Got up around 5:45 and went for a 6K run, read the first half of Acts 13 where Paul preaches to the Pharisees after being commissioned as a missionary, took a shower, and went to breakfast with Stevie. For breakfast we had scrambled eggs, French rolls with butter, and papaya. I avoided the gross coffee once again and drank several mugs of hot milk.

One of the music teachers for the week at breakfast with us. His name is Renato (not the director for the week), and he arrived by plane last night. Unfortunately, his big suitcase did not arrive with him, and he’s still trying to find it.

He’s so hilarious! As he recounted the story of his experience at the airport- checking in his luggage and later being unable to retrieve it- he told the story in such a way that we couldn’t stop laughing!

Renato told us that the lady who checked his bags told him he could only take one carry-on, but he was bringing his two expensive flutes, so he insisted that he get to carry them on to the plane. The lady finally told him that they would make a special exception for him, but when he boarded the plane, several other  people also had two carry-on bags.

He wonders if she forgot to actually check in his large suitcase because of her preoccupation with his two small bags. He said, “She was so concerned about the flies that she missed the camel!” I wish I could remember everything else he said that made us laugh.

Today is the first day of Semana de Musica Sacra (Week of Sacred Music) at Seminario Batista do Cariri. A good portion of my morning and afternoon was spent taking pictures of the various activities taking place. For me it was just like “the good ol’ days” at IRBC when I would spend my days taking pictures of campers and camp activities.

I spent the last four summers as the photographer at IRBC, so I spent 44 weeks over the last four years walking around the campground, photographing almost everything that happened. My job title was “LCA”, an acronym for “Lights, Camera, Action!” This is my first summer since 2009 not serving at IRBC as the LCA.

When I first made the decision to follow God’s leading to Brazil, I had no idea that I would get to spend a whole week down here photographing an event. But as it turns out, a friend of mine from school referred me to the director of Semana de Musica Sacra, and he asked me to take pictures all week.

So I am now the “fotógrafo oficial” for this fun ministry. I get the privilege of taking all the pictures and video and uploading them to the internet each night.  This morning I started by taking pictures during registration and the opening meeting.

We went straight from the opening meeting to lunch where I had mashed potatoes, beans, and fried fish in some interesting kind of sauce. There was also something else with the appearance and consistency of mashed potatoes, and it tasted familiar, but I don’t know what it was.

Near the end of the meal Renato came and sat with us again, and we started laughing all over again. Somehow we got on the topic of Minnesota having 10,000 lakes, Finland having over 200,000 lakes, and Holland being below sea level. Renato said, “Why do they live there, knowing that the sea could close in on them at any time?”

Then he talked about the people who live in San Francisco: “They know there are going to be earthquakes, but they just don’t know when. Why do they live there?” But he talked about it in such a way that we were shaking in our seats with laughter.

“Japan sits on the corners of four tectonic plates, and there are Japanese people living there…Somebody needs to tell them!” Hahaha…then I mentioned to Stephen how his family was going to Japan in just a few days, and Danae mentioned that a couple of our friends just arrived there.

Then Renato talked about Indonesia. Someone mentioned earthquakes again and he said, “No, tsunamis are the new fashion,” and we laughed all over again. But he said everything so serious! I wish I could eat every meal with him!

After lunch I went to Juazeiro with Pastor Renato (the other Renato) to buy some music stands. My home church gave me a lot of extra money above my support to use for any other ministry needs here in Brazil. The seminary is always in need of extra stands for this event, so we went to a music store and bought 20 music stands for R$ 800 ($357.70 USD).

It was so exciting to make that purchase for the seminary on behalf of my church. God provides in unique ways, and Pastor Renato was so grateful to have the new stands. They have already been put to use today.

By the way, if you ever travel overseas, I highly recommend getting a travel cash card. It’s like a debit card that you can use overseas. It won’t inadvertently lock up your bank account, and it’s not even connected to it, so if the card is stolen, people can’t drain your savings.

It works just like a credit card or a debit card with a PIN number. I used it today for the first time, and it didn’t have any extra charges or give me a low exchange rate. I was able to make the purchase in Brazil’s currency with today’s exchange rate and no additional withdrawal fees. Nice!

Rest of the afternoon I spent taking pictures of music theory classes and just walking around. In the library a met a guy named Lucas, a Brazilian guy who went to London for a few months to study English. However, he doesn’t get to use English here so he enjoyed talking to me in his second language.

My next stop was the chapel for a theology of worship session, held every afternoon at 4:30. It was quite philosophical, making it difficult for even Sarah to fully understand what he was saying, let alone translate it to Danae and me. But I think we figured out some of it.

Supper was about 20 minutes late at 5:50. We had rice, beans, shredded lettuce/carrots/cabbage, and chicken. I sat at a table with some people who didn’t know me and they thought I was Brazilian! Hahaha, they were quite surprised to find out I wasn’t.

There was another session after supper that was more of a music appreciation session, and we watched a video of an orchestra. At 8:00 we all split up into our separate sections to practice the music for our weekend concerts.

There are two orchestras and two choirs. The more advanced orchestra and choir are doing selected portions of Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Stephen asked me to join the orchestra for that piece. It was a fun hour-and-a-half, sight-reading some new music. Stephen is leading the orchestra, but of course he does it all in Portuguese, so I also had fun learning some new Portuguese words for the musical terms that I already know.

I just met with Pastor Daniel Simoes to give him all my pictures and videos, and he’s busy uploading them on Facebook and Youtube for the seminary. Time to head back and get ready for another full day of pictures and music!

I woke up at 5:15 to watch the sunrise, but there were no clouds in the sky to make for a beautiful sunrise, so I just went back to bed. At 6:40 I woke up again to go running. This time I went up and down the seminary campus steps several times.

For breakfast we had scrambled eggs with ham, toast, orange pineapple juice, and papaya. Stephen, Sarah, Olivia, Danae, Jennifer, and I had a meeting at 8:00 in the chapel to start cleaning the campus in preparation for the music week, so we headed to yonder chapel immediately after eating.

