I think we have a problem
This week while I was getting my clothes out for the day, I thought I noticed a spot on the back of my dress shoes. I took the shoes out of the closet and you see what I saw... mold! It has actually been very dry here for the past several weeks, but in the last several days we've had some heavy downpours. We were warned that leather gets moldy here.
Since we were warned, we've been using these little beauties. They are to closets what those little packets of silica gel are to your newly-purchased items. They're SUPPOSED to prevent mold like this from growing, but obviously this one wasn't doing the job.
Snob
Here's another funny brand name. I think they meant to call it Snob as a reference to being of superior quality (which it is), but I'm not sure that the Brazilians realize that there's a negative connotation to that word in English.
Bolinha
As most of you know, we have a dog named Maple. Maple is a rather hyper dog, but she's smart, and she almost never barks. She's a lousy guard dog, but then, we keep her penned up most of the time where she wouldn't be able to attack a robber anyway. So much for our reason for getting a dog! Maple has a tendency to dig up the yard and chew to bits anything that she can get her jaws around. Maple used to be so proficient at escaping from her huge "pen" at the back of our property that the kids actually started to call her "Houdini." Now that she's big she doesn't even try to escape any more.Actually, when we moved here there were only three houses on our street without a dog. Our home, and the two homes on either side of us. About two months after we got Maple, the neighbors at the end of our street got a puppy named Bolinha (bo-LEAN-ya) which means "Spot" in English. In the first 24 hours that they had Bolinha she managed to escape the neighbors and come to our house. This has been a pattern that would repeat itself hundreds of times over (and it still happens.) Here is a picture of Bolinha on her first visit to our home as a puppy.
At first, we were happy to see Bolinha because she had a calming effect on Maple. Bolinha would escape from her "pen" and come over to Maple's side of the fence and the two would play for hours and hours. However, Bolinha was beginning to spend ALL of her time with Maple and although we didn't complain (not that we knew the words anyway) the neighbors figured it out that we probably weren't thrilled about feeding and cleaning up after a dog that wasn't ours. Thus attempts were made to stop Bolinha from crossing the fence.
This is the barrier that now exists between our back property and the neighbor's. But, believe it or not this barricade does NOT stop this little dog from coming over whenever she feels like it. We have watched her scale the wall and believe us, we are convinced the dog will eventually kill herself coming over. But even though she falls at least ten feet onto hard concrete, she gets right up and says hello to Maple. The biggest problem with Bolinha is not actually her amazing ability to defy being contained. She yaps. She yaps incessantly, often hours at a time. If this dog isn't happy she just will not shut up and she is INCREDIBLY annoying. The neighbors, we can tell, are pretty much fed up with her. Not only is she a noise nuisance, but she has dug up the neighbor's back yard worse than any armadillo or other digging rodent could do. She has basically trashed their previously-perfect lawn. We're not aware of what the plans are for this dog, but we'll keep you posted. We know enough about our neighbors at this point to know that the dog isn't going to have a long future at this rate.
Five years later...
Of the five anniversaries of the 9-11 disaster, this one has effected me (Cary) more than any other. Perhaps it's because it is the 5th anniversary, but probably moreso because today was a nearly perfect weather day here in Sao Paulo--just like it was the day of the terrorist acts. I had made a mental note that morning that God had given us a perfect weather day in Philadelphia on 9-11-2001. Today was nearly identical weather to that one. Praise God that we know who holds the future, and that as bad a things may get on this planet, they will never get beyond God's control.Eleven years for Sydney
Can't believe we forgot to put pictures up from Sydney's birthday which was August 18. Sydney was able to have some of her girlfriends over for a game night sleepover. The girls all had a great time being completely foolish, which is about what eleven year old girls should be like on their birthday.
Happy Labour Day!
To all who have the day off today, we wish you a nice break. They have a labour day here in Brazil, but it's on a different day. So we're at work today.Of course, Labour Day means the start of school is tomorrow for Grace Christian School and many other schools across North America. Our prayer is that you have a great school year!
Residency status
I know that the Canada Revenue Agency (Canada's tax-collectors) means well, and that they really do try not to make life miserable for people on purpose, but our experience with them over the years has been a rather frustrating one to say the least. I'll not go into the issues of the past, but rather inform you of our latest encounter.You see, I keep making the mistake of answering questions at face value. For example, if the CRA asks, "Are you married?" I am likely to answer "yes" because I am. However, answers like that seem to haunt me as in what happened recently...
I have noticed that we have stopped receiving the child tax benefit for our children. When I asked our finance guy at FEB International about it he asked if we had filled in the question on our taxes that asked if we left Canada during that tax year. Of course, we had, so I answered "Yes" and gave them the date. He said, "If (you) did that is where the problem started. As missionaries we encourage all to never answer that question. It starts a whole process that is difficult to reverse. The question in their system is really asking 'Did you cease to be a resident of Canada for tax purposes' and not did you physically leave the country which is how most interpret it."
So now we find ourselves being treated by the Canadian government as non-residents. No CTB (a loss of about $300 monthly), plus my Canadian bank account is taxed every month! (Fortunately this is not a big loss as our assets are miniscule.) And all because I thought I was doing the right thing by answering the question honestly.
We would appreciate your prayers on this matter. We will file this week for our residency status to be changed, but my dealings with the government have often been long and arduous, and we generally lose even when we think we have an open-and-shut case.