Today was Sunday

Hey

So today we had a rockin Sunday. We all went to church as usual which is always sweet. Kresten did communion, everything had to be translated so that was cool. He did a pretty stellar job.

This afternoon I helped out Travis, with his advanced english class, I talked about all the fun things that people in saskatchewan do. Like roasting hot dogs and marshmellows. somehow, they all knew what this was it was weird almost.

We also had some readers this afternoon. Sunday afternoons are usually fairly busy for us cause alot of people are here for church.

Tonight we went and ate acari or something like that, its like this berry that only grows in the amazon, its delicious, they make it into a cold, ice pudding almost, and you put oatmeal on it, it was prime, then we went to Travis and Alicia's apartment and watched the hockey game over skype with his parents so that was pretty awesome as well. So we have had a pretty full day, and week.

Its crazy that we are exactly half way done as of today, assuming your reading this on monday, which i know you will be cause i am writing it on monday my time, maybe not your time, so maybe not i dunno. The time has flew by, but it has been a blast so far. Here is a fun Fact Travis told us today, the coldest day in Bahia ever was 17.3 degrees one night a couple of years ago. right now, 23 tonight possibly 21 so cold i know.

Well here are some pictures of our Birthday party. Enjoy,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR HEATHER!

Ok, so today we had a birthday party... for Heather, the intern missionary here for those of you who don't know who she is! Actually, it was just one of the parties we have each Friday that was themed like a birthday party, and we realized at the party that Heather's birthday is on Wednesday. So, that's whose birthday party we decided it was and it was awesome. People didn't start coming really until about 7:30, and then there was enough people to keep things going for the evening. It's a really good time to meet the readers outside of Bible study, get to know the Missionaries better and also meet people within the church down here. At this party, we played some pretty funny games that are mainly for teenagers or younger but everyone of every age is willing to do it and have a really good time. There weren't as many people as we'd hoped, but everyone there had a real good time and we just hope that by next week or the following we will have more show up and have fun with us as well! Also, we had those long balloons that you make animals out of everywhere, and everyone was trying to make things or wearing stupid hats and running around; there were babies running everywhere and screaming and balloons flying everywhere (I almost typed 'there were babies flying everywhere' haha that would have been awesome too). So overall very hectic and noisy and that made it all better. Ryan also made a cake today that he decorated with different colours of icing into a picture of mountains and the sun... Oh man it was awesome and tasty. Anyways, that was our party, I'm sure we'll have pictures posted everywhere.

We also each had some readers today which was really good, at least for me I know it was, and actually I know it was for everyone as well. Unfortunately, some Brazilians are still pulling hooky and not showing up for all their classes, but enough of them have come and we've stayed busy. Today, only 2 of my readers showed up but they combined for 3-4 hours of really good Bible study and hang-out time. My one reader- get this: Julio Cesar (sounds like Julius Cesear!)- has come for 2 double sessions now. His english has already improved and that's kind of cool, but he just loves to study the Bible. Today we went through the section in Luke that talks about the Pharisee who prayed about how good he was while the tax collector was super humble in the temple, and also the section where Jesus rides in on a donkey into Jerusalem. It's really cool to talk with people from another culture about these stories and sometimes have a really similar understanding of the text. Afterwards he said he really appreciated being able to talk about the Bible to someone because he is used to just being taught in a more formal setting and not discussing as much. He said it was good because some things he didn't always understand and talking about it clears things up a lot. Iduno, he's just a really cool guy and I think maybe not having as many readers show up as we have scheduled maybe brings me a little closer to the readers that do come everytime they're scheduled. He just has a really good heart and it's awesome. My other reader today is 17 years old and his name is Filipe and he's a really cool kid too. I guess he's grown up in the church his whole life and says while he tries to read at least a few chapters every night before bed, he's no different than anyone else I know and falls asleep or forgets on occasion just like I know I do! We went through the story of the Angel coming to Mary and talked about a lot of different things. For such a young kid, he has a very strong faith and a lot of knowledge about more spiritual things and it's really cool to see. Ok, one more reader story only because this guy is really cool. His name is Marcelo; he's a new reader and has only come twice but he's super awesome. He's around 35 years old and he also just has a really good heart for serving people. He wants so badly to learn english so he can go to an english school and get a degree or whatever in language so I told him he can as many times as he wants. Well did he ever take advantage of that! He's going to come Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday! He's just so pumped to learn english and talk about Luke and everything it's really cool. He's a pretty quiet and humble guy, and it seems like he's gone through some stressful times (as I know all of have) and I just love hanging out with him and reading with him.

