Missionaries in action
We finally got some pictures (okay, over 200 at once - it's feast or famine here) of the girls' missions trip to Paraguay. This is a shot of most of the nearly 50 young people who served in the Paraguayan heat.
Summer was on a team that did dental care, including teaching the children how to brush their teeth and to give away free toothbrushes. Although this part of the ministry was not highly evangelistic, it was part of the overall effort to care for the person in a tangible way, not just to offer salvation. Summer's particular role was to hand out brushes and to play the part of a toothbrush in the puppet play about taking care of your teeth. Of course, adding to the challenge was the fact that Summer had to say all of her lines in Spanish.
Kilah got to be a part of the drama team, which thrilled her to no end. To think that one can do acting as a missionary... Her drama team consisted of (from back left to front left) Eve, Satan, two demons (Kilah is the one on the far right), Jesus (with the cross on his cheek) and Adam. Their skit had no words, but was set to some very moving music. On three separate occasions the skit had to be cancelled because it was deemed to be too intense for the younger children in the audience. Aparently the demons and Satan were doing their jobs a little too well.
This is the group of PACA students that went on this trip (and the only native English speakers on the team). In addition to Kilah and Summer are two girls from grade 9 & 10 plus Kilah's friend Emily (lying on the rest of them) and Mrs. Zuercher (Emily's mother) who acted as the chaparone for our group.
Feijoada
Well we've been here for well over a year and we had never had a meal of "real" feijoada - the quintessential Brazilian meal. That is, until tonight! The girls were all babysitting for the evening so Shannon and I snuck out for a bite at a restaurant within walking distance of our house. Shannon decided to pass on the feijoida, since she knows what's in it. They had three different sizes: small, medium, and large. Assuming that the small was for "girly-girls", I ordered the medium sized meal. They gave it to me on FOUR platters! It looked very much like in this picture actually. I managed to get through about half of it before I felt like the forklift would be necessary. I was uncomfortable for the rest of the evening (but happy!) So what's in that little cauldron? Basically, the concept of the feijoada is to see that NOTHING goes to waste. My meal had tongue, ears, and neck parts. There were other (much better) parts in it too. Being a garbage-gut, I loved every bite. But even I found it necessary to cut out some of the fatty parts. Shannon enjoyed her chicken parmegiana, and watching me eat.
The jaca tree
Perhaps the most unusual fruit tree that we have encountered here in Brazil is the jaca tree. They grow very large and make any tree-climbing fan salivate. The leaves provide very nice shade, and the tree itself is nice to look at. The most distinguishing feature of the jaca tree however, is its fruit. A small jaca fruit weighs about ten pounds (4 Kg) when full-grown, and a large one can easily weigh more than 20 lbs. As with a few other things here in Brazil, people tend to either love it or hate it. The fruit is white and very sweet, but it's very difficult to eat since the skin is tough and must be removed and then the fruit is sectioned into little dinner-roll sized balls held together by a sticky substance. Let's just say eating a jaca is messy, and they don't keep well once the skin has been removed. Cary had some once, and liked it, but somebody else did the peeling. When we had one given to us one time, it ended up going rotten because we didn't know how to get at it. The tree grows all over our area of Brazil, so if you're ever in southeast Brazil, give it a try.
Brazilian telephone booths
When we arrived in Brazil, we saw these funny-looking contraptions all over the place. It didn't take us long to realize that these are public telephones. You never see fully-enclosed booths like we have in North America here, but they have hundreds of thousands of them here in Sao Paulo alone. In fact, they used to be much more common than phones in people's homes. Recently, with the increase in home phones and now the explosion of mobile phone use in Brazil, the telephone companies are finding that these phone booths aren't being used as often as before. In fact, one company reports that they will remove over 100,000 of these phone booths in Sao Paulo by the end of 2007. Apparently it costs more to maintain the booths than they are profiting. Don't worry, I think they said that there will still be about 300,000 of them left in the city, so people shouldn't have to go far to find a phone.
