While times are getting better here, it still doesn’t feel like home. At times I feel like this whole adventure isn’t a section of my life, but rather a stop in my life until I return home. At times I feel like an astronaut, the world keeps turning and the people keep living, but I’m just looking on through a window in outer space. Its not like that always, only sometimes, but its hard to find my life here, where I belong, where I fit in.
The days go so slow, dragging on from one hour to the next, but the months pass by so fast like the cold days here in Brasil. I have already met my knew host family and I am going to change in a couple weeks now. Wow, come the 26th of October, I will have been here for three months! To think I only have 7 or 8 more is just ridiculous! I think back to what I have gotten accomplished here. I have learned so much, but I want to start getting into action more! I want to get really involved in a church, but I need to find one that I can trust. This is something for sure to be praying for. I want to get involved in some kind of ministry. All of the opportunities I have had are on days that are not available for me. I think the best thing is to get connected with a church and then help with some ministries within that church. That is probably my biggest prayer request right now. I think if I can do this, I can truly start finding my place in this huge city, in this strange country.
I have been learning a lot about Brazilian culture, Brazilian people, and Brazilian salaries. The people here are so very friendly and always have a good face on. They are very hospitable with their friends and to guests. They never leave you outside the group. But on the other extreme, there really is no sense of service when it comes to jobs. You have to push and push to get anyone to help you. Its really interesting to see the great extremes between different parts of life. Lots of times I feel a big fakeness about it all. Its easy to make friends here in Brazil, but its hard to get to know people for who they really are. People would love to have thousands of friends and go out to clubs and dance all night, but when it comes to truly knowing the heart of something, Brazilians for the most part are very blocked off. I have made two good friends here, and still I don’t know how well I really know them. Another thing about Brazilians is that there is a huge gap between the rich and the poor, and the rich like to make sure everyone knows they are rich. Its so sad because there are a few with tons of money that keep it all for themselves. Then there are the many many poor people. The gap is like the Grand Canyon. Securing the rich with a sense of comfort on one side and dooming the poor with hopelessness on the other. I want to help. It is all so different here then in America. All the families that have any money have both parents working full time jobs. My host mom has three jobs and works all the time! My host dad is gone every other week traveling and when he is home is works every day all day long. Minimum wage is something ridiculously small. I made more money in one week working at Wild Horse Gourmet, then the maid does at my house in one month who cleans and cooks every single week day from 6:30 am until sometimes 9 or 10 pm. Yes she lives in this house for free and she gets a month of vacation, but it still is such a small amount. Its truly humbling.
Well, this post is a little shorter. I will post again soon, I am going to a big party this weekend, so I am sure I will have lots to say about that. Well it will give you something to look forward too. Until then my friends,
-Hope
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
So its been a while....
I feel like I have a lot to say, but at the same time, not much at all. Its been almost 2 weeks since I’ve posted….sorry about that…
Here is a highlight from these last two weeks:
October 4th at 11 pm, I squirmed out of the car as best I could with my 4 inch heals and long formal dress. I don’t quite understand how some women can exit and enter cars with such grace and elegance while wearing such constricting dresses and ankle braking heals… It truly is an art, one that I will never be fluent in…I entered the building with my friend who was the only person I knew there. The music was blasting, all sorts of lights were blinking and flashing colors all around the room. The birthday girl (she was turning 15) was standing at the entrance with her parents greeting all the guests. There were tables with huge flower arrangements, the cake the size of a wedding cake, two TVs playing music videos and disco balls that splattered light all across the room. There was a table of candy, free drinks, people serving finger food of all sorts to the guests. First we were all just talking and hanging out together. It is hard enough for me to understand Portuguese, but in a building with blasting music, the difficulty is multiplied… The birthday girl had three different dresses throughout the evening. One for greeting people, one for the waltz with her father and the other 15 men, which consisted of family and close friends, and one for, well, one for after all that stuff…There was a film of photos from her childhood and then another film which they repeatedly played throughout the night of this girl doing a photo shoot. It was, in fact, quite repealing. Right before the waltz, everyone gathered around to watch this film where the girl flaunted her skinny body off to the whole world. The worst part about it was afterwards, her father was clapping and almost crying in admiration of his daughter. “Wow, how great, this girls father is encouraging his daughter to continue to believe that life is all about looks. And that how we appear in this world and to those around us is what will determine our worth in life”, I thought to myself. After that, everyone got up and starting dancing. And I mean everyone…the parents at this party were no different then the kids. Drinking and dancing. I had fun lots of the time during this dancing part, although for some songs I just left and went to the bathroom cuz I had no desire to dance in the way that those people were dancing. I thought I was going to have to pull out my slapping move sometime that evening. (For those of you who don’t know, If any boy tries to kiss me, I will certainly slap them). There were multiple people that asked me, “Hope, porque voce nao fica com um homen?” (Hope, why don’t you fica with any guys here?”. They have this expression, “Fica” that means to kiss a guy do what ever you want with him for that one night and then never see them again after that. People continuously pushed me, “Why don’t you kiss some guys”, “I have a friend that wants to kiss you, I will take him to you”, “Come on Hope, its just one night and its fun!”. I just said the whole time, “No! I don’t want to, I’m just not into that kind of stuff, no thanks, I really don’t want to.” After a while they stopped asking me, but man it was ridiculous. This also was a small birthday party and cost about 15,000 reais! (about 7,000 dollars). They have some that get up to 150,000 reais. It is ridiculous how much money these people spend on birthday parties. I will give one note though, the 15 years birthday is one of the most important in a persons life here. Not all parties are like this. This is only for 15 years. It is a special year signifying a child’s coming into adulthood. So this is not a typical birthday party for every age. But that was my first experience at a 15 year old birthday party. It was interesting. If I was to explain it in one sentence, it would go something like this. The party as a mixture between a wedding reception, a high school dance, and a night club.