We started the brief meeting promptly at about 8:15, everyone being told to start cleaning out the dorms and the chapel. Danae and I went over to help clean the dorms, and she helped with some of the sweeping while I tried to find a job to do.

There were several people in there, and no one really had a job assignment, so I never did do anything except take a couple pictures. Mark Wilson came and asked for help moving some mattresses out of a storage room to air out in the sun, so Danae and I quickly volunteered to go do it.

Together we transported 17 mattresses in four trips from the classroom building to the amphitheater steps and left them there to breathe.  Then I went to the chapel and helped Jennifer clean the bathrooms. I learned a whole new way to clean bathrooms this morning!

Basically, we just gave the whole bathroom a bath. We got everything wet and then sprinkled powdered soap all over. We scrubbed the sinks with a sponge, the toilets with a brush, and the floor with a broom. Then we poured water on everything to rinse all the soap onto the floor, we poured water on the floor, and we used a squeegee to push it all down the drain or out the door.

It was great! So everything was washed with soap and water, and since everything was ceramic (sinks, toilets, tiled walls and floors), it worked really well. In the end, the dry heat dried anything that was still wet. I wish I could clean more bathrooms that way.

I joined up with Danae and Sarah and remarked to Sarah that it was like cleaning at IRBC. Back in 2005, Sarah was a full-time lifeguard at IRBC while I was a part-timer. We worked together to clean the chapel and the bathrooms all over the campground. Eight years later, we’re doing it again, but in a different country and in a different setting.

We all went over to the classroom building to clean the bathrooms and mop the classrooms there. Around 11:00, we were finished, a lot sooner than they normally get done cleaning the campus. Lunch wasn’t until 12:30, so we just meandered back to our houses to relax for awhile.

At about 12:40 we ate lunch in the dining hall with all the other helpers. It was a traditional Brazilian meal of rice, beans, cornmeal, some noodles, chopped tomatoes, shredded cabbage, lettuce, and chicken. Mix it all together…mmmm…

We were told that we wouldn’t have our next meeting until 4:00. Pastor Renato is in charge of everything that is going on this week, and he would have a meeting with us to tell us what to expect this week as staff for the event. So, back to the houses we went!

My devotions today were in Acts 12. The story is of John the Baptist’s death by separation of head from torso and the imprisonment and subsequent release of Peter. I love this story because of the reminder to pray in faith. Peter was set free by an earthquake and he went to a home where Christians were praying for him. However, when the believers were told that Peter was standing outside the house, they didn’t believe it!

How often do we pray, but with little faith? How often do we pray believing that God will actually do the “impossible”? If we don’t pray that way, then why pray and waste our time? God is able to do absolutely anything, but sometimes we give Him too little credit not only after He does something great, but before He does it.

Besides my devotions, I also wrote a prayer letter to send home and tried to take a short nap because I had no idea what the evening would hold. Stephen and I walked to the chapel, arriving at 4:00, and we were the first ones there! We set our stuff down and waited. A few minutes later, Mark Wilson came and told everyone there that Pastor Renato would be 10 minutes late because he had to pick up some stuff.

So we all waited around and talked for awhile. 10 minutes after the hour, we began our meeting. Oh, by the way, it was 10 minutes after the next hour. We started the meeting at 5:10. So now I have been exposed to true Brazilian time, and I was really wishing I had brought a book with me. Well, I know for next time!

We received instructions for, well, I’m not really sure. It was in Portuguese but Sarah translated for Danae and I. Basically, we got some general information about what was going on, I was introduced as the official photographer, and we received staff shirts to wear tomorrow.

As Danae said, she’s not really sure we should be wearing these when we know so little Portuguese! But we’re working on learning some more as each day goes by. Also, the shirts were quite big on us because they never got our shirt sizes, but as Stephen said, if we had smaller shirts, they would probably be too short since we are a little taller than most of them.

For supper we ate the same thing as at lunch, only this time with beef instead of chicken. Danae and I talked about the food in Brazil, college, and some churches back in America. We also talked about orchestra and band and our experiences over the years as instrumentalists.

Afterward we followed Sarah and Beth Wilson back to the administration building where we received some choral music and a schedule for the week. Supposedly we’ll receive our specific instrumental music tomorrow. We got a rundown of the daily schedule, and man, it’s packed! We’re gonna be pushed to our physical limits this week, but it will be filled with music!

I also got to meet William Atha, one of the missionary kids with whose family I will be working later this month. He’s a great kid, and we spent some time talking about musical instruments. He asked me questions about violin because he plays guitar but he’s been dabbling with a violin recently. It will be great to meet rest of his family later.

Back at the house, I practiced the piano for awhile, playing some music out of the books I just got, sight-reading some accompaniment parts for Danae (I’m going to accompany her trumpet solo at church later this month), and playing some of my favorite music out of a Portuguese hymnal- Christmas music!

Mrs. Leonard was making a cake, and she told me about some of the music here in Brazil. The churches don’t know many traditional hymns, or many songs at all. In fact, they don’t really know any Christmas songs! She said that if you ask them to sing a Christmas song, they’ll probably hum “Jingle Bells”, but they probably won’t even know the words to that!

The seminary has tried to introduce some Christmas songs to the people in the churches, but without a whole lot of success. The traditional Christmas songs we sing are all new to the people here. Wow, I can only imagine Christmas season without so many of my favorite songs. I can’t even imagine not hearing Christmas songs all year long, and that’s why I played them tonight!

Well, I’ve been working on some Portuguese and writing out this blog post for awhile now. I think I’ll respond to my family’s emails and then go to bed. Jennifer came back to the house and informed me that Pastor Renato wants pictures as people are arriving, which could be as early as 6:30am…ah dearski. Here we go!

