The end of a very interesting journey
Nineteen months after we arrived, almost to the day, we find ourselves exiting the country of Brazil. We have had a wonderful time here in Brazil, even though there have been many challenges along the way. I (Cary) leave Brazil today, possibly forever.. but who knows?As we will no longer be in Sao Paulo as a family, we will not continue to use this blog as our family site. However, as we review our pictures and some of the memories we've made here we may end up posting some more to this site for a while yet. Thank you to all of the many people from around the world who have stopped to look and even comment on what God has been doing in our lives since we left PEI back in July of 2005.
Goodbyes
Nobody likes to say goodbye, but at least it's a great time to show others how much you care about them and how much they care about you. This cake was a gift from a friend of the girls. And while we all look forward to what God has next forus, we will certainly leave some very dear people and a great ministry behind.
Our super-sized city
Just how big is Sao Paulo? Well recently Shannon had the privilege of eating a meal at the top of one of the tallest skyscrapers in the city. She was able to take a few pictures of the view.
And this is only a part of the city that you can see. Twenty million people live here... a staggering number to even begin to comprehend.
Our big girl turns 16
This has been quite a semester at school for Kilah. Not only did she turn 16 this semester, but she was also was honoured by being inducted into the National Honor Society and invited to be listed in "Who's Who Among American High School Students." Needless to say, Mom and Dad are pretty proud of her.
Delivery wagons
We don't stop often, but there are plenty of opportunities to buy fresh produce from farmers who bring their crops to the streets of Sao Paulo and sell them from the back of their trucks. Oh, and in case you're wondering, that sign of an "E" with a slash through it means "No Parking."
Our "cast"-away
Poor Kilah. On her birthday, of all days, she was opening her window, and the heavy window came falling down and hit her on her forearm. Ouch! We didn't notice any break, so we hoped it would heal on its own. After a couple of days the pain was still really strong so Shannon got a friend who spoke Portuguese to take Kilah to the doctor. They did an x-ray and the doctor said, "I think she has a hairline fracture. Better put it in a cast." Of course, the big joke here is that they always put you in a cast whenever you hurt yourself. We see kids in casts almost every day at school. It's their remedy for almost everything.
Of course, you would think that Kilah would be upset, right? Oh no, she is the first in our family to have broken a bone. It was a proud moment for her, and obviously, she wasn't in too much pain. Another adventure in Brazil!
We got it!
We have our new home!The financing has been approved and the seller has signed the papers. Now we just have to wait until July to sign some more papers (pay some more fees...grrr) and pick up the keys. Hooray!House hunting
I apologize for the dearth of posts lately. It's not that things haven't been happening as much as it has been the fact that we have been preoccupied with something else. We've discovered that buying a house in Mississauga is an option for us, thanks to "zero down" mortgages and a very good credit rating. So we have been scouring the mls.ca website for homes and we have actually put offers in on a few of them. This is a picture of the third home we've pursued, and it looks likely that we'll settle on this one (don't tell the seller that yet, though.) We're pretty excited to think that we'll be able to move in and strt to get settled right away. It sure helps to have family in the area to be our "eyes" in this situation. The home is a four-bedroom townhouse (connected to two other homes) and it's only about two kilometers from the office. Your prayers for our housing situation are greatly appreciated.
Live at a Brazilian soccer game
To live in Brazil is to learn to appreciate soccer. My first professional game turned out to be a playoff match between Santos and another team from the state of Sao Paulo. It was quite an experience.
The game took place at the famous Morumbi Stadium where U2 played not long ago.
This flage of Santos covered thousands of people and they furled and unfurled it in only a few seconds. It was very impressive.
The people in Brazil tend to be less "reserved" than North Americans, so when it comes to anything that touches their hearts and passions like soccer does, they get a little expressive. Here's a little movie I took which does no justice whatsoever to the atmosphere in the stadium at game time.Vinte Cinco de Março
In Sao Paulo, there is a famous street market where you can buy just about anything really cheaply. It's called "VEEN-chee SEEN-cou de MAR-soo" and it simply means "March 25." Technically, you can drive your car down this street, but good luck. The place is literally swarming with people (personal space can take a hike!) Shannon has gone there several times with other PACA ladies to get some bargains.
