Today we left Exu for another city in another state- Petrolina, Pernambuco. It is home to the Reiner’s, but it is my first time outside of Ceara since coming to Brazil. We woke up around 7:00, packed our stuff, and ate a breakfast of French rolls and butter, cheese, goiaba juice, hot milk, and cake. We more »

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 »

This morning I woke up around 7:00 to go running. I thought about going earlier when it was cooler, but when I woke up around 6:20 and saw that it was really cloudy, I decided to sleep a little longer because I figured it wouldn’t get too hot with the sun blocked. Fortunately, I was more »

For the first time in two weeks I woke up and went on a run. I slacked off way too much the last couple weeks, so today I made sure I woke up early (6:30) and got in a good run. It’s so easy in life to stop doing the good things, and once you more »

After the normal routine of waking up and eating breakfast, we had another round of classes, this time only with Uncle Jim. He talked to us more about missions in Brazil and the theology and philosophy of missions in general. Some of these things I remember from my missions classes, but other things were new, more »

We woke up and had a great breakfast of cinnamon rolls with some of the leftover frosting from the cookie-decorating on Friday night. I took SO long to eat my breakfast. Frosting is SO yummy and I put SO much on my rolls, but I also took time to enjoy them, so it took awhile more »

Monday was a really busy day. After a breakfast of granola, coconut yogurt, and milk, all five of us in the house went shopping to get some more things for the three-day Hope Encounter. Aunt Julie and Jennifer went to Atacadao while Uncle Jim, Danae, and I went to Juazeiro. We picked up several items 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 »

So today’s the big day. We had scheduled the adolescent camp-out for two weeks earlier, but because of some circumstances we had to reschedule it for this weekend. But now all the plans were in place and it was go time! After a breakfast of French toast, papaya, and hot milk, we spent the morning more »