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 School we just went to the church down the street- Ebenezer Baptist Church- for the first time. The church is about 12 years old, but it was organized just last year and constructed a building on property right across the street from the seminary.

They built a U-shaped building divided into eight classrooms, and they hold their large services in the open space in the middle of the three sides. Sunday School is held in the classrooms and the large evening service is held outside. Unfortunately, I forgot my memory card for my camera, so I have no pictures.

Missionary Mark Wilson taught our class, and his text was Proverbs 3:1-6. When he discussed the concept of binding the law around our necks and writing it upon the tables of our hearts, he asked one of the women why she wears a necklace. His point was that women wear those things to adorn themselves, and we should likewise adorn ourselves with Scripture.

In the same way women also use makeup to beautify themselves. But makeup cannot make a person beautiful the way Scripture can, so although makeup is not bad, Scripture is more important. Godly character is what makes a person truly beautiful. Adorning ourselves with Scripture is the most attractive thing to God.

After Sunday School we drove up into the nearby neighborhood to see where most of the church members live. There are other churches within only a couple miles of the area, but the churches are neighborhood-based since most people walk to church.

For lunch we went to a local restaurant started by some Christians. They are one of the few restaurants that chooses not to serve alcohol, and yet they are one of the most popular restaurants in the area. They serve food typical of the native people from interior Brazil, so there are a number of weird things too.

The restaurant itself is under a huge thatch roof with mud and stick walls, and the food is all cooked over a wood fire, making it more authentic. Customers walk through the line, filling their plates with whatever food they want, just as you would do at a buffet. Then you pay for the food based on how much it weighs, at R$ 24 per kilogram.

For the amount of food you can get, its actually much less expensive than you would pay at a restaurant in America for the same thing! I got sausage, pork, chicken, rice, manioc root with sun-dried beef, lamb, fried cheese, butter cheese, and some salsa-type relish stuff.

I shied away from the goat stomach stuffed with other innards and the fried goat intestines, but I finally decided to take a bite of the latter after Jennifer coaxed me into it. It was just like dry, salty macaroni I guess. It wasn’t bad at all- just weird. So that was the first time I think I’ve ever done that.

Okay. Sad day. I drank a glass of pop for the first time in 3 1/2 years. The last time I had it was December of 2009. Previously I had gone 1 year and 5 months without pop, and I decided to try to go longer than that this next time. Well, I accomplished that goal, but I was hoping to go a full four years.

Well, that will have to wait because there are some flavors of pop in Brazil that I cannot have anywhere else, so the streak had to end. I drank cashew-flavored pop, and it was SO good! I was told the other day that Brazil even has regional flavors of it, so in some parts of the country it’s not the same as it is here.

For dessert we also had some dill tea, coconut bar things, and rapadura. Rapadura is sugar cane sugar that is cooked down, making a harder, condensed sugar. It’s really good and reminds me of the stories my parents tell me of when I sucked on sugar cane as a baby in the Philippines. To read more about what rapadura is, go to this webpage: http://flavorsofbrazil.blogspot.com.br/2009/12/rapadura-sugar-at-its-most-basic.html

Oh, I also saved someone’s life at lunch! I was sitting there talking and eating (no, I wasn’t chewing with my mouth open) when all of a sudden, a hand grabbed my shoulder really hard. I looked, and a guy had tripped over the leg of the table next to us. To keep himself from falling on the hard floor and dying, he grabbed onto me as he fell. It was really funny for all of us at the table.

We came back to the house and watched the second half of the Confederation Cup third place game between Uruguay and Italy. It was a hard-fought battle and lots of fun to watch, but I had to leave before the game ended. It was tied 2-2 after two overtimes, and I later found out (to my dismay), that Italy won in a shootout.

Well, the reason I had to leave was because I preached tonight in a church that is over an hour away. At 3:45 I left with Felipe, the seminary student whose English class I attended over a week ago and whose son was just born three days ago. He leads the church at Brejo Santo, a city of 60,000 which is literally translated as “Holy Swamp”.

Felipe is not the pastor there, but he goes there every Sunday to teach Sunday School and preach, and he leads the church in other aspects. Well, it was nice for me to have another preaching opportunity and to visit another church, and it was nice for him to not have to prepare a message as he takes care of his wife and child who just came home yesterday.

Less than five minutes down the road, a car beside us stopped us and indicated that our back, passenger-side tire was flat. Sure enough, it was flatter than Nebraska, and so we pulled off to the side to change it. It’s not often a change a tire in my Sunday clothes on a hot afternoon in the Brazilian desert. But we got it done in about 15 minutes and we were back on the road.

We arrived as the service was starting, so we quick washed our hands and took a seat. They sang a couple songs as a congregation and then it was our turn! Felipe told them about the birth of his child and then he introduced me and called me up to preach.

I gave the same message from 2 Timothy 3:16-17 that I gave last week at the other church. Last time Brasil had a soccer game right before the service, so my use of soccer to illustrate my entire message tied in well with the game that day. Well, today Brasil was playing a game after the service, so the illustration fit the occasion again.

I wasn’t sure, but I suspected that it was Felipe’s first time translating for a speaker, and he told me later that it was. What an honor! Even though I didn’t know for sure, I still kept my English as simple as possible and I’m assuming he did a good job.

The congregation was encouraging by the way they responded non-verbally as I preached, and afterward they all shook my hand and thanked me with smiles. Some of them even knew enough English to thank me in English. They were so friendly! After shaking my hand, they all went outside to see pictures of the newborn. 🙂

So this afternoon I visited the Holy Swamp for the first time; I preached at First Regular Baptist Church in the Holy Swamp for the first time; Felipe translated for a preacher for the first time; and I changed a tire in Sunday attire on a hot Brazilian afternoon in the desert for the first time. On the way back we talked about First Baptist in Brejo Santo, church in Brazil vs. church in America, and Felipe’s conversion. It was a great time!

