The beginning of the end

My time in Itu was spent with the Barros family who was gracious enough to house me and make me feel right at home. Feeling right at home was made easier by the fact that my Brazilian mom, Aleni, is an english teacher and I didn't have to struggle with my portuguese or lack thereof. Every evening when we got done working I got the opportunity to converse with Aleni's students in english (thank goodness)and tell them a little about why I was there. They held Aleni in very high esteem and it was obvious that she is a very positive influence on all of her students. It is evident that God is at work in Itu through the things I have seen, the people I have met and the actions of my host family. The church is raising money to pay for a house they are fixing up to become a halfway house for drug and alcohol addicts that they will run. The most important thing I have realized in Itu is tying in your passions and interests with how you can serve, show love and show God to the community.

And so a chapter of our lives comes to an end...
Let me just say it's been a wild ride with our ragtag bunch. On a more serious note it has been a blessing to be on this trip gaining perspective and growing closer to God and one another. It has been interesting to see exactly what the missionaries in each location do and the different stages in which they are in. When the trip first started I wasn't exactly sure what mission work was but throughout the trip I have come to realize that it mainly consists of working with and loving the community. I can honestly say that I have been very blessed by the people who came on this trip and by all the people we have met along the way.

The Few

And now for some of my favorite pictures:

El Fin (The End)

So we just finished our 6th flight of the trip and have 2 more to go. Luckily the Starbucks in Lima has free internet to entertain us during our 17 hour layover. bleh.
Our last 10 days of the trip was spent in Itu, Brazil and I was lucky enough to be picked to stay at Ali and Mark Kaiser's house, who were our missionary contacts for Itu. I say lucky because while staying there I was able to meet so many different people, each with a unique story. The Kaiser's house seems a bit chaotic at first, perhaps because every night there is a different combination of people staying the night, or because there are beautiful sharpie and crayola artworks all over the walls, or because they are preparing for a huge camp coming up and all of the stuff is everywhere. To some this makes their house beautiful. The amount of love and acceptance and dedication to their goals is encouraging to say the least.

I think the most interesting part of this trip for me was getting to see a peek of 3 different styles of missionary work all in one trip. Previous to this trip, I had no idea of what missionaries actually DID. What their lives were like. Now I feel like I have a much better idea of what kind of lifestyle and dedication it takes. It's possible that the main factor that developed the teams into varying styles in the stage in which their family is in. I would say that is one thing that is most welcoming to the becoming a missionary, it shows that no matter where you I am in life I don't need to make excuses about waiting to dedicate my time. I can serve like many of the singles I have met, or with my wife like Mark and Ali Kaiser, or with 2 kids who are both in elementary school like most of the Lima families, or with kids in college like the Blumes

family. I think the main thing I got from this trip is encouragement. For school, life, my faith, and most things in between.


The Few

Here are some of my favorite pictures for your enjoyment:

Y Tu Itu ??? (And You Itu?)

Hello all!

We´ve made it to the last leg Itu and we are having a blast! It seems like yesterday that we were first setting out on this journey and it´s almost over. Our missionary contacts are Mark and Ali Kaiser and they are absolutely on fire for the work here in Itu. They work with the youth group (they host 30ish teens on Thurs nights), have a homeless ministry, are working on a summer bilingual youth camp, working on a medical mission, and are hosting another team from Highland CoC and some short term and longer term missionaries. One of the biggest projects they currently have is the renovation of three houses (two of which were generously donated) to be turned into halfway houses for people back from drug and alcohol rehab. We´ve been fortunate to see the beginning of a dream finally come to reality. We´ve helped with taking floors out and cutting concrete walls, and spraying walls to get rid of the mold problems. Along with the halfway houses, others have been helping making decorations for their summer camp that is coming up and helping to organize a massive church closet. In the evenings, we´ve had some interesting experiences... One night we ate at a restaurant called Let´s Eat, whose claim to fame is that they speak English there and have burgers. We were invited to come and were surprised by the turnout of Brazilians who came to eat and talk to us to practice their English and learn about the US. Another night, we were invited to go to a English class for some teens, where we were interviewed with some serious questions and others like, ``Do you have a boyfriend?´´, so you can bet that we have some stories about that. One amazing experience was Thursday when the church had an all day picnic to have a family day since it was holiday here. We enjoyed spending the day eating, playing, laughing , singing, and getting to know each other! You can really see the love of Christ here in this place and that God has some great plans for the people of Itu. All for now... sorry if there are grammar/punctuational mistakes- portuguese keyboard here and it´s almost bedtime.