Well I am getting better at the language. I can now, for the most part, hold a conversation if the person talks a little slower and clearly. My responses aren’t fluent, but I can actually understand things and have conversations. So that is such a blessing! It is interesting though, I can understand almost everything in a conversation, but when listening to someone talking in a Rotary meeting, or my classes at school it is still hard to understand much. I think partly because they talk faster and don’t stop so I don’t have time to think about it all to understand it. And its hard to concentrate. I will concentrate really hard for a few minutes and then my mind wanders off onto something else. So I can see that I am progressing, but I still have a ways to go until fluency.
Well I went to a Fevela (slum) this past Sunday with Rotary. It was Children’s Day and so we gathered a ton of Favela children into the school there and played games, made balloon figurines, and gave out candy and presents to them. There were so many kids and most the time it was like a Zoo! But it was great to just get to help with some of those kids.
Well, my main prayer request right now is that I would not forget what I have been learning. As times start to get easier, I don’t want to go back to how things were before. I have learned so much and I want to continue to apply these things to my life. It is a lot easier to do that when I have no other choice but to communicate without words or totally rely on God. But now that I am becoming conversational and getting used to how things work here, I have to choose to continue to communicate through my actions and continue to rely on God for everything. This is much harder.
Thank you so much for your prayers,
-Hope
Here is a highlight from these last two weeks:
October 4th at 11 pm, I squirmed out of the car as best I could with my 4 inch heals and long formal dress. I don’t quite understand how some women can exit and enter cars with such grace and elegance while wearing such constricting dresses and ankle braking heals… It truly is an art, one that I will never be fluent in…I entered the building with my friend who was the only person I knew there. The music was blasting, all sorts of lights were blinking and flashing colors all around the room. The birthday girl (she was turning 15) was standing at the entrance with her parents greeting all the guests. There were tables with huge flower arrangements, the cake the size of a wedding cake, two TVs playing music videos and disco balls that splattered light all across the room. There was a table of candy, free drinks, people serving finger food of all sorts to the guests. First we were all just talking and hanging out together. It is hard enough for me to understand Portuguese, but in a building with blasting music, the difficulty is multiplied… The birthday girl had three different dresses throughout the evening. One for greeting people, one for the waltz with her father and the other 15 men, which consisted of family and close friends, and one for, well, one for after all that stuff…There was a film of photos from her childhood and then another film which they repeatedly played throughout the night of this girl doing a photo shoot. It was, in fact, quite repealing. Right before the waltz, everyone gathered around to watch this film where the girl flaunted her skinny body off to the whole world. The worst part about it was afterwards, her father was clapping and almost crying in admiration of his daughter. “Wow, how great, this girls father is encouraging his daughter to continue to believe that life is all about looks. And that how we appear in this world and to those around us is what will determine our worth in life”, I thought to myself. After that, everyone got up and starting dancing. And I mean everyone…the parents at this party were no different then the kids. Drinking and dancing. I had fun lots of the time during this dancing part, although for some songs I just left and went to the bathroom cuz I had no desire to dance in the way that those people were dancing. I thought I was going to have to pull out my slapping move sometime that evening. (For those of you who don’t know, If any boy tries to kiss me, I will certainly slap them). There were multiple people that asked me, “Hope, porque voce nao fica com um homen?” (Hope, why don’t you fica with any guys here?”. They have this expression, “Fica” that means to kiss a guy do what ever you want with him for that one night and then never see them again after that. People continuously pushed me, “Why don’t you kiss some guys”, “I have a friend that wants to kiss you, I will take him to you”, “Come on Hope, its just one night and its fun!”. I just said the whole time, “No! I don’t want to, I’m just not into that kind of stuff, no thanks, I really don’t want to.” After a while they stopped asking me, but man it was ridiculous. This also was a small birthday party and cost about 15,000 reais! (about 7,000 dollars). They have some that get up to 150,000 reais. It is ridiculous how much money these people spend on birthday parties. I will give one note though, the 15 years birthday is one of the most important in a persons life here. Not all parties are like this. This is only for 15 years. It is a special year signifying a child’s coming into adulthood. So this is not a typical birthday party for every age. But that was my first experience at a 15 year old birthday party. It was interesting. If I was to explain it in one sentence, it would go something like this. The party as a mixture between a wedding reception, a high school dance, and a night club.