Since this is where the people are, it tends to attract those who seek a crowd. This "fellow" stands perfectly still for minutes until someone puts a coin in his little box. Then he starts to move as if he were a mechanical man. These guys are so good that you really have to double check to make sure it truly is a human being.
Although the street is Vinte Cinco, there are a few other side streets that have become as busy as the main avenue. This hill is one that we had to walk up and to do so was like being in Times Square at 11:00 PM on New Year's Eve. The place is so packed with people that you almost have to move as a herd. It was an experience in itself.Of course, what really made me want to go to Vinte Cinco was the fact that the police patrol these streets and often make sweeps of the illegal vendors. Shannon has seen some pretty vicious stuff. I decided to see if I could catch some of the action, and behold I did (although there was no violence to be seen that day.)
Balloons
Brazilians love their balloons. When we did our back-to-school welcome this year, I asked a Brazilian who is very artistic to "take care of it" for me. I had the idea to make the school look really inviting to parents and students. She ended up lining the walkways with hundreds of balloons. When girls have birthday parties or any other celebration (sometimes guys too) you can be sure that balloons like the picture above will be a part of the celebration. This picture was actually taken at Hopi Hari a few months ago. Come to think of it, if you ever find yourself lost in a place where there are ballons like this, and fireworks, and loud music, and meat, and beer, and people wearing tight clothes, you don't even have to ask where you are. You'll know you're in Brazil.
AHA!!
We knew we'd heard monkeys here! Finally, we saw one. This little guy decided to hang around the school for a few days. Just long enough for me to get some pictures. Our first monkey sighting in the wild. Hooray!
Our "hoppy-go-lucky" little girl
One of Sydney's Christmas gifts this year was a modern variation of the old-fashioned pogo stick. The main differences are that this contraption uses a ball as a spring and is made entirely of plastic, not metal. Well, it has turned out to be a great gift. She spends many hours a week bouncing around the house, generally enjoying life--and we enjoy the smiles that show up on her face because of it.
Only in Brazil...and Iraq
Click on this picture to get a good look. We were coming home from church and saw this vehicle that had been burned somehow in the back. The tail lights and bumper are literally melted. Incredible. We suspect it was a bomb of some sort to produce so much heat to melt the plastic, but not to burn the truck.
Brazilian grocery stores
The supermarkets here in the city are quite good, and frankly, we really didn't think to post about the grocery stores themselves because they are so similar to our North American grocery stores. But as we've been here we've been taking note of the subtle differences that make the stores here special. First of all, food in Brazil is inexpensive--especially the good foods like fruit, vegetables and fresh meat. We can easily afford to dine on fresh exotic salads and fillet Mignon every week if we wish. Another difference is that because labor is cheap here you see many more finishing touches than you would see in cost-conscious North America. Look at these oranges. They were not simply dumped into the hopper. They were individually placed in neat rows. I don't know about you, but I really like that. We were unpleasantly surprised to see that the apples were not neatly lined up on this day. Sometimes you will see someone going around the fruit section making sure that everything looks "just right" all the time.
Of course, I don't like everything in Brazilian grocery stores. This is the milk section of the store. Almost all of the milk sold in Brazil is UHT (ultra high temperature) treated to last as long as possible without refrigeration. (Not every family in Brazil has a fridge.) To get what we would consider "regular" milk you need to find the tiny refrigerated section that has (no joke) about five to twenty 1-litre containers of "Fazenda" (which means "farm") milk. The milk here tastes quite different from back home, but the closer you get to skim, the less variation exists.
Back to nice things. Here is a weak, but vivid example of the attention to detail and the value of appearance in Brazil. Someone took the time to make sure that this entire display of laundry detergent was arranged in a unique way. It probably took a store employee an hour or more to arrange these boxes like this. We have seen far more elaborate displays (some were so elaborate that it made you not want to take an item from it). We have even seen employees measuring their work to make sure that it's just right; we've seen them insert rods into rows of items to make sure that all of the products are in perfect rows all the way to the back; and we have seen them carefully check rows of bottles and cans to make sure that the labels are all facing forward. When you see these time-consuming efforts it does give you a sense of luxury in a very non-luxurious atmosphere. Sometimes different is better.Funny story. After taking about a dozen pictures in the store (including the Easter egg photos from last post) a young, apologetic store manager came up to me to tell me that I was not allowed to take pictures in the store. Obviously someone had tipped him off that I was up to no good :) I tried my best in Portuguese to explain that I was only taking pictures for my friends back in North America. He seemed to think that this was a good explanation and it did put him at ease somewhat, but he still insisted that I show him the pictures that I took in his store. When I showed him, he couldn't help but grin from ear to ear. I don't think he'd ever used a digital camera before and he was tickled pink to see pictures of his store on my camera. He patted me on the back and let me go. We both went home mildly uncomfortable but happy.