We returned to the house just as the Leonard’s and Danae returned from church, and we all went into the house to watch the second half of the Brazil futebol game while enjoying popcorn and some tortillas with cheese and meat. Brazil was playing Spain, the reigning World Cup champion, in the Confederation Cup Championship here in Brazil.

By halftime Brasil was already winning 2-0, and only a few minutes into the second half we watched them score a third goal. Pastor Jim and I immediately ran outside to set off a couple fireworks along with Brazilians all over the country. Later in the game when Spain missed a penalty kick, Pastor Jim went outside to shoot off another firecracker.

Neither team scored again the rest of the match, but Brasil controlled rest of the game, and we just sat there mesmerized by the amazing game we love- futebol. It was the first time Spain has lost a match in three years! Once the game ended, we went outside to set off some more fireworks and to light a large bonfire on the property back behind the house. What a treat to enjoy all these soccer celebrations!

First time watching Brasil win a championship, first time shooting fireworks…oh, and the first time I learned that Pele, the most famous Brazilian soccer player of all-time, was declared a national treasure by the president of Brazil! Did you know that?

The president didn’t want him to leave to play soccer somewhere else in the world, so in 1961 he declared him a national treasure, legally forbidding him from leaving the country. He was only 20 at the time! You can read more here: http://www.biography.com/people/pelé-39221

Well, there’s a random fact for the day. Tomorrow is the first day of the music conference at the seminary, so I’m excited for that! We begin with preparations at 8am and the week of music will end next Sunday. It’s going to be another great week of ministry here in Brasil! For now, it’s off to bed for me!

Accidentally woke up too late to do any exercise this morning, and I couldn’t have run even if I wanted to. There is a couples retreat going on at the seminary, so the whole campus is all decorated and the road is kind of taped off.

Getting in there is hard enough because most of the time they don’t allow people who aren’t involved in the retreat to enter. Several years ago when Pastor Jim was president of the school, he tried to get in just to go to his office, and they wouldn’t let him! So, I can’t run there again until Monday.

I went with Pastor Jim to First Baptist Church in Juazeiro for breakfast and the morning session of the weekend leadership conference. We had egg/ham/cheese sandwiches, tapioca with coconut, yogurt, grape juice, papaya, and some other kind of melon. It was a simple yet distinctly Brazilian meal.

In the morning session Pastor Goertzen spoke from 1 Peter 5 about the qualities of pastors and leaders. I appreciated his emphasis on pastors as being stewards of the church that God gave them. He also concluded by saying that one of the most important qualities for leaders is humility, a good reminder for me.

On the way back we stopped at the apartment of the missionaries who just left on furlough. Pastor Jim is taking care of their bills and other payments while they’re gone, so we went there to pick up some bills that they just received.

The apartment is SO tall! It’s a 26-story apartment building on a hill almost off in the middle of nowhere. It’s surrounded by a neighborhood with small houses and rocky roads. Pastor Jim told me that the top of the building is the highest point in the interior of Northeast Brazil. He asked for permission for us to go to the top so I could take pictures of the surrounding cities, and we were allowed to!

So we went to the top and looked out over the valley and the surrounding mountains. There are three major cities in the valley with Cariri and Juazeiro being the two that I have visited. It was so nice to finally get a good understanding of the lay of the land.

I could see the main section of Juazeiro and how it moved in the direction of the former seminary campus, just as Pastor Jim described. He told me how the city moved toward the campus over the last half-century, but today I was really able to see and understand it. Such a great view!

About a couple blocks away from the apartment complex is a new store, kind of out on a block by itself. The store is owned by the son of a friend of the mayor, and he had the grand opening just recently. In order to make the celebration as nice as possible, the mayor sent a construction crew to pave the block around the store!

The road in front of the building and the two roads on either side leading to the store are all covered with new blacktop while rest of neighborhood roads are still red, rocky roads. Obviously, the neighbors were unhappy with this show of favoritism and complained about it. Just another example of the corrupted politics here in Brazil.

When we returned we ate a lunch of mashed potatoes and zucchini stuffed with ground beef, cheese, and tomato sauce. For dessert we had frozen pineapple cream that has been waiting for us to eat it.

In the afternoon we got ready for some more guests to join us here. Stephen Lounsbrough, his sister Sarah, his girlfriend Olivia, and Danae Oliver are coming to help with the sacred music week which begins on Monday. Danae is also staying for Aventura Brasil with me.

I tidied up my stuff a little better and made Stephen’s bed for him. Then Pastor Jim and I went up to the seminary to fill our water jugs, making it past the couples retreat police who stopped us at the gate.

This is our second time getting water, but I haven’t said anything about the water yet. Here in Brasil, you can’t drink any water unless it’s mineral water or boiled water. Virtually everything else is unsafe and will make you sick.

When they built the seminary, they dug a well 300-feet deep into a freshwater vein underground, and it is safe to drink. So all the water at the seminary and the on-campus houses are fed water from the well. They still don’t drink the water from the faucets though because the water goes from the well into a holding tank before being distributed.

However, there is a spigot directly from the well that they use to fill up their water jugs, and it doesn’t need to be cleansed any further out of that spigot. So we haul four 5-gallon jugs to the water source and bring back enough water for several days.

I was treated to another new sight today. Mrs. Leonard came out of the bathroom and asked if I’d ever seen a lizard eat a mosquito before. I told her I hadn’t, and she showed me one near the bathroom ceiling that was just about ready to pounce.

It stood there for several minutes eyeing its prey. Then all of a sudden I saw it straighten itself up on the wall, push its front two sticky legs onto the ceiling, and grab the mosquito in its mouth before the bug could fly away. It was quite fascinating to see.

For supper we had grilled cheese sandwiches and pineapple. When Mrs. Leonard was asking us what bread and cheese we wanted, she gave us two options for bread and three options for cheese. We all told her what we wanted, but when she asked Jennifer, she got an answer she wasn’t really looking for.