Rio de Janeiro
With two of three children away for ten days, we saw a rare opportunity to do some traveling as a couple. I have always wanted to visit Rio and do some of the most famous Rio things, including visiting Copacabana beach. So we found a friend of Sydney's whose parents were willing to take her in for a few days, and we loaded up the car and headed for Rio.
Everyone says that Rio is a very dangerous city. In fact, my boss says that almost every teacher that has ever visited Rio has been robbed or held-up. It's no wonder with huge favelas surrounding the city. The favelas in Rio make Sao Paulo's look much less impressive. We stayed at a nice hotel just off Copacabana beach, and even though this is high tourist season (Brazilian summer) our room only cost about $100 per night (including a very nice breakfast each day.) They upgraded us for free to a room with a view of the beach.
Our first order of business was supper. We had just traveled for about six hours and we were hungry. We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw that they had KFC! We don't have KFC in Sao Paulo and we have missed that "finger-lickin' good" chicken. When we got there and ordered, they told us that we would have to wait between 20-30 minutes because they had to cook up more chicken. So they gave us our drinks and five free chicken strips to hold us off while we waited - wow. We were hardly hungry when the food arrived, but we enjoyed our meal tremendously. The main differences between KFC in N.A. and S.A. is that in North America you get fries and coleslaw with your chicken. In Brazil you get rice and beans! Also, they don't use MSG in the food here, which makes the chicken taste much different (but better for you). We've basically been de-toxified from MSG and foods that contain it now start taste bad to us.
The next morning we spent on the beach working on our tans. The beach is huge, and very busy (as we expected.) We ended up having perfect weather that day. They are really doing a lot to upgrade to boardwalk with bathrooms and kiosks. It's first-class.
After lunch, we took a tour bus to the hot-spots of the city. (Well, the hot-spots for the not-so-adventurous. We aren't into the night-life scene.) You can see the pictures on the slideshow. The Maracanã stadium, cathedral, and corcovado were all more impressive than we expected. But the Carnival parade route (Sambadrome) was definitely under-whelming. The whole thinh is only 700 meters long. They don't parade all through the city like they do in North America. They come into the parade route and can see the end barely more than a quarter-mile ahead.
That night we ate at Domino's Pizza and it was definitely not the same as home. Very disappointing. We only had time the next morning to take a walk on the beach and check out before heading home, but our short visit was a great one and we didn't lose anything. So much for big, bad Rio. It was great to us!
Subway crater
You might have heard the news that there was a major collapse of a highway here in Sao Paulo where they were digging the subway. That was actually quite close to where we live, but not on a part of the road we travel on very often. Nobody we know was hurt as several vehicles fell up to 100 feet as the earth beneath them gave way. It is a good reminder that we are only as safe as God keeps us.Missionary kids
Our girls have felt the full force of our "missionary-ness" as they get to experience most of the same highs and lows we face each week. But early this month they got to have a missionary experience all their own. Kilah and Summer went on a missions trip to Paraguay with Youth With A Mission for ten days (3 training, 7 serving). They get back on January 18. Here they are as they bought their bus tickets to head off to the training center. We are very proud of them for wanting to share the gospel with others during their vacation time.
A day at the zoo
We enjoyed a rare rain-free day to take a trip to the Sao Paulo Zoo. We got to see a few animals we had never seen before, and plenty of the zoo favorites. 
There were plenty of monkeys to be seen at this zoo. One really great idea they had was to put the monkeys on little islands in the lake. I don't know if monkeys are unable to swim or what, but they stay there uncaged in these little "monkey condos." They are free to go wherever they want... if they are willing to do a little swimming.
The highlight of the day was the huge lizard we encountered on a path. We're not sure if this was a zoo escapee, or just a native lizard who liked hanging around the zoo. Anyway, Kilah tried to get close to it until a little kid charged after it, making the lizard run for cover.