Easter eggs, Brazilian style
My trip to Mississauga went very well. Other than the fact that the peanut butter, Cheez Whiz, and Campbells soup got confiscated at the Chicago airport, everything was a success. Going from 29 Celsius to -6 was a bit of an adjustment though! BRRRRR!!!
In Brazil, you almost never see chocolate bunnies here at Easter. Everybody buys chocolate eggs. And the number one place to buy your chocolate eggs is at the grocery store or the department store. All stores set up their displays the same way. They erect these metal beams that run across the aisle and continue for most of the length of the aisle. As you shop you have to pass under this canopy of Easter eggs.
This is what it looks like from beneath it. There are hundreds or even thousands of these various eggs hanging from the beams.
Here is what an individual egg look like when it's still wrapped. All of the eggs are hollow and inside they'll have a certain type of chocolate bonbons, all individually wrapped. The price of these eggs range from 7 to 45 Reais ($3.50 - $23.00) Since there are few other options at Easter, kids get excited about what's in the egg (sometimes it is filled with small toys) and how many eggs they'll get.
Quick trip to Canada
Tomorrow I (Cary) head to Mississauga, Ontario to be introduced to the congregation and leadership of Grace Community Church as their new pastor. This will formalize the decision made a few months ago. This is the church where my brother, Bartley, is the senior pastor. I will only be there a few days as I head back on Sunday night. It will be exciting to be back in Canada, even if it's only for a short time.Greenhouse gases
While vehicles in North America continue to be big, bigger, and biggest, here in Brazil we have the answer to the problems of greenhouse gases. This tiny van actually seats six "comfortably" even if they don't all have enough air to share when there are six people inside. Even after almost two years it still seems strange to see these vehicles around. It's like the minis that were popular in Canada during the eighties.
God, the green thumb
These are pictures of some of the many flowers that grow all around our house here in Sao Paulo. Thankfully, they don't rely one bit on Shannon or myself for their survival. We've managed to kill all of the plants/trees that we bought when we first came to Brazil. So you can imagine how happy a couple of "black thumbs" are to have such abundant life all around us. We will certainly miss all of the colourful flowers when we leave.
Motorcycle traffic
I might have mentioned it before, but now we have a picture of motorcyclists driving between the lanes of cars on the roads (and it applies to all roads). This picture is actually a very uncommon sight, since it is rare that there is so much space between the cars and the motorcycle. On side streets and in residential neighborhoods, it is not uncommon for the motorcycles to weave through any crack big enough for them to squeeze through. Sometimes they hit your mirrors, but ours have never been broken by them. The government actually encourages this dangerous activity since it prevents the traffic jams from being much, much worse.
Candlelight
As the school year begins to wind down, some of the more important events of the school year are starting to hit the schedule. One of the big events is Candlelight. It's a night where the junior class puts on a big meal and a show (although apparently they've never done a dinner theater) to raise money for their graduation year. It's the next best thing to a prom--Christian style. The girls not only got "gussied up," they made an event out of it by inviting their friends (and their friends' mothers) to come over for the afternoon to play "beauty shop." The girls did manicures, pedicures, hair styling, and anything else you can imagine.
When the primping was done, everybody looked gorgeous. We all took our tickets (which were cleverly inserted into tiny bottles) and headed off to the big event.
Everyone had a great time even though some didn't care much for the Arabian food. We made sure that we took lots of pictures so we could have plenty of memories of the girls at their most beautiful. I'm working on making our photo album available, but there are a lot of pictures to upload, so I'm not sure how long it will take.