“I want whatever is cheapest!” Well, that’s a nice, thoughtful way to choose your food, but the difference in cost between one slice of cheese to another slice of cheese is barely noticeable. Also, the cheapest cheese in the refrigerator right now was bought on sale, so normally it’s more expensive than the other cheese.

So Jennifer’s answer was really funny at the moment, also considering she had made several other funny comments throughout the day. So Mrs. Leonard, only slightly exasperated with Jennifer’s answer, figured out which cheese was cheapest and made the sandwich.

After supper I spent some time working on my Portuguese and waiting for the arrival of the other four people. They showed up here about 10:00, and we had a good time of fellowship with them as they unloaded, ate supper, and then ate some cake with us to celebrate Danae’s birthday (which was two days ago).

Well, now we’re all settling down to sleep, so I think it’s time I called it a night! I get to preach tomorrow night!

So, as the title indicates, today I heard a lot of great stories. In order to remember them later on, I’m gonna write them all down.

First of all, my day began with another 6-kilometer run. That’s not much of a story, but it happened. For breakfast we had yummy bread with fried cheese and guava jam again, pineapple, and papaya. We finished by reading a chapter from “The Red Sea Rules,” a devotional book by Robert J. Morgan that the Leonard family reads from time to time during breakfast. It’s a good reminder of the importance of trusting God during hard times.

We also found out this morning that the wife of  one of the married students gave birth to their first child this morning. Little Daniel is the son of the student who teaches the first English class I attended last week. This morning the proud father walked around the to the houses here, showing people pictures of his firstborn.

Mr. and Mrs. Leonard went outside to see the pictures while Jennifer and I finished our breakfast. Jennifer said, “People are always so quick to see a baby and say that it looks like the mom or dad…Dad says that it doesn’t matter as long as the baby is healthy. Actually, I don’t think he’s said that for awhile.” I laughed at what she had to say.

The Leonard’s returned to the table, and the first thing Pastor Jim said was, “I think he looks just like his dad!” Mrs. Leonard said something as I looked over at Jennifer and we tried not to laugh out loud, but we were smiling really big. Then I heard Pastor Jim say, “But it’s okay because he’s healthy!” Hahaha…oh man…SO funny.

Shortly after breakfast, Pastor Jim took me to the seminary next door to show me the Source of Light correspondence school housed in one of the offices. Source of Light is a ministry based in Georgia, and its vision is to reach people with the gospel through Bible-based correspondence studies.

They print Bible studies in many different languages and distribute them to distribution centers in countries around the world. The Portuguese Bible studies are sent to the seminary where they are sent all throughout Brazil.

Here’s how the correspondence school works. Churches and individuals will meet unbelievers and ask them if they would like a short Bible study to do on their own. If accepted, the first Bible study is given, and it begins to expose them to the gospel. After finishing the first Bible study, they take a short quiz and then turn in the Bible study in exchange for the second one.

This process continues until they have completed the first series consisting of seven Bible studies that talk about God, Jesus Christ, and salvation. Usually, most people who make it past the third or fourth Bible study have accepted Christ as their Savior.

The second series of Bible studies has ten lessons and the third one has twenty-four. They take people through the doctrines of the Bible and several other topics. Every person who has ever completed one or more Bible studies is also recorded in a database at the seminary, and the filled-out quizzes are graded and recorded too.

It is quite a big operation that the seminary inherited from another missionary in Brazil. This man was fully supported by churches in America to run the correspondence school. But when he retired, he asked the seminary if they would take over for him since they used a lot of the Bible studies. He also tried to convince his supporting churches to transfer their financial support to the school, but only a few of them did.

The correspondence school is managed by Pastor Bibiano, the pastor at Fonte de Luz Igreja Baptist which I attended on Sunday night. He is not paid for the position because the only money the school gets for the project has to go toward postage for mailing the materials around Brazil. But Pastor Bibiano has a great passion for the ministry because he was saved through it many years ago.

There are also partnering churches around Brazil that help pay for some of the postage so that they can receive the materials (which are originally sent to SBC for free from Source of Light). On the wall in the office is a map of Brazil, dotted with pins. The red pins indicate thousands of people all around the country who have done the Bible studies, and the white pins indicate other churches and individuals who help with the ministry.

It is such a neat ministry to learn about, and it was great to see its Portuguese “headquarters” at SBC. You can learn more about Source of Light Ministries at their webpage, www.sourcelight.org. It is a great tool for bringing people to Christ and discipling them!

On to the next phase of the day. We took Pastor Bibiano’s pickup and went to Juazeiro to pick up a load of wood from a wood man (I’m not sure what you’re supposed to call him). I guess it’s something like a small lumberyard. Anyway, we went there to retrieve a load of wood that belonged to Pastor Jim.

It’s a small, privately owned place on a neighborhood road, and inside the yard there were several chickens running around, scavenging for food on the ground or from a broken watermelon. A dog lied lazily off to the side with a contented smile, and the owner operated a large wood saw in the back while another man piled up the fresh-cut wood. Saw dust was everywhere and there was no way to escape it as it flew up in the air.

We found the pile of wood, stacked neatly in a corner of the shop covered in a centimeter of sawdust and another pile of not-so-neatly stacked wood. Our task was to remove the other wood on top, put our wood in the truck, and put the other wood back in place.

Oh man, that was quite the chore! The wood wasn’t too heavy (some of it was), but the dust was so thick that it really got my sinuses going. Soon we had the pickup filled but we still had almost half the wood still sitting there! So we resigned ourselves to a second trip later, dusted off ourselves the best we could, and headed home .

On the way, we drove past what was the old seminary campus in Juazeiro, and Pastor Jim told me the story of the wood. When they were young, little brothers Jim and John Leonard planted several trees next to the guys dorm so that they would someday help shade the building. They planted both cedar and ironwood trees.

The trees grew up as planned, and when the seminary moved to Crato, they had to sell that land where the dorm and the trees stood. However, they wanted to keep the wood rather than just let it go to whoever cleared the land.