Good night!
The Few

P.S. Funny story... We had told Ali Kaiser that we were bringing some jerseys to help with a cool new project called Chance Bags (sort of like TOMS shoes). Ali thought that we talking about just some ziplock bags of jerseys but soon found out that we actually hauled suitcases of about 125 jerseys. She sends her utmost thanks!

The Last Leg

Sadly our stay in Porto Alegre, with The Blumes, is coming to an end, bringing the start of our last stop in Itu, Brazil. The last couple of days have been a lot of fun, although a couple of plans have been spoiled by rainy weather (I personally enjoy the rain).

The mission team here usually has 3 different house churches which host a service every Sunday, and on the last Sunday of the month they combine the churches for what is called "Celebration". Thankfully, they moved it up a weekend for us so that we could attend. It was a great experience watching and participating with people praising the Lord in a different language. During the service all the readings were in Portuguese and we sang the same songs, first in Portuguese and then in English. (We all did our best to sing along in the other language).

Lastly, each group took turns praying over the other.


The group also took a trip to the Centro Mercado Publico. Some of us bought coffee, ice cream, and maté sets, which seem to be very popular among the Brazilian families.

Saturday night we attended a party at a lovely lady's house named Lenni. The party was celebrating Festa Junina and we had some delicious food and drink while playing games and getting to know the Brazilian families.

(Playing Uno)

Now onto the real important stuff: FOOD. Let's just say that after falling in love with Peruvian dishes, sauces and soft drinks, Brazil had some large shoes to fill. So far it has done it's job!! One interesting restaurant so far has been a churrascaria. There are some of these in the United States and I suggest that you find the closest one and make a trip TODAY. How it works is you pay for a buffet, and the waiters walk around offering probably 8 different kinds of meat that you can choose at any time. They had sausage, steak, chicken, chicken hearts, pork, more beef, garlic beef, and others. It was wonderful. Another great dining experience was at a pizzeria. Apparently Brazil has a lot of pizzerias, most having a similar style to the churrascaria: waiters constantly walk around and offer the table freshly baked pizza. The best part of the meal was the dessert pizza. Many enjoyed the chocolate and strawberry pizza, the ice cream pizza, the caramel pizza and many others. I will definitely miss this place.

The Few

Back In South America

Howdy Everyone!

This is Ariel posting. If you have been keeping up with the blog I had to suddenly leave the team in Peru. During, our last week in Peru I received a message from my family letting me know that my grandfather had passed away. I wasn't sure whether to stay with the team or go back to Texas, but the A&M Church of Christ graciously allowed me to go to Texas for the funeral and return back to South America for the remainder of the mission trip. It was good to be with my family during that time. I would like to thank each of you that kept my family and I in your prayers during all of this.

Aguas Claras (Clear Waters)