She's got "laser eyes"
We decided to break the bank and have Shannon get laser eye surgery (lasik). It's supposed to be a lot cheaper here than in North America (although we have our doubts now that we've been through the process) and since Shannon's prescription was so strong her glasses were very expensive. Having the surgery will definitely save us money in the long run, not to mention the quality of life benefit for Shannon, and the fact that I get to look at my beautiful wife the way God intended. Shannon's eyesight is great, and other than one night of suffering (see the picture) it has been a pretty smooth process.
A very unexpected surprise
A few days ago we received a large package from the United States. It was from my former boss at the Bucks County Courier Times in Levittown, Pennsylvania, and another co-worker there. We had no idea that the box was coming and it was one of those packages that was so stuffed with items that there is no way that you can pack everything back into the box. There were all sorts of Courier Times promotional items including t-shirts, lunch bags, handbags and various "chotchkeys" (trinkets). Although there were gifts for the whole family, I just couldn't help but feel overwhelmed with emotion as item after item was discovered among the tightly-packed bags. To think that people that I worked with five years ago would care enough to shower us with blessings was just an amazing thing. We all felt very loved. I, especially, felt very appreciated. Thank you God for my dear friends in Pennsylvania.The will of God
In light of the momentous decision we have made recently, I was asked to share with the staff at PACA how it is that one knows the leading of God in his life. This is what I shared with them in response:1. God will never reveal His will to a husband and wife in a way that one contradicts the other. If there is contradiction, then either one spouse is right and the other is wrong, or both are wrong.
2. God only reveals His will to those whose hearts are in tune with Him. We must check our motives. Do we think we know God's will because WE WANT change, or do we really want what God wants for us?
3. God's will will NEVER lead us into sin. It's completely contrary to His nature to do so. If you have to make compromises on righteousness to go one direction, then that is NOT God's direction for your life.
4. God's will ALWAYS requires an act of faith (even if the act of faith is staying put.) God's clear statement that "without faith it is impossible to please God" does not end when we are trying to figure out God's will. In fact, it is always God's plan to stretch us and to make us grow in our faith. If a direction you're considering looks comfortable, it almost certainly isn't God's will for you (consider Lot's decision.)
5. God will always give the decision maker(s) peace about the decision when it is the right one. A peace that passes understanding comes with the right decision, which is important, because the path that God might lead us down may be filled with difficulties, even from the start. Without that peace, it would be very easy to turn back.
The good news in all of this is that since it is God's will, there is nobody who wants you to know that desire stronger than He does. Therefore, God will make sure that the circumstances of your life (which He controls) will give you the clues necessary to see what He is trying to get you to see.
Caverna do Diabo
Sorry to leave you hanging for a week. Got busy...So we left our hotel and headed down the dangerous road to our destination, and the cave made all the concerns we had go away. The site itself looked a little run-down. It's in a very poor part of the state. Upon arriving there were several kids at our doors asking for money for food. We gave them a little of both. Unfortunately, we found out that there were more where the originals came from and we ran out of food to give.
We ended up assembling at the start of the trail with our guide ("guia" in Portuguese - the same word for "map") who led us to the cave...
The cave was quite dark, but along the path they had lights so you could see where you were going. They also had bright spotlights every once in a while to show off a nice part of the cave.
The whole cave was incredible if you ask us. The stalactites (which hang from the ceiling) and stalagmites (which grow up from the ground) were spectacular. Had it not been for the dust and dirt in the cave (and there was plenty of that) the stalactites would have been a beautiful ivory color.
These pictures are all taken without a flash. The cave was so dark, that a flash only lit up about 10 feet in front of you. However, with a special setting on my digital camera, I was able to get these fabulous pictures, while everyone with a traditional camera and flash will discover that their pictures look lousy. Have I mentioned how much I love that digital camera we have?
The name of the cave (see the title) means "Cave of the Devil," and if the spiky formations weren't creepy enough, at the end of the trail there's a natural formation on the wall that looks really eerie...
This is the closest I could zoom in on the "picture" on the wall of the cave. To think that this was not carved into the wall is pretty creepy. God really does have a sense of humor. What gets me is "How in the world did people discover this cave in the middle of nowhere, and then, with no natural light, find this picture of a person's face over 500m into the cave?" Talk about finding a needle in a haystack! We had to get a few people to shine their flashlights on the "face" as again, a flash didn't work from that distance.The trip was absoutely wonderful. We made some great memories as a family and we got to see one of God's amazing natural wonders.