Wood is expensive in Brazil. Conservation efforts make it illegal to cut down any tree that is native to Brazil. That’s right…ANY tree that is native to Brazil. If you do so, you must pay a fine for it. Therefore, any wood that is available is really expensive because it is in high demand.

But there’s a problem. Although the missionaries wanted to keep the wood, how would they get it without cutting it down? It’s hard to haul away a tree if you don’t first cut it down. Well, to make a long story short, Pastor Jim was friends with the government official in Juazeiro who is in charge off such conservation efforts, and they were able to work out a way for him to cut down all 23 trees in a single day and transport them to the new seminary campus in Crato.

The trees sat there for a few years, drying out. Seven years ago when the seminary began building its chapel, the trees were taken to this man in Juazeiro who cut them into boards and constructed windows and doors. He made ironwood windows and cedar doors for the chapel.

Pastor Jim got the windows and doors but never gave any thought to whether or not there was leftover wood. Several years later, this man sent word that there was still some remaining wood just sitting in his shop. It is really surprising to find such an honest unbeliever in Brazil!

So today we got that wood and lots of the dust that it collected over the last half-decade. Isn’t it great how God provides? Over and over again, God provided resources for the seminary and its building projects in unique ways. That’s how God does missions!

We unloaded the wood on the new property behind the houses before having a lunch of rice with beans, sausage, chicken, carrots, and several other things all mixed together. We drank passion fruit juice and had apples with dulce de leche for dessert.

I did my devotions after lunch, finishing up the story of Cornelius’ conversion. It’s another great story of God’s provision to a man who was seeking him but needed someone to share the gospel with him. It is also neat to see Peter’s responsiveness to God’s directives.

We returned to Juazeiro to get rest of the wood and then we brought it all back here and stacked it neatly in a large sea container that is sitting on the property. The sea container actually transported a large load of Source of Light Bible studies, and now it sits there as a nice little storage container. I think I might get to sleep in it later this summer.

Oh, a shower hasn’t felt so good for so long! Every morning after I run I take a cold shower, but getting all that sawdust off me felt so nice. My nose is still a little stuffy, but it shouldn’t last too long.

For supper we ate the leftover chicken croissants and flat fried chicken. I finished the passion fruit juice and had a banana for dessert. I might have done a lot of work today, but I sure didn’t need to eat a lot before I was full. I’m wondering if I’ve lost any weight yet by exercising and not eating as much? Hmmm…

During supper, we were talking about the floor in the house when Pastor Jim told me the story about it. The entire house (equivalent to the size of two average apartments) is covered in granite tiles. It is literally some of the most beautiful, expensive flooring you can purchase.

Smooth, shiny, attractive, and easy-to-clean. This is the material you normally purchase to use as a nice counter top- not the flooring for your whole house, even in the shower!

Well, Pastor Jim is good friends with another Christian man who owns a large construction company, and he isn’t hurting for money. He had leftover granite tile from some apartments that he built, and it was just sitting in a warehouse. So when he heard about these new houses being built for married seminary students, he told Pastor Jim to take anything out of the warehouse that he wanted, free of charge. CrAzY!

So, today I heard lots of great stories of God’s provision through the miracle of birth, the miracle of the second birth in Acts 10, the Source of Light Bible studies, the trees for the seminary, and the granite floor for the house .

When we learn to trust God for everything we need (and even when we don’t), He always provides, and sometimes, He goes beyond our wildest dreams. God is so much greater than we even realize.

Speaking of dreams, it’s time for bed…maybe I’ll be able to wake up for the sunrise…

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 have visions which lead to Cornelius’ conversion. I didn’t actually read about the conversion yet though. I read the first 23 verses, detailing the two visions and the entourage that was sent to summon Peter. Wow, God works in interesting yet exciting ways sometimes!

For breakfast we  had fried cheese with guava jam on toasted bread, papaya, and orange juice. That was really good! Of course, I’ve had the friend cheese before and I love it, but I did not have a chance until this morning to try it with guava jam. Pastor Jim said it tasted good, and he was right!

Mrs. Leonard told me about a large grasshopper that she found dead on the washing machine this morning, so I went to take a picture of it. Man, she wasn’t joking! Those things are huge! She told me that that’s just how big they are though. Sometimes you see the baby ones, and they are the size of our normal ones back in Iowa. I now have it sitting here in my room with a rhinoceros beetle getting a piggyback ride on it.

We went to Crato in the morning to do a few random errands. We first stopped at a government place that is almost the equivalent of the humane society. They pick up stray dogs around town and keep them for a week. People can come claim them or adopt them and whatever ones are not chosen are put to sleep.

We actually picked up shots for the dogs there. While we were there, I looked at some stuffed animals from the area like monkeys, snakes, and a few other things. They also had several snakes, scorpions, and spiders preserved in bottles.

We went to the home of a friend who has his own machine repair shop, and he tried to remove a saw blade from a brick saw for Pastor Jim. This man is a strong believer and has a desire to someday move to another town and begin a church there. He actually quit his job and started his own business repairing things just so that he could someday move and support himself this way.

When we left his house, we drove past an old Catholic seminary that is located in the neighborhood. That area is known as the seminary, and once some people ended up there after intending to go to the Baptist Seminary. They took a bus and asked to go to the seminary because they didn’t know any better. But when they arrived there and walked in, they were met with quite the surprise!

We passed by a Baptist church in the neighborhood that the Leonard’s formerly attended, and Pastor Jim told me about his history of involvement with the churches in Crato. We also talked about issues such as membership and tithing as a missionary on the field.

It was a lot of good stuff to think about. I had thought about these things before as a watchcare member at another church while going to school, but I never considered the difficulties that may arise on the mission field. For example, do you become a member of the church you attend on the field, or do you retain your membership at your sending church?