Just wanted to update y'all on what has been going on the past few days! We've been staying with church families and it has been an amazing experience. Some are staying with the missionary families (Kevin and Benay Blume), while others are staying with Brazilian families. Although we may not speak Portuguese, we get by even if we have to use hand signals and revert to English (people can understand English a bit but more understand Spanish) So long story short... we've been having a blast! The past two days however, have been really inspirational for us. We have been working at a chacara about an hour away from Porto Alegre. This chacara, or halfway house for men, used to be nearby but due to numerous robberies, they have had to relocate and start from scratch in the country outskirts. Their new location has much potential though. They are looking forward, working hard everyday to help build so they can admit more guys to their location. This was the 3rd time that Aggies had been fortunate to help with the chacara, now called aguas claras (clear waters). The AFCers helped build a dormitory in 2007 and we saw that they had pictures of them. On Wednesday, the girls dug some holes for electricity connections while the guys helped level the ground, haul bricks(they were being recycled from the old building that AFC helped build in 07), worked with roofing, and shoveled sand. We ended up doing similar work on Thursday. What was more important than any work we could accomplish was the quick relationship we got to establish with some of the guys. These men are there on a 9 month stay, where they use the word of God and teamwork to help them realize that they don't need drugs in their life and also that God loves them and frees them from their addiction. Some of the guys were shy and didn't really try and chat with us. Others, like Anderson, Fabian, and Emerson were with us, talking to us and asking us questions. We really enjoyed their company. The main guy that AFC has come to know and love is Paulo Renato, who had been an addict but now helps out a lot with the work in Aguas Claras. He is so loving! he knows English and is learning Swahili on his own because his dream is to go to Africa someday. We got to hear some of their stories and you wouldn't believe that these fun, normal men were once crazy addicts. You can really see the transformation Christ has had in their lives. Everyday before lunch, they have a 15 minute prayer time (they actually pray about 13-14 times a day!) and they always share their favorite verses right before lunch. They have scheduled worship, prayer, and fasting times and they enjoy every minute of it. After we started singing some songs on Wednesday to pass the time, we ended up singing them some of the songs we knew in English. On Thursday we had little devotional with them in a little chapel where we sang some more songs. One amazing part was when we sang Lord Reign in Me (Over all the earth you...) in English while they sang it in Portuguese. We loved their joy for singing to God and they liked our harmony. There is so much more information that we could tell you guys about so hopefully we will be able to update y'all in the next few days! Here are a few pics from our time in Aguas Claras.

More to come!

The Few

They are still working on their bathrooms

Alex, David, and Kevin Blume haulin' bricks

People praying in the chapel before lunch

The Portuguese side singing during our little devotional. Notice Emerson on the top left singing his heart out! Paulo is the guy with the green shirt.

Right before we left. On the left is Fabian and the right is Anderson.

ÇOLD MILK??

Hey everybody!! So this is Shaley, and this is my first blog ever! I'm happy to say we made it safely to Brazil. Yesterday we had church at some peoples houses and got a chance to hear some of their stories about what God has done in their life, it was very interesting and they were all very open and friendly. After that we got the chance to go to a soccer game, it was pretty amazing, but they don't have anything on us aggies! The game ended up in a tie and much to my suprise, there is no overtime! Today we helped the Blume family clean out their old house since they are moving into an apartment. Since they have six kids it was definetly alot to move, but it was great getting to know the Blumes a little better. A few noticable differences in Peru and Brazil, one being that streets are alot quieter, it's almost weird to not here car alarms and honking constantly, buses are alot nicer ( and they don't yell at you to get on and get off), and of course the language is alot different from spanish! I don't think anyone but Tracy understands what they are saying. A few things I have found interesting: yesterday was valentines day, I've never been this cold in June EVER, they think cold milk is disgusting, cookies and brownies are new here, they put this Indian flour on everything (and it actually taste pretty amazing) and cereal is rare and expensive here! I'm sure there will be alot more things after we have been here longer, but so far Brazil is great and we are super excited for the rest of our time here!

Prayers Please

One of our team members, Ariel Rosentswieg, sadly had to make an emergency trip back to the United States in order to deal with some family issues. We have been praying for safe travel and blessings upon her and her family as they go through this difficult time, and we ask that you join us in prayer as well. As of now we think and hope that Ariel will be joining us back in Itu if everything works out.

Thanks for you support,

The Few

SORRY IT'S BEEN SO LONG!!!

I've decided to backtrack and tell a couple stories and share a few pictures that didn't make it on the first cut.

We'll start with the beginning: the many hours spent in airports and in the air.
In order to get to Lima, Peru we flew from the Houston airport to San Salvador and then finally into Lima. We ended up staying the night (10pm-5am) at the Houston airport because our flight was so early.

After a few hours in the air we arrived at our layover destination, San Salvador. Some memorable qualities were the borderline uncomfortable temperatures (it was kinda hot) and that almost everyone slept pretty well at the airport.

