girls group and realize that if I hadn't been teaching at the cell group, I probably wouldn't be able to lead the girls group right now.

In addition to the 6-7 adults, ALL the kids from that street love to come too! When we started the group there, a kazillion kids would show up, most without their parents, and sit quietly through the service eagerly waiting for the snack at the end (sweet bread and juice.) So we created a kids group too! It meets behind the house and all the kids are eager to learn a bible story, sing etc. A girl from our church is mentoring a couple younger girls from our church, teaching them how to teach and minister to children. Eventually, they will take over the kids group.

Although the group hasn't experienced much growth, most members have been extremely faithful in coming. One member recently told us that the group had changed her, and helped her grow a lot spiritually. Just like the star fruit tree was waiting for it's season to grow fruit, I believe that our group will come to a season where we will bear more fruit.

After group, the woman who owns the house saw me looking at a fallen star fruit and gave it to me. I remember trying a star fruit in the States and I don't think I liked it. But this fresh star fruit was very tasty!

Cristoval 2010

2010-03-02T07:49:00.004-03:00

As Carnival sucked in the youth of the city with drinking and dancing, we were having our own party. Cristoval is a youth retreat that happens every year as an alternative to Carnival. We spent 4 days out at our church's ranch sleeping in hammocks, playing games, worshiping, learning and receiving what God had for us.

There was about 130 people there-- the youth from the 5 vineyard churches in Altamira. This was the line for dinner. (Notice the amazingly long picnic tables made from only one slab of wood.)

This year, God did some really cool things. Most of what I saw him doing revolved around 2 themes, healing and unity. The teachings would end late at night, then ministry time would start. God came in such a sweet way. We would worship, receive, pray and worship some more until early morning. A couple times, whatever God was doing that night would overflow into the next day. One morning, the girl in the hammock above me woke up speaking in tongues. I was happy because I didn't sense many instances of people seeking attention. Just about every interaction with God that I got to bless and be apart of seemed genuine and deep. It also seems like the things God did has continued since the retreat ended. So far, many of the people I know who were deeply touched have grown even more and are still seeking God's healing and touch.

For me, God was doing so much that I had a hard time playing games and participating in the sillier parts of the retreat. However, there were times I was I able to come back to earth and have fun. For those of you who know about the game Dutch Blitz... that game was a HIT! People started playing right after breakfast and continued every spare moment until service. After the service, in the middle of the night, they'd start right back again!

This is one of our youth group's favorite "skits". Basically what happens is I talk in English and someone else, who has absolutely no knowledge of English, translates what I'm saying. It ends up like this:

Me: Once, when I was a little girl, I had a hamster.

Sousa *guy translating*: Truly, it's been such a pleasure being here with all of you for the past couple days.

Me: Unfortunately, the hamster died!

Sousa: I've never eaten better food in my life!

Even though no one knows what I'm saying, everyone thinks it hilarious. Don't ask me why... I haven't figured out that part of Brazilian humor yet.

It was interesting for me to compare the 2 Cristoval's I've been to. Last year at Cristoval, I didn't have enough Portuguese to have a conversation with anyone, and was simply an observer. This year I was a part of the worship team, understood and received from the teachings, prayed for people, and I felt free to jump into whatever God had for me-- in my own life or ministering to other people.

Under construction

2010-02-18T12:36:00.008-02:00

Any thoughts on the new blog look? I had so much fun with the pictures in the above banner that I decided to change my whole blog around them.

My friend is currently borrowing my little digital camera. One of the benefits of lending out my camera is that I get to upload any pictures my friends take. Recently, my friend took it to the river and he and a bunch of his friends were jumping off a tall structure into the water and taking pictures of each other falling through the air.

The picture that I replaced for the banner was a picture of the river with a wall of rain in the distance. For me it was significant because I felt like the rain was coming, it just wasn't here yet.

At the moment, I'm learning to dive, spiritually speaking. I love the idea of jumping, free falling, and letting God catch me. I'm taking more risks, but more than that I'm learning to seriously press in to him. He's teaching me how to receive his love, how to pray for people and love people. It's something simple, but it's deep.

So now that you know the reason behind it, what do you think? Any suggestions? Should I change it back to the way it was? Leave a comment and let me know!!

A little about my week/ Happy V-day!