FF of the day- 'Sweet Dreams' (not sure who it's by) was song of the day today... Leandro sang it all day and got it stuck in all of our heads.

FF#2- the Brazilian version of happy birthday is wayyyy more fun than our version, you should look it up on youtube, it's awesome.

Well, maybe I'll to bed a bit early today, that would be nice eh? Hope you all are doing well, keep praying for us!

JG

Ola

Hi everybody,

So I guess we have been slacking a little bit on writing on the blog. Hopefully none of you thought that we were dead, cause we're not. Everything is still going well, we are basically full with readers, now the only thing is getting them to come. When it rains hard here everything stops and since many of our readers take the bus, it makes it very hard to get here. Luckily for us this week has been warm and not rainy. So we have been pretty busy lately. That is pretty stellar. I feel that many of our readers are now transitioning from being readers to being friends so thats cool too.

Tomorrow is our Birthday Party, we do not know who's birthday it is but im sure we can find someone. Tonight Sarah made us some delicious icing and tomorrow we are going to make a delicious cake. We have lots of fun games planned for the party, some pin the bow on the present, people bingo and some other fun stuff.

Justin has been slightly ill so maybe some extra prayers for him. Kresten and Sarah seem to be doing alright, so thats cool. I think im feeling pretty normal so thats handy too i guess. Well thats how we are doing, thanks for the prayers.

Peace out (that is some slang we have taught our younger readers. haha)

And once again Hello to you all! :)

Well I have to say thanks (or Obrigada) to you all for staying tuned to our adventures/mission here in Brazil. It is so great to come on here and read all of your comments, your words of advice (especially about the cats that was very good advice :) and your encouragement!

It is hard to believe that our second week here in Salvador is quickly drawing to a close. We are still getting more people signing up to read with us which is great! Like Justin said the rain has been making it hard for some of our readers to get out but there is always something to plan or do and so we are still kept busy.

The party last night was so much fun! I am so impressed with the Brazilians for their ability to meet complete strangers and immediately be the best of friends. Many of our readers met each other for the first time and right away were laughing and joking together. Watching them sing their anthem was one of the best things. They were all so into it jumping and moving around pretending to drum etc. it was just so great. Kresten took a video so maybe one day you will all be privilleged enough to get to see it :) Apparently there anthem has like 5 or 6 verses and can go on for quite awhile - we only heard 2 or 3 verses I think...

Something that is so great about preparing lessons to read with people here (paying careful attention to the words, trying to understand from the point of view of someone who maybe hasn't heard it before, going slowly etc.) is that you notice things that really hit your self too. And then when you are working through the lesson with your reader they say things that just really make you think or make you see things in a new way and it so cool. That at the same time as I am hoping and praying that something that I can say will help or affect someone so that they might understand Jesus better I am being taught and renewed as well. Today I was reading with someone from a lesson in Luke chapter 9 where Jesus talks about the suffering He will go through and the fact that His followers must be prepared to suffer as well. I asked my reader Why she thought followers of Jesus would have to suffer? She said she thought that it is through suffering that we learn and through pain that we grow (she said if we are smart that is :) And then she said She thinks that when you have Jesus in your life that you are given "new eyes" and you no longer see trouble and suffering in the same way. That Jesus changes our outlook on life and that because of Him we are able to Endure! So yeah that was very encouraging to me and I thought that I would share it with all of you :)

Love All the Way from Brazil,
Sarah

Hello friends and family.

I've finally decided to write a blog post. My teammates have done a great job of keeping you posted on what is happening here in Salvador, and you've done a great job of reading and encouraging us. Thank you.

