Special projects
We are very excited about the fact that this year is a year of emphasis on missions within the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches in Canada (the Fellowship). Part of this emphasis was to get each missionary to come up with some special projects for supporters to get involved with. Here are the three we came up with:Project #1: Not Just Fun and Games
Since arriving in Brazil in the fall of 2005, the Lord has given us the opportunity to share the gospel by teaching English to business acquaintances. We had been meeting every weekend with four Brazilians through our bank who have studied English, but have little or no opportunity to use what they've been studying. One of the best things for us to do with Brazilians who want to learn English to is play games in English with them. It gives us opportunity to get to know them in a friendly, non-threatening way, plus they get to practice their English through the game itself, and the conversation that takes place during the game. However, we were only able to bring a few small games when we moved. What we would like to have are several board games (like Life, Risk, Settlers of Catan, etc.) to play together. Games that can accommodate 4 to 8 people are best. Card games like Rook are good too.
Project #2: Spinning a Yarn and Salvation
Another opportunity has opened up for meetings between teenaged girls from the favelas (shanty towns) and a lady from our church. Shannon and this lady have been helping the girls gain some life skills by teaching them how to knit. They can make things for themselves, or they can sell what they make as income to live on. While the girls learn to knit, the ladies share the gospel with them. The expense is in the yarn, which is quite costly here. Specifically, we are in need of yarn, needles, cross stitch supplies and simple project books for either knitting or cross stitch.
Project #3: God's Word in Parallel Form
Although Bibles are plentiful here in Brazil. A Bible that has both Portuguese and English is very valuable. In addition to being used for church or personal Bible study, Bibles in two languages are excellent for language learning. We would love to give Bibles like these to the Brazilians we are helping with English.
If you are interested in getting involved in any or all of these practical projects, we would love to hear from you about it. Or you can contact our mission headquarters in Guelph directly.
FEBInternational, 351 Elizabeth Street, P.O. Box 457
Guelph, ON N1H 6K9
Ph. 519-821-4830; Fax: 519-821-9829
Cary's new office
Over the summer break there were many work projects going on at PACA. One of them was to relocate the music room, leaving the music room free for other purposes. The high school principal and I each had very small offices in the main office area, while the director of development and the guidance counselor each had large offices in the center of the campus. The plan was to have both principals move to new, larger offices near the guidance counselor and the music room is right next door. So over the summer the music room got converted into two spacious offices. I have never had such a large office before! I can have meetings, do student testing or hold a small party here if I choose to. The office still needs a lot of "accessorizing" and I'm looking forward to decorating it.The picture at the top was taken by stitching three different pictures together. What a cool feature! I bought our digital camera back in late 2004 and I am continually amazed at how versatile it is. I love digital cameras!
Sunday School
About six weeks ago, Shannon and I (Cary) sat down with our pastor and his wife to discuss our involvement at church, now that we've been attending for a while. I offered to teach a Sunday School class if they needed a teacher, and today I got a call saying they want me to teach an adult elective class! I'm quite pleased actually, since I don't teach any classes at school this year (for the first time since I started in teaching.) It will not only fill a void, but I will be able to have a special opportunity to disciple adults at church, in addition to my discipleship opportunities at school.Another funny brand name
I'm sure if you were going to buy some yogurt for your family that you wouldn't naturally be drawn to yogurt with the brand name "Potty." Yet this is just another of the many brands of items you can get here that would never sell in North America. Actually, it tasted pretty good. I guess you really shouldn't judge a book by its cover.
A double blessing
Yesterday we were all pretty excited...we got two packages from Prince Edward Island on the same day! We have only received about five packages altogether, so to have two of them on the same day is quite special. One of the packages was from the O'Connors and it had some school supplies and pictures in it. The other package was a box from Miss Farrer's junior church group at Grace Baptist Church. It was full of pens, pencils, notepads and candy. The girls were thrilled! We now have plenty of school supplies. The kids at school will no doubt be very jealous of our girls as they have such nice pens. Pens like they recieved cost an absurd amount of money here.While everything was very nice, there were three items that really stood out. Among the box of goodies from the church were three glittery red pencils with big Canada flag erasers at the top. When the girls picked which one would be theirs, they burst into song. They sang "O Canada" from beginning to end with great gusto. I wish you all could have seen it. They obviously miss Canada a great deal.
Thank you O'Connors and Miss Farrer (and class!) you really blessed us.
Back to school
Yes, it's August, and that means back-to-school time for us here in Brazil. Cary has been at teacher in-service the past two days, and the girls start back to school tomorrow for a half day of orientation. Actually, six weeks off is enough if you ask us...although it's still hard to get back into the work mindset--especially for the girls.P.S. Our internet connection at home is down for the next 7-14 days because we need a new internet service provider (even though our connection to the internet is still great--things are truly different here.) We'll be checking e-mail and the blog through Cary's internet connection at work.