Well I am getting better at the language. I can now, for the most part, hold a conversation if the person talks a little slower and clearly. My responses aren’t fluent, but I can actually understand things and have conversations. So that is such a blessing! It is interesting though, I can understand almost everything in a conversation, but when listening to someone talking in a Rotary meeting, or my classes at school it is still hard to understand much. I think partly because they talk faster and don’t stop so I don’t have time to think about it all to understand it. And its hard to concentrate. I will concentrate really hard for a few minutes and then my mind wanders off onto something else. So I can see that I am progressing, but I still have a ways to go until fluency.
Well I went to a Fevela (slum) this past Sunday with Rotary. It was Children’s Day and so we gathered a ton of Favela children into the school there and played games, made balloon figurines, and gave out candy and presents to them. There were so many kids and most the time it was like a Zoo! But it was great to just get to help with some of those kids.
Well, my main prayer request right now is that I would not forget what I have been learning. As times start to get easier, I don’t want to go back to how things were before. I have learned so much and I want to continue to apply these things to my life. It is a lot easier to do that when I have no other choice but to communicate without words or totally rely on God. But now that I am becoming conversational and getting used to how things work here, I have to choose to continue to communicate through my actions and continue to rely on God for everything. This is much harder.
Thank you so much for your prayers,
-Hope
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Cooking or God?
Well, it is October 2nd. Today marks my 66th day in Brasil. Wow, so long, yet so short.
Things here have been pretty good. I have had some really good days where I laughed until I cried and could actually hold a conversation with someone. I feel much more like myself as I get better and better at Portuguese. I still have a ways to go, but I can for sure tell I am getting better. Thank the Lord!
But I still have my days where I just want to go home. I still feel alone here, especially Spiritually. I don’t have Christian fellowship. Ya I have a couple Christian friends. But I don’t have true Christian fellowship. I don’t know how else to describe it than that. I am trying to go to some more churches and youth groups etc. but its still hard to understand because of the language and I have to be so careful with who and what I trust. I don’t know that the church I am going to is teaching Biblically because I cannot understand it all right now. I guess this has to do with everything here really. I cannot trust anything at this moment to be sound, true, stable. Because I have not had time to understand it all. Its draining. I just want something that I know is true that I can trust for sure! I am realizing that the only thing I have is God.
Through this and some other experiences God is starting to show me that He is the only thing that I can always rely on. That He will never fail. Its funny the ways we learn these things. I’ve just recently realized that God is teaching me this while attempting to cook here with Iza. But first I need to give a little background info. For those of you who know me pretty well, you know that I love to cook. Cooking has, for the last few years, been a way that I can de-stress. If I had a bad day at school, I would go home and cook something and listen to some worship music. This always helped me get my thoughts straightened out and calm down. I didn’t only cook when I was stressed however. I also cooked just for the pleasure of cooking. Anyways, today as I was helping Iza cook lunch for everyone. I kept messing up; I kept doing things wrong. The types of food, the way they cook it, the utensils they use, and everything about cooking is just different here. I felt helpless in that kitchen. Well, I came up to me room afterwards, sat on my bed and almost cried. I miss my kitchen so much. I miss the familiarity of it all back in CO. After writing a short email, God revealed to me how He is cutting off all my dependence on these earthly things. Nothing material here is certain. The only thing I can always rely on is God. He is teaching me this slowly but surely, and boy does it hurt. Its like this:
Think of the rivers and ponds all scattered through out the Rocky Mountains. There is always a river flowing into a pond and a river flowing out. This is in order to keep the pond from overflowing or becoming stagnate. My being, my soul, my body is like that pond. The river flowing into it is life; the things I experience here on earth. And the river flowing out of it is what I rely on to keep me from overflowing and growing stagnant. For me, I have a lot of those outlets. Some include cooking, relationships, my own intelligence and knowledge. Those all are pretty big outlets, but my outlet labeled “God” is a trickling flow of water not worthy to be called stream. Well, God is slowly damming up all my other outlets. He has already closed off my reliance on my own intelligence and knowledge by living in a country without knowing the language, customs, bus routs. I cannot yet fully trust in my relationships with people here. I have some good friends, But I don’t know them well enough to take everything they say as the truth. And not I cannot trust my cooking anymore. My pond is filling up and the pressure is tearing apart the earth at the outlet named “God”. It hurts when God suddenly blocks off what keeps us going and slowly tears out what we rely on in order to place it all on Him. I will always struggle with relying full on God. This is a life long battle, a life long lesson. But God is teaching me this in a whole new way right now. Now I do not think that cooking is bad, or trusting in relationships is bad, or that using my knowledge to help me is bad. These are all necessary things! But when I place them in front of my reliance in God, I will always fall.