Finally we had a 4 hour flight to wrap up the actual traveling. We were greeted by some of our wonderful hosts and most importantly that was the first time we were introduced to INCA KOLA!! (Our good friend Kyle Westbrook had bought a bottle for everyone)

Another notable experience was the Sunday school class that we helped host in Villa Maria. The Lima4 usually does this every Sunday for the children in that neighborhood and with good timing we were available to help on the weekend that they could use us the most.

(games and enoc reading)

During class we played lots of games, learned and sang a few songs, and read the story of Zacchaeus to the children. It was a great experience for both the kids and us AFCers.

The Zoo! One afternoon all the missionaries, their families, the interns and us decided to take trip to the zoo. The best part of the zoo was probably the boat ride that took us to a small, dark, kinda scary tunnel with a replica Machu Picchu.

Even after all of John Mark's hype about how life changing this experience it would be, it was still pretty cool. At the zoo we also saw some alpacas. These furry creatures seem to be pretty common both here in Peru and within our group. Not only have we seen them at the zoo and petted them in Arequipa but almost all of us have purchased a jacket, blanket, or souvenir related to an alpaca. I'm guessing a lot of you will find that your gifts are related to or made from alpaca fur.



SO SORRY that it has been so long. There has been difficulty arranging time and laptops and cameras just right to finish the blog. More is coming soon!

The Few

One Week!

Well, tomorrow we will have officially been in Peru for a whole week, but it has gone by so fast!

Sunday mornings the AFCers who are serving abroad usually go to Villa Maria to have a short Bible lesson and to play with all of the sweet kids. We had the pleasure of going with them this week, and we had so much fun singing and playing games with them!

Kyle G. looking around the neighborhood.

Shaley and Ariel in Villa Maria

When we left Villa Maria, we rushed over to the grocery store to pick up some last minute things for the big party. The party turned out to be a huge hit! There were over 100 people there. For entertainment, there was a dance competition, a soccer game, and some bounce houses for the kids.

Some of the guys playing soccer during the party

After the party, we all went to Pardo's, a restaurant chain here in Peru, where we had some of the most delicious chicken! It was Alicyn's birthday, and everyone got the waitors to come sing happy birthday to her while she wore an embarrassing birthday crown.

This morning we were supposed to take a bus tour of the city, but it drove away as we were walking up to it... haha we rescheduled for tomorrow morning. Since we didn't have anything else to do, we went shopping at the Inca market.

Most of the gang bought alpaca sweaters at the market. Kyle G. and Alicyn are sporting theirs here.

After the market, we ate lunch at La Lucha, a place known for sandwiches and shakes. The restaurant was crowded, so we went across the street to Parque Kennedy, named after the former U.S. president. This park was full of cats that are fed by a nearby church.

This lady was completely surrounded by cats.

Ariel and her new friend.

Right before we left the park, we ran into our new friend John that we met at the party yesterday. Most of the group went out to a coffee shop to hang out with him.

Jenny, Enoc, Kyle G., and John hanging out at the coffee shop

We're getting ready to have a team devotional with the serve abroaders, so there will be more to come later.


Chau,
The Few

We Made It!

Sorry we have taken so long to update our blog. There were some issues with our blog account, and we just fixed them. Apparently they knew that we were trying to log in from a different country, and they cut us off temporarily.

We arrived on Tuesday night and were greeted at the airport by the AFCers who are serving abroad here and a couple of the missionaries. They greeted us with lots of hugs and the favorite soda of Peru, Inca Cola. It was so great to see our friends who have been working here since January! Since it was so late when we got in, we went straight to bed to prepare for an early morning of work.