Also, who should receive your tithe? After all, you’re still an extension of your home church’s ministries, so you are working in a different country on their behalf. There’s not necessarily a single right answer to these questions, so I enjoyed hearing Pastor Jim’s perspectives on them.

For lunch we had stir-fried chicken with vegetables, rice, pineapple, and orange juice. Got to use chopsticks again!

In the afternoon I worked on my blog, wrote letters, and went to Juazeiro with Pastor Jim and Jennifer to pick up some stickers for her brownie business and stop at a couple other home improvement stores.

Several of the seminary ladies came to the house to help Mrs. Leonard with the Betty Luken flannelgraph that my sister’s Bright Lights group cut out. They organized all the pieces in the storage box, and they learned how to use it for teaching

One of the ladies was the missionary to Bolivia who presented at church on Sunday night, and she is receiving one of the two flannelgraph sets that I brought down. They were all so excited to help and learn, and I could tell they were having a good time together. I spent a few minutes taking pictures of them.

Supper consisted of Mrs. Leonard’s retirement project…or so she says. We had homemade chicken croissants. She refuses to give away the recipe or teach anyone how to make them because it is a secret recipe and that’s what she’s going to make when she retires. Well, whatever recipe it is, it’s good.

At 7:00pm we went to a pastors and church leaders conference at First Baptist Church in Juazeiro. The speaker for this weekend’s conference is Pastor Rick Goertzen from Grace Baptist Church in Hutchinson, Kansas. It was interesting because he spoke through an interpreter, but I could understand what he said before it was translated. That was a first for me here, being an English speaker in Portuguese land.

His text was Romans 12:1-2 and he talked about the concept of sacrifice. Perhaps the thing that really stuck out to me the most was that true sacrifice should not truly be sacrifice for me. In other words, when I’m sacrificing for God, I should embrace it so much that it really doesn’t seem like a sacrifice to me. It’s just something I love to do for my God.

He told he story of David Livingstone and how he told people that he didn’t consider himself to have ever sacrificed for Christ. By all of our standards, this courageous adventurer/missionary of Africa sacrificed a lot. But by his standards, he was serving God and it never felt like a sacrifice to him. That’s a really neat concept.

When we came back we drank hot chocolate and played some three-handed Rook. I do miss playing four-handed with my favorite partner, Aaron Moore, but just getting to play Rook is fun enough, and three-hand is lots of fun. Now I’m just enjoying the air-conditioning in my room and finishing this post.

That’s all for now…

No exercise today. I woke up at 5:30am to watch the sunrise, but unfortunately it was already up, so I’ll

This morning I ran four kilometers, but I tried to pick up the pace so I was running harder than I had on previous mornings. For breakfast I had tapioca (a tapioca wrap) stuffed with sun-dried meat and cheese, and for dessert I had a slice of papaya. I think that is one of my favorite breakfast foods so far. Perhaps because it’s like a breakfast eggroll.

After breakfast I did my devotions in Acts 9 (the story of Saul’s conversion and then I called Grandpa to talk to him and tell him about my trip so far. He wasn’t expecting it, so it was great to let him know how things were going and to hear how he was doing. When I was done, I tried to figure out what was wrong with my blog because there was an error somewhere that kept me from having the ability to update it.

For lunch we had rice, beans, beef with onions, beets, and a banana. Part of the afternoon I spent working on my blog and got it working again. The other part of the afternoon I helped Pastor Jim install some electrical outlets in the chapel.

The electricity had already been wired into the platform when it was built a couple years ago, but only one of the five outlets had been installed. So we put in the other four so that they would be ready for Musica Sacra next week.

At 4:45 I went with two others to the Cariri shopping center in Juazeiro, the same one that was built on the seminary’s former property. This shopping center was the first of its kind in this region of Brazil, and it now sits right where the seminary buildings used to stand.

The first level is a huge grocery store and the second level is the typical mall composed of several stores and a food court. Another interesting fact about the mall is that it has escalators going upstairs, but the only way to get back down is to take the stairs.

The purpose of the trip was to help another seminary student with his English class students. He had three girls and one guy who were going to arrive at 5:30, and he was going to divide them up into two groups and send them around the mall to find those of us who were helping him with the activity.

The other two people with me were Neto and Joy. Neto is Brazilian and studies at the seminary, and Joy is American and taught at the seminary this last year. Joy first came to Brazil in 2010 for only a short time. She came back again as a missionary and has now been here for two years. The two of them met, began a relationship, and they are now engaged, hoping to get his visa soon so they can go back to the US and get married.
MallJoy was assigned to just sit in one spot in the mall while Neto and I were told to walk around and just window shop. The English students received a brief description of who we were and then they had to find us in the mall and ask us several questions about ourselves, all in English. However, they didn’t know exactly what we looked like, so they were supposed look around and ask people if they spoke English until they found us.

We received word that the students were ready, so we started to walk around, looking at the various stores. I enjoyed walking past the athletic stores with windows full of soccer balls and soccer shoes. I also saw some extremely expensive clothes, several phone service providers, and a display that told about the history of Pedro Cicero (a famous Catholic priest) in Juazeiro.

We walked and talked and the English students never found us. We eventually saw two girls talking with Joy, and we later saw those two girls meet back up with a teenage guy. None of them ever came to talk to us, so we joined Joy and the three students and their teacher back in the food court.

The third girl didn’t come, so the poor guy had to go around on his own, but I have a feeling he was a little too scared to actually ask people if they spoke English. The girls reviewed the questions they had asked Joy and told us the answers she had given them. I answered the same questions for the boy and then Joy and I asked them some questions about themselves.

It was a good, creative way to have class, and those three seemed to speak a little better than the three students I spent time with last week. Neto took a picture of us all when we were finished, and we left.

None of us had eaten supper yet, so Neto and Joy took me to a store in Crato that had an eating area upstairs. They introduced me to a

I woke up and almost considered skipping a second straight day of exercise. I did not want to get up, and I had an almost unnoticeable headache that lingered from the night before. But I finally got up and ran a kilometer before doing some hill runs, tackling the hill on the seminary’s road eight times with minimal rest in between each one.

