Today was a sad day for a couple reasons. First of all, it was sad because we left Crato today, my home for the last five weeks. It only took five weeks for me to become fairly involved in several ministries and begin to develop many friendships with both Americans and Brazilians. But the next more »

Romans 12:15 says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (NKJV). Today was one of those days when I saw both themes in action. It began with much rejoicing, and most of the day was that way, but it ended in sadness. Danae and I practiced our trumpet/violin duets sometime after more »

1:30am- The guys are sleeping outside in our hammocks and it starts sprinkling on us. The sky had harbored storm clouds all day long on Friday, but they did nothing more than float overhead. Well, now they were slowly falling on us. It was a light enough rain that I wouldn’t have minded to just more »

Ahhhh! What a great day this was! It easily ranks up there as one of the most exciting days of the year for me. We had our first of three orchestra concerts last night, and the other two were today. Our first concert was this morning at Batista do Novo Juazeiro, the largest regular Baptist church more »

Woke up this morning to Stephen’s alarm clock at 7:30, and I finally got up around 8:10 or so. We had pancakes with mango butter, guava jam, and apple butter for breakfast, and we also had some fresh-squeezed orange juice. By the way, the oranges here are green, so that’s different for me. For Sunday more »

Ugh…I don’t like waking up in the morning! Well, I do, but I don’t like to wake up early and I especially don’t like to exercise alone. But I had to do what I had to do, and I ran 6 kilometers. My devotions were in Acts 10. In this chapter, Cornelius and Peter both more »

Slept in today and woke up refreshed and excited for Sunday, a day of worship and rest. No services at church today because we had them yesterday, so we are going to a different church tonight. But most churches only have Sunday School and no morning service because the evening service is when most people more »

When my alarm went off this morning, the last thing I wanted to do was get out of bed. I wasn’t necessarily tired although I definitely could have slept longer. Rather, I just didn’t want to get out of my really comfortable bed and go running. But I took a break two days ago, so more »

I woke up to run…and I didn’t run. My legs were so sore that I decided I should take the day off after breaking them back in the last couple days. So back to bed I went, and it felt good to sleep in for the first time all week. Acts 5:33-42 was the passage more »

I found an old blog post that I intended to publish three months ago and for some reason it never happened. Anyway, it’s short and sweet and I hope it brings a smile to your face. March 10, 2013 Somehow I completely missed out on the news about Daylight Savings starting this weekend. But fortunately, more »