2010-02-12T23:41:00.007-02:00

I've had a good, full week. It's weird that I was in the States only a couple weeks ago. I've jumped right back in, and it feels like I've been back at least a couple months.

One night this week, I stayed over at my friend's house. I ended up spending a good deal of the time talking with another girl who lives there. The conversation was really good and touched on some pretty deep issues in her life, but it ended at 1 in the morning. Normally, that wouldn't have been a problem, but the next morning there was a going away breakfast for another friend at 6. To make things worse I woke up at 5 and couldn't get back to sleep. 40 minutes later I figured out that God had woken me up to pray (I'm a little slow sometimes;). We ended up arriving at the breakfast around 6:45, but we were by no means the last to show up.

I've started taking guitar lessons from one of my friends. Ironically, I took lessons from his brother about a year ago. It didn't really work out then because I wasn't even conversational yet, and musical terms were wayyyy above my head. I never really got what he was trying to teach me. So on Thursday while I was at my friends house getting a lesson from my friend, his brother was in the next room shouting "That's exactly what I was trying to teach you last year!" and my friend would retort "Well, I least she actually understands what I'm saying this time!" and then he would nervously glance up at me "you do understand, don't you?"

The week continued with the norm. Helping homeschool, stopping by people's houses to visit, cell group, missionary small group, worship practice, youth group planning meeting, hanging out late at a friend's house after the night's activity to watch a worship dvd, etc.

Tonight was special because Ella had planned a special Valentines Day party for all the mk girls. I felt very honored to be invited. As I was walking to the party, I stopped to talk with a lady that goes to one of the vineyard churches. She asked where I was going and I explained that the US has a different Valentines day then Brazil does. She said: "How fun! You get to celebrate twice a year! Too bad you don't have a boyfriend!" I laughed and said "don't worry, he'll come eventually."

Ella planned and ran the whole party pretty much by herself. Her two sisters and the 4 other girls who came had a blast!

There was face-painting, decorating cupcakes, crafts, games, lasagna, candy, and even smores! The house was decorated with hearts and half the girls were wearing pretty dresses. Even Hannah, almost 2, enjoyed herself.

Making a butterfly-lollipop craft.

It was apparent by the end of the night that everyone had eaten far too much sugar!

I admit! I'm bad at this.

2010-02-06T17:15:00.000-02:00

I am so sick of gossip. Last night I was told a story about one of my friends who hurt another friend of mine. Even though the situation involves the group of people I'm always with, it has nothing to do with me.

This morning, another (equally uninvolved) friend told me the same story, except with completely different facts. Both stories make me sad, and I didn't need to hear either of them.

This, unfortunately, has become quite normal for me. Gossip seems to be a huge problem here! Sometimes it seems like all my friends are trying to get everyone mad at each other.

The truth is I'm not only responsible for what I say, but also for what I hear. I like to make excuses for myself. Because it's all in Portuguese it takes me longer to process what I'm hearing, and by the time I realize it's gossip, pretty much everything has been said. That is a difficulty, but not a valid excuse.

Please pray for me! That God would give me wisdom on what to listen to, what to say and how to deal with these situations.

My Transition

2010-02-05T00:00:00.000-02:00

A few of you have asked about my transition back from the States to Brazil. Really, since I was only away a month, it hasn't been a huge transition. (My friend Pedro was joking that came back so fast I must have traveled to the US and back by email.) There are a few adjustments I've had to make, though.

There are several very minor things that struck me the first few days back. One very good thing, is I appreciated how beautifully green everything is here the moment I arrived. Compared to dead, cold Ohio, its a welcome contrast. Altamira also comes with heat, dirt and bugs. I was again amazed how fast my clothes get dirty here, and comparatively inefficient the laundry system is. I think all the dirtyness has contributed to me being a bit sick since my return. The bugs do not bother me that much, really, but I find the bug situation kind of funny. During worship practice to there was a big ol' bug just chilling on my friend's guitar while he was playing. My thoughts were "you would never see that in the States."

I was very curious to see how my language skills held up after the whole trip. My conclusion is that although I actually lost very little Portuguese, I still need time for my brain to catch up to where it was when I left. It seems that I can't think as fast, forget words (they come back 5 minutes after I need them), have to concentrate much harder to understand someone, and when someone tries to teach me a new word it's like my brain doesn't put any effort to retain it. I have to get out of rest mode and back into learning mode!

It has been so good to reconnect with all my Brazilian friends. Since they are very loving people, they have greeted me with squeals, hugs and kisses. Sometimes they talk like it's been a year instead of a month. One thing I've become very aware of is the need to joke around gently. I got out of habit with my friends in the US. There, I knew where the lines were.... how far I could go without being in danger of hurting someone's feelings. But here I don't know the culture, so I don't know where the lines are. My friends here seem to be much more sensitive then my american friends, so I've had to pay close attention to what I say to keep from hurting anyone.

Me and one of my best buddies, Cleny

Heading Back

2010-01-24T05:43:00.008-02:00

Written on Saturday night, the 23rd of January:
Just now, for the last time I spread the sheets on the couch in my parents living room in front of the warm fire. Tomorrow, I'll be heading to Chicago, then Miami and spending the night in the airport. The next day, I'll be flying to Manaus and Belem, spending the night there, then finally leaving at 4 in the morning to arrive in Altamira on Tuesday.

It was a longggg trip back, but I'm safetly back in Brazil.

It was a really wonderful time of reconnecting and refilling. I had such a fantastic time with all my family, and a particularly special time with my sister Julia. Time with old friends was so refreshing. In addition to being with people I had missed so much, I could finally spend time with friends without any language barrier, with the same understanding of humor, and without worrying if I was going to offend them due to cultural misunderstandings.

Being able to go to my church again was such a blessing. VCDC is like a home to me. It worked out that they had their annual conference while I was there, and it was an awesome time of learning and receiving.

Me and my dad on our family's Christmas. It was so good to be home!

My whole family-- me, Julia, Andrew, William, Mama and Papa. William lives in Texas, but was home for a 2 week break, so all 6 of us got to be together!

Breakfast at the Newton house. I was so thrilled to get grapefruit, bagels, cranberry juice, Starbucks coffee, and mushrooms (in omelets) all in the same meal! Enjoying missed foods was definitely in my top 5 most enjoyable things while in the States.

I got to share about my year in Brazil, and show some pictures to my mom's women's small group. They sent me off with some awesome prayer a year ago, so it was fun to share what had happened so far.

Me receiving prayer after sharing at the Delaware City Vineyard.

Me, Jordan and Lauren.... I miss you guys!

Praying for Haiti

2010-01-22T12:20:00.003-02:00

The recent tragedy in Haiti has captured the attention of the world. Right now, I see Haiti through a slightly different perspective because my aunt, Beth, is a missionary and nurse practitioner there. She and other missionaries in her area were not harmed by the earthquake, but many of their haitian friends had loved ones who died in Port-au-Prince.

Even though my aunt's area wasn't hit as hard as other areas in Haiti, there are still very real needs and much work to be done. Right now, there is a visiting team of doctors and other medical staff helping as many as possible. One of many needs is fuel... without it, the generators can't run and no one, including the clinic, will have electricity. The following is a letter written by Beth. I encourage you to pray along side her, as God leads.

The lady in the white shirt is my aunt, Beth Newton. "This photo was taken last evening in our hospital ward. Dr Bill is putting together an eternal fixator to help a patient fracture. Dr William, Dr Morose and I were there helping."

Dear praying friends,

Your prayers are bearing fruit. Please continue:

- Praise for great opportunities to give help and comfort to many. God is working in hearts and bodies. We have about 80 patients in our clinic/hospital and staff who are working hard. There have been 250 at the Bonne Fin Hospital, and the visiting medical team has been able to help many this week. Dr Bill's experience as a missionary surgeon in Africa has prepared him to serve well with humble supplies. His presence has facilitated our staff at our Cayes clinic/hospital well. We aren't asking payment from earthquake vicitms and there will be a big need for finances to cover the costs. (I can give you an address to send a gift if you wish.)

-We continue to pray for fuel and food in sufficient quantity to meet the needs. There's a tanker of diesel coming this morning to Cayes. There will be long lines and a long wait. The Christian owner of the gas station said he'd see that I'd get some for the autoclave at Bonne Fin which is out of fuel.

-Pray with us for God's chosen team - perhaps 4 MD's and 6 support staff - to take over for the team which has been at Bonne Fin this week. Thank you for all your expressions of loving care.

We are doing well in God's hands,

Beth