Once again the weather was beautiful outside. Man, I sure couldn’t have been invited to come at a better time of the year! Clear skies with the sun shining and warm temperatures with no humidity. Great for running in the morning.

For breakfast we had baked oatmeal and homemade granola. I really enjoyed the granola from last week, so it was great to have it again. Oh, and I had a slice of papaya for dessert!

Today in my devotions I read the last half on Acts 8 where Philip met the Ethiopian eunuch. There are so many things to take from this text, but today I thought about how Philip was sent by God to the desert for a short time to fulfill only one task- to lead the Ethiopian to Christ! Right now God has placed me in the desert of Brazil for a short time. Am I fulfilling those tasks for which He has placed me here? I sure hope so!

Pastor Jim and I went to town again to but some devotionals at a Christian bookstore, mail some letters at the post office, buy some bananas, and get some other hardware supplies for the house. When we arrived at the post office, I experienced the best parallel parking job I have ever seen.

Along the sides of the streets there are parking spots designated for cars and spots designated for motorcycles. Well, we found a spot, but a motorcycle was parked perpendicular at the back end of the parking spot, and the car in front was too far back in its parking spot. But Pastor Jim backed right into it, with less than 18 inches to spare in the back and about 10 inches to spare in front after we were situated. It was absolutely amazing!

As I crossed to the median in the middle of the street to get a picture of the parking job, a bus approached, but the driver kindly stopped so he wouldn’t photo bomb my picture. I finished and crossed the street again, but the bus didn’t move! I looked back, and he was smiling and holding two thumbs up, indicating that he wanted me to take his picture too! So I obliged (even though I couldn’t really see him because of the reflection off the windshield) and then he continued driving his passengers down the road.

In the post office we waited for several minutes and finally sent our mail. Here in Brazil, we can’t purchase stamps and drop mail in a mailbox. We go to the post office and pay the postage and they put the stamps on the mail for us! That was definitely a new experience for me. I mean, I’ve done that in the States, but I always have the option of just sending mail from home if I want.

We then walked around downtown, looking for hardware stores and bananas that weren’t already overripe. I’m starting to become acquainted with the layout of the downtown area after having been there several times. Today there was no soccer game so the place was bustling with activity.

For lunch we had mashed potatoes with gravy, vegetables (onions and bacon and spinach I think), and flat fried chicken. In the afternoon I helped rearrange the house next door. One of the reasons we did it was to prepare it for people to live there next week and for a few more weeks during the summer.

We took the double bed from my room and moved it there, switching it out for the two single beds that were over there. I now have two twin-sized beds in my room, awaiting another guy to come stay with me next week for the seminary’s Sacred Music Week.

Over the next few weeks, several people will be coming to join us here. Some will help with the music conference and some will come to participate with me in Aventura Brasil. My time alone here is quickly coming to an end! But that’s okay because I’m excited to be joined in ministry here.

I spent about a half hour working on my Portuguese with the guy who teaches the English classes that I attended. He’s helping me work on my pronunciation and some simple phrases so I can begin to do some elementary communication with people here.

For supper I had beef soup, herb bread and butter, crackers and cheese, and guava juice. We ate with some older missionaries who are leaving tomorrow morning to go on furlough. It was fun to meet them, and he even gave me some cowpies to eat! (well, they were actually caramelized peanuts, but the package called them cowpies.)

Shortly after supper, several other missionaries arrived, and we met on the poor for a prayer meeting. It was encouraging and fun to hear them go around the group, talking about their most recent experiences and share prayer requests and praises. Missionary life is not easy, so this is a great chance for them to interact about life and encourage one another.

We broke up into groups of three to pray and then we had a short time of fellowship with ice cream and homemade brownies, courtesy of Jennifer Leonard.

Something that was sobering for me was seeing the age of the missionaries. The average age of the missionaries tonight was probably no lower than 60! On the one hand, it’s encouraging to see the faithfulness of these men and women. On the other hand, is there anyone else younger coming to join and eventually replace them?

Well, that’s it for the day, but there’s something else I want to quick mention. When we were in our small groups to pray, I noticed lots of tiny ants scurrying across the tile on the porch. They were so small yet they zoomed across the tile, almost as fast as that teleporting frog I met last week.

It made me think about Proverbs 6:6-11, the passage of Scripture that tells sluggards to look at the ants and learn from their work habits. I’ve always heard that we need to learn to work hard and plan ahead just like the ants do. But as I watched them move so fast tonight, I also thought about the importance of working with a sense of urgency.

At IRBC we talk about “walking with purpose” anytime you’re doing something or going somewhere. That’s what those ants did! They walked with purpose! What about missions though? Do we do it with a sense of urgency? Unlike the ants, we know that Christ is returning at anytime, and we don’t know how much time we have left.

Perhaps even hard-working Christians need to go to the ant and consider her ways and get out of the rut known as “sluggish evangelism.” We are all called to be missionaries somewhere, but are we pursuing our opportunities with urgency?

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 attend, opposite of the churches I’ve attended in the US.

I spent most of the day doing my devotions, writing letters, and just resting. Breakfast consisted of cinnamon raisin biscuits, lunch was stir-fried rice with shrimp and vegetables (got to use chopsticks!), and supper was manioc root with sun-dried beef. Man, I love that stuff!

At 6:00pm we attended Igreja Batista Fonte de Luz (Source of Light Baptist Church) in Juazeiro. It is one of about 20 regular Baptist churches in Juazeiro, and the Leonard’s were involved in helping it get started and construct its building.

They have a sanctuary that will seat about 500 people when filled to max capacity, and they have another smaller building used for classrooms and such. They built with the hope that they can grow to an attendance of 500 people rather than building a smaller room and rebuilding as they grew.

You can see pictures from the church’s history at their website: