Celebrations

Yesterday (Tuesday), we officially ended our first semester of language school. It was a really bitter sweet day for me ~ Partially because this is just part of yet another life change...a move to South Brazil....but mostly porque nossa professora (because our teacher, above photo) became to me more than an instructor of Portuguese language and Brasilian culture, but also became to me a friend and mentor. She is a godly woman who taught me much about ministry in the home and in the church. I am so grateful that God sovereignly picked her to be our first language teacher. God bless you, Joadan!

Monday I turned the ripe old age of 27 years. Wow, I actually remembered how old I am this time! :) hehehe :) On Sunday night, there was a lot of whispering back and forth at church ~ I decided to not notice and was glad to remember that another friend would be having her birthday on the same day as me. Surely all of this planning/secrets were for her. Well, they were - but for me, too!
As we were leaving Sunday night, 2 folks asked me if I would be at the Monday night Bible Study. I said I didn't know, but I thought so...(why were they asking, anyway?) Turns out that the very special birthday party wasn't just for Patrice, but for me too. :) Oh, it was so much fun!

We had the normal schedule of music, blessings, prayer, and devotional, and then Pat and I were quickly ushered into the dining room (sala de jantar) where was laid out a delicious feast! Let's see, they had rice, chicken salad (ingredients: chicken, raisins, carrots, corn, peas, cream...Brasileiro to the T!), 2 different kinds of mousse/frozen fruit dessert, and cake...with 2 candles on it. Pat and I got to blow one out a piece. :) Foi muito engracado. :) (It was really funny:)) After everyone sang, "Parabens pra voce, nessa dada querida! Muitas felicidades, muitos anos da vida!" (to the tune of "Happy Birthday"), there were shouts of "Discurso!" ("Speech!") I think I surprised everyone when I spoke up and actually gave a speech. Ok, so it was only 2 sentences and I conjugated a couple of verbs wrong. But if anything, it was a good exercise for me. :) Then Pat made her speech and they asked Jon to pray -which he did very well. :)
All 3 of us - Jon, Elli and I, had a great night of fellowship and refreshment. I was so blessed by their show of love! ElliAnna had a marvelous time playing with the kids and entertaining us all. I had wondered what kind of a day it would be, this first birthday of mine in Brasil...Thank You God, for such a blessing as it was! And thank you all who prayed for me and thought of me on that day. The only thing that would have made the day better was if you could have been here, too. :)
Enjoy the pics...I'll try to introduce you to as many friends as whose names I can remember. :)

The guy on the far left here is Marino (sorry about all the spelling - I do NOT know how to spell Portuguese names correctly yet!!). The young man with the guitar is Jose, and he loves ElliAnna! The man next to him is Daniel - he and his wife have twin girls, age 2. And the man standing up is Monteiro, Jose's father. Monteiro leads the singing time at Bible Study.

Here are some more of the guys just hanging out after Study. On the left is Petronio, Pat's husband. Next to him is Audisio, who is a fantastic musician... And the man in the yellow shirt is Carlos. He has been overseeing some of the speaking duties while Pastor Al Pierschbacher has been in the States, and we have really really enjoyed Carlos' teaching. He also teaches our Sunday School, and does a great job. We have found that we can understand him very well ~ he enunciates and speaks slow enough for us to process his words and even respond to questions in class.

This is Andrea and me ~ she and her husband have 2 elementary age kids, she plays the guitar very well, runs the slide presentations during services, and is oh, sooooo kind to us!!! Just in the past 2 weeks, she's really befriended ElliAnna, too. :)

Below is a picture of me with Carlos' wife to your left, and Pat's mom to your right. Super kind and gentle women, both of them.

These ladies are just tons of fun...if only they'd speak slow enough for me to understand their conversation. :) :) :) They're all gracious and kind, and I'll miss them all when we leave! To the far left is Abedene (Jose's mom, Monteiro's wife), next is Bruna (Marino's wife), in the middle is the mother of the twin girls (Daniel's wife, I can't remember her name!), then there's Pat (the other birthday girl :)), and Daisy (she's Audisio's girlfriend and also a doctor!)

Here's us bday girls :) You'll notice the clock behind us...we didn't get home until about 10:30 :)

Ahh, good friends here!! Tathy is right next to me (she is married and has a 8 ? year old son ~ she's a very sweet friend), next is Tathy's sister Lisia (she came over last night just to hang out - it was so much fun, and such an encouragement to us!), then there's Leah (I don't know her very well, but she's really sweet :)), and again Abedene.

A little history on Marino for y'all....he's been trying from Day 1 to get ElliAnna to go to him willingly. At first he just scared her cuz he spoke loudly and quickly and she didn't understand Portuguese at all! Then she started to respond to him, not in a necessarily friendly way, but with responses that said she was willing to negotiate a friendship. :) Then a couple of weeks ago, Marino gave her some of his dessert after church ~ a hah! She began to see that he wasn't all that scary after all, and now she goes to him willingly...almost willingly. :) On Monday, she just hammed it up with him, though - it was really a blessing to Jon and I, and meant a lot to Marino, too. :) Special :)

As you can tell, its going to be hard to leave our friends here! We feel as though we're just to the point of being able to share our thoughts with folks a little bit more, and establish stronger relationships ~ but this is the will of God for us, so we rejoice. And we'll always look forward to the times when we can visit our friends here in Fortaleza again. :)