Tonight we had our first party. We were unsure of how many people would show up, as it has been raining for about three days now. Many of our readers have missed classes during the past two days due to the weather, and at the start time for the party it appeared the trend was going to continue. However, a few minutes later people began to arrive. The party went really well; people had a blast, we had a great time, and the missionaries were very involved. It was a huge success. I'm pumped as I write this because it went so swimmingly. The theme of the party was Canada. We had several games:

1. Matching Canadian words with their pictures
2. Canadian trivia
3. We showed a video/slide show of Canada
   
4. We had them write a poem of what they thought Canada was like
5. They acted out a Canadian subject
6. Relay races

The final aspect of the party involved singing. Our team sang O Canada for the Brazilians, and they sang their anthem for us. It was fantastic! They loved it. They were extremely excited about sharing their anthem with us. They even had a lady pretend to conduct the rest of the readers who were singing on stage.

The purpose of the parties is to provide a time to show our readers that Christians like to have (and can have) fun. It also serves as a time to connect our readers with the missionaries so that once we leave, they will stay connected with the local church. It also allows the readers to share aspects of their culture with us. With these goals in mind, I think the party was a success and I believe the next one will be larger as more people are attracted to people living as lights here at Igreja de Cristo O Salvador.

Here is a poem that one of the groups wrote:

Snow is white; it doesn't make you smile
snow is cold; it lasts for a while
snow makes cars go very slow
snow can blow and snow can throw
snow can make you lose your toe
Raspadinha (snow cone, I think) is the only snow I know

I had a reader show up after the party was all over because he thought we were going to party all night. haha. I assured him the parties were not that intense, and let him know he could come again next week. This same reader has been asking me many interesting questions about following Jesus. His family follows various religions, and he's tired of being pulled in different directions by all his family members, but he is very interested in finding truth. However, he also admitted that it is difficult to change one's behavior to follow the teachings of Jesus. We chatted for two hours one night. It was fulfilling to talk with him about such important topics.

This is just a few experiences we have had, and we look forward to more. Please continue to pray for us; for patience, for boldness, for faith, and for greater convinction. I feel the need to grow my faith. I read the story of the living water from John today with a reader, and it was very good. Everyone is searching for this living water, but it is only found in Jesus. I feel the need to have this spring inside of me to flow much stronger. God is at work; may we work with Him.

so it rains in Brazil... a lot

Hey guys, so does everyone know Brazil rocks? Because it really does. It's their winter here, and all it does is rain like nobody's business. Zero snow. Apparently when it rains here, it's almost like the city kind of shuts down, it's funny. Each of us had at least 3 readers not show up because the rain causes lots of flooding and the streets really slow down, so I guess people just slow down too. It was cool though because each of us had a few readers come in soaking wet like troopers and get right to their lesson, so it was still an awesome day. I personally had this one guy named Fabio and he's a really cool guy. He speaks and understand English pretty well already and he really just wants to have more of a Bible study while learning more English. He's married with a child, is a musician, works all the time and still manages to carry around a pocket Bible that he reads. What an awesome guy. Then I had this 17 year old kid come in and he's just super pumped to learn English and the Bible so he's awesome too. The other reader I had has lighter skin than us I think and speaks English pretty well also. He straight up told me that he really doesn't believe the Bible too much and thinks it is mostly metaphors and such, but he's got a hilarious sense of humour and is very open to ideas. So I guess you all could be praying for these 3 guys in particular after you read this post. This morning we had french toast that was awesome too! O ya, behind our kitchen in the back alley is these 2 stupid kittens that never shut up, it's kind of ridiculous at times haha. I think I had some other good story for everyone, but I forget. Shoot. If I remember I'll blog it later. Keep praying for us and tchau! ps- this was Justin

Hello Hello Hello

Everything is going well. I thought I would share something interesting from what I have noticed about Salvador. It seems that there are churches every 5 blocks in Salvador, they are everywhere. Which means that pretty much everyone I have read with has already read the book of Luke or has some knowledge of the bible. This is handy because it lets us ask questions that are more thought provoking and more focused on the bible. So that just seemed neat to me.

Yesterday I read Lesson two with a couple of readers, they were both long time church members, one of ICOS and one of a Baptist church. Lesson two is about the angel talking to Mary, and then Mary becoming pregnant even though she was a virgin. Both of my readers told me of miracles that happened to them so that was sweet. One story was from my friend Anderson, he works at a hotel and so I think he was returning after his honeymoon, but he did not have enough money to pay his car insurance or somethin like that. Then on the day it was due, some guy left a $100 tip, he said that usually they may leave like 10 reais tips. The $1oo dollars was enough to pay his bill plus give a tithe to the church. So that was a neat story.

Somebody will probably write another post. Kresten has actually only done 1 post, 0 since we have been here, I like to make people guess who is writing, and it makes you read with an unbiased opinion on things. But I guess thats just me, and lots of people disagree with some of my methods for stuff. Thanks for you prayers.

-Ryan

Oi from Salvador!

Hey everybody! It's Justin this time, hopefully that doesn't disappoint anyone. So, things are going really well so far. We each have had more readers sign up with us in the past days and so I believe each of us has at least 12 or 13 readers. I think Sarah is winning because she has 15, I think. Today is also the last day of our weekend since we have Mondays and Tuesdays off. Even though we don't do a whole lot of physical hard work and stuff, reading with people who don't speak English very well, and being with people at least 10 hours a day is very draining and these couple days of rest were much needed. Although I suppose these coming 5 days will be our first full work week, I'm sure we'll be just fine. Being with the people has been really cool too. They are all super friendly and within less than an hour of knowing some of them it seems you can be tight with them real quick. They also love to just hang out at the Church with us after or before sessions until we basically have to tell them to leave because we have work to do haha so it's really cool. Yesterday we went to some big mall (which is called 'Salvador Shopping) and that was nice. Today one of Kresten's readers, Cesar, took us to downtown and the market place area by bus and it was awesome! You go up this massive elevator on the side of a cliff and it takes you up top where he showed us around. People are always running up to you trying to get you to buy things and since we don't speak Portuguese, it's awkward, but whatever. Anyways, it's really windy here today and although we tried to go swimming the sign said 'perigo' or 'danger' and the waves were stinkin huge so that didn't work out so well. I'm kind of tired so I think we're going to lesson plan and play UNO than bedtime! PS- our favorite thing to say- not to Brazilians- is Eu me mijei. you should figure out what it means.

Salvador is our Ark

Hello

Today we had our first worship service, it was good. We knew most of the songs, but they were not in english so we just kinda hummed along. We are all getting pretty good at being able to read and pronounce words, even if we dont know what they mean, so singing was not to hard.

I had one reader today, it was very interesting. His name is Peret, (pay-hay) he has studied english for 26 years, and says he has no religion. It was one of the best bible studies I have probably ever had. He does believe in God and Jesus. We decided that we would just read through Luke in the NIV because the work books are very simple. Peret brought up many interesting points about science and religion, this surprised me because he has a literature degree and focuses on learning different languages. I never thought that i would ever connect schrodingers cat or quantum mechanics to the bible. Another thing I enjoyed about Peret was that he was real, he lived life like he could die any second. I dont mean like wild and live for the moment but, I could die right now, or I could die walking down the stairs, or he could die riding his motorcylce. You cannot know when its over so you have to be real about living life, I think that sometimes christians live like they will live till they are old, then they will really focus on Jesus, but you need to focus on him now. Peret is an english teacher and he said he may be able to send us a couple more students, so we are almost full with 15 readers each; which is a good reason to Celebrate.

Monday and Tuesday are our days off. We are very exausted from reading with people and helping out with the missionaries english classes. Although it can be very tiring to have to concentrate on every word someone says, it is also very rewarding when you are able to laugh and joke with your new friends.

So our first week of work went very well and we are looking foreward to the next 5 weeks. Thanks for your support. We will probably write again sometime, but you never know. haha.