_______________________________________________
2 Chronicles 16:7-9
“At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him: "Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand. Were not the Cushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the LORD, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war."
_________________________________________________
Isaiah 31:1
“Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
who rely on horses,
who trust in the multitude of their chariots
and in the great strength of their horsemen,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
or seek help from the LORD.”
______________________________________________
2 Corinthians 1:8-12a
“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers”.
Things here have been pretty good. I have had some really good days where I laughed until I cried and could actually hold a conversation with someone. I feel much more like myself as I get better and better at Portuguese. I still have a ways to go, but I can for sure tell I am getting better. Thank the Lord!
But I still have my days where I just want to go home. I still feel alone here, especially Spiritually. I don’t have Christian fellowship. Ya I have a couple Christian friends. But I don’t have true Christian fellowship. I don’t know how else to describe it than that. I am trying to go to some more churches and youth groups etc. but its still hard to understand because of the language and I have to be so careful with who and what I trust. I don’t know that the church I am going to is teaching Biblically because I cannot understand it all right now. I guess this has to do with everything here really. I cannot trust anything at this moment to be sound, true, stable. Because I have not had time to understand it all. Its draining. I just want something that I know is true that I can trust for sure! I am realizing that the only thing I have is God.
Through this and some other experiences God is starting to show me that He is the only thing that I can always rely on. That He will never fail. Its funny the ways we learn these things. I’ve just recently realized that God is teaching me this while attempting to cook here with Iza. But first I need to give a little background info. For those of you who know me pretty well, you know that I love to cook. Cooking has, for the last few years, been a way that I can de-stress. If I had a bad day at school, I would go home and cook something and listen to some worship music. This always helped me get my thoughts straightened out and calm down. I didn’t only cook when I was stressed however. I also cooked just for the pleasure of cooking. Anyways, today as I was helping Iza cook lunch for everyone. I kept messing up; I kept doing things wrong. The types of food, the way they cook it, the utensils they use, and everything about cooking is just different here. I felt helpless in that kitchen. Well, I came up to me room afterwards, sat on my bed and almost cried. I miss my kitchen so much. I miss the familiarity of it all back in CO. After writing a short email, God revealed to me how He is cutting off all my dependence on these earthly things. Nothing material here is certain. The only thing I can always rely on is God. He is teaching me this slowly but surely, and boy does it hurt. Its like this:
Think of the rivers and ponds all scattered through out the Rocky Mountains. There is always a river flowing into a pond and a river flowing out. This is in order to keep the pond from overflowing or becoming stagnate. My being, my soul, my body is like that pond. The river flowing into it is life; the things I experience here on earth. And the river flowing out of it is what I rely on to keep me from overflowing and growing stagnant. For me, I have a lot of those outlets. Some include cooking, relationships, my own intelligence and knowledge. Those all are pretty big outlets, but my outlet labeled “God” is a trickling flow of water not worthy to be called stream. Well, God is slowly damming up all my other outlets. He has already closed off my reliance on my own intelligence and knowledge by living in a country without knowing the language, customs, bus routs. I cannot yet fully trust in my relationships with people here. I have some good friends, But I don’t know them well enough to take everything they say as the truth. And not I cannot trust my cooking anymore. My pond is filling up and the pressure is tearing apart the earth at the outlet named “God”. It hurts when God suddenly blocks off what keeps us going and slowly tears out what we rely on in order to place it all on Him. I will always struggle with relying full on God. This is a life long battle, a life long lesson. But God is teaching me this in a whole new way right now. Now I do not think that cooking is bad, or trusting in relationships is bad, or that using my knowledge to help me is bad. These are all necessary things! But when I place them in front of my reliance in God, I will always fall.
_______________________________________________
2 Chronicles 16:7-9
“At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him: "Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand. Were not the Cushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the LORD, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war."
_________________________________________________
Isaiah 31:1
“Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
who rely on horses,
who trust in the multitude of their chariots
and in the great strength of their horsemen,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
or seek help from the LORD.”
______________________________________________
2 Corinthians 1:8-12a
“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers”.
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