-TSL RODAVLAS

Oi,
Hello from Brazil on a Saturday night. Today was our Third day of reading sessions with our new friends here in Salvador. Things are going very well, we have readers that are returning LST participants while many are brand new to this course. It is exciting to see all the people that God is bringing to these classes. We have had several people who have come "just off the street"- they have seen an LST poster or flyer somewhere and have come to sign up. Some readers have already told their friends about the course and they too have come. The people here are all very friendly and welcoming, they want us to learn their language just as much as they want to learn ours! Many of our readers will come early for their classes and afterwards stay behind just to visit and "hang out." Yesterday we studied with 18 people, and as of today we had 49 people signed up to take part.

Thank-you all for your prayers and encouragement. It has been a very busy week as we have arrived in Salvador and have been adjusting to our home for the next 6 weeks. We have been so blessed by all of you and by the people here as well and we know that all blessings come from our Father in Heaven and we are so Thankful to Him.

Tchau for now :)
J.K.R.S.

P.S. Hi Brooke

FIRST READERS!!!!!!!!!!

Ola

Everything is going very well here. Today we had our first readers. We all got the hang of things very quickly and we also made some new friends. A few of our readers are english teachers, which is very handy so if we need more readers , then, they know many people that would love to read with us. Most of our readers are our ages which is very good, because we can relate to them. Some are older and have studied english longer then us even, but this is nice because then we can talk about the content instead of the english so much.

We are working Wednesday to Sunday, we read from 10 am to 9pm, with a lunch break at 1. We do not read constantly, only when our readers can come, so somedays we will have many readers and somedays we may not have quite as many. The optimal number for us would be 6 people a day.

We will be spending most of our days off hanging out with readers and church members. This is very important because it builds the relationships with readers and church members. We are only here long enough to get people learning about God but church members are here for life, so if we can encourage members to become friends with readers, hopefully then, relationships will be strong enough to build faith in Christ. Teaching english is a very good way to attract people but the relationships are where they really see God working in everyone's lives. One of the young adults in the church is a great surfer, as well as many of our readers, soooo hopefully we can encourage them to become friends and get to know each other very well, and then maybe the readers will be encouraged to go to church with one of their new friends.

Travis and Alicia and the rest of their team have been perfect hosts. Things are going awesome, we thank you for all of your prayers.

Tchau

-LST Team Salvador

Well, I suppose we're here now!

Hey everyone! Hope you are all doing as excellent we are! We arrived in Salvador yesterday around 2 in the afternoon and it feels like we've been going pretty steady since, which is definitely a good thing. Our total travel time was just over 24 hours, so we had plenty of time to continue lesson planning and going over information meetings, questions and sessions, devotional time, and not to mention getting a lot closer to each other- seeing as we were crammed into little airplane seats beside each other! As soon as we arrived at the airport in Salvador Travis met up with us and took us to the church- ICOS- here showed us around, where we would be staying, where things were as well as taking us to the grocery store we would be using. We met most of the full time missionaries here and they have been really helpful and awesome. We've all been able to fellowship with each other a lot and that is really cool. Just to pray together, sing (even though we're not a choir!) and sharing devotionals has been awesome. We also had our information meeting tonight at 7 o'clock and it went really well... Even though people were showing up anywhere from 530- 8 pm! When someone showed up at 530, we hadn't really planned on it, and so still had to get more work done but Marcos (the early guy) helped so much and it was awesome to get to know him. In that few hours with people I think we all learned a fair amount of Portuguese actually, which is going to help us a lot! As hard as it can be to communicate with people who don't speak english as a first language, you figure out different ways and hand gestures, and drawings or writings to figure out what each is trying to say. Hopefully through these sessions with each of them, they can learn about the faith we have and over time develop a relationship with Jesus. It's been a really cool experience so far, and we're been here for less than 48 hours so we are totally looking forward to spending the coming weeks here! Anyways, Tchau all! God Bless and thanks for all the prayers!
- Justin, Ryan, Sarah, Kresten

This is it!

Well Lord willing tomorrow morning at 11 am we will be leaving for Salvador, Brazil! CELEBRATE!! After all our training and preparations it is time to go. We fly through Toronto, Washington and Sao Paulo before we arrive in Salvador at 2:40 pm on Tuesday, May 12. Please keep us in your prayers as we travel down and start our work there. Thank you for the thoughts, prayers, support and encouragement you have given to all of us already - you have no idea what that has meant to us.