Wednesday morning we went to a part of Lima that most visitors don't get to see, Villa Maria. We took a bus to get there, which is an experience in itself (traffic is CRAZY here!). I think we were all a little shocked by how different Villa Maria looks than the rest of Lima. It's an incredibly poor area with lots of houses and small businesses crammed together on the hillside. Our goal for the morning was to visit a local school and help make it look a little nicer by picking up the trash and doing a little painting. The missionaries that took us there told us that the public schools in Peru are among some of the worst in the world. We were surprised to hear that because on the exterior, it seemed pretty decent. We were greeted by lots of Peruvian children who were really curious as to why we were there. Most of them had never seen Americans in their neighborhood. After a long morning of work, we had worked up an appetite, so we went to a favorite restaurant among the interns where most uf us had a stir fried dish that contained beef, french fries, and vegetables. After that, we went to the Yoakum house to have a time of praise followed by a game night.

The team in the school at Villa Maria

Alex and Shaley with some of the kids

We spent Thursday morning working at the new church building. We sanded, painted, and did a couple of other things to fix it up. We also walked around the neighborhood and passed out fliers for the big party the church is hosting on Sunday. The party is supposed to be the final step of all of the outreach efforts the mission team has been working on for the past several months, so it was really important for us to help get the word out. That night we went to the Fletcher house to entertain the kids while their parents went out for dinner. We had so much fun, but we would not have been able to do it without our friend Jackie Beth, who was in town for a visit before she went to Brazil.

The plan for Friday was to reach out to some of the church members by taking them homemade cookies. Alicyn, Kyle, and Lee Fletcher, one of the missionaries, wanted to go to a hospital to visit a lady whose father had been very sick for a while. It was quite an experience! The hospital was almost like something you would picture in WWII with a ton of beds all crammed together in one room. It was unlike any hospital in the states. That night, we went to some nice soccer fields and played an intense game with the missionaries. Afterwards we had a nice picnic by the beach, followed by a devotional and time of reflection.

Today was supposed to be all about the missionary kids. We had breakfast at a buffet and then took a trip to the zoo. Those kids are so much fun, and it was good to hang out with them and get to know them! Afterwards, the girls had a Bible study at the Thompson house with some of the Peruvian women. It was all in Spanish, so some of us had a hard time understanding, but it was great to learn that we share some of the same struggles as the Peruvians.

Awkward family photo...

David insisted on wearing a life jacket when we rode a boat in the zoo. It took us to Machu Picchu... sort of. It was a replica, but it's the closest we'll get to the real thing.


With love,
The Few



P.S.
Trenton got a haircut!

Gettin' Real Real Close!

We apologize in advance for the long post... we just have so much some major stuff going on that we would like to share with you! Lots of pictures, lots of info!


This past Sunday we started our Missions Retreat, which was established to help us relax from the stresses of school and to be focused on our upcoming journey! The retreat, which included all of the mission teams, actually started this past Sunday at the A&M church building. We started at 3 p.m. with a couple of hours of group time devoted to anything that needed to get done. Since we'll be hosting a three day kid's camp for all of the missionary kids during the Peruvian Missionary Summit we needed to complete our materials for the kids since we will be having them for most of the day . Luckily, we had the genius of Sara Davidson and Jenny Christian who are experts in the field of anything kids. They gave us great insight and practically spoon fed our plans and materials so that even we couldn't mess up the upcoming summit! After that, we went to the Sunday night chapel service and had dinner with the church elders and their wives. One awesome thing about the dinner was that the meal consisted of red beans, rice and tortillas. This helped us open our eyes since that is mainly what the rest of the world lives off of. After getting a blessing from the elders, we devoted a couple more hours to kid's camp prep and had a good night's rest for the next day. Monday morning, we gathered back at the church to start a mini camping trip to Bastrop State Park, which is about 80 miles away. With great spirit, we "hiked" with all of our gear, including tents, lawn chairs, and our team food, which Trent and David so greatly coordinated for the next three meals to our camping site. We were in the perfect spot since it made it seem like we were the only ones there and since it had recently rained, the burn ban had been lifted which meant campfires and smores for us! The rest of the day was filled with great bonding activities. There were games, such as "Dragon Tag" (Traci was definitely the best at this) and one where we had to keep a balloon up in air with only our breath. By far the most amazing and unforgettable part (although everything was pretty amazing) was late Monday night when our team sat by a campfire, surrounded by God's creation and under the stars and sang some of our favorite songs and shared our faith stories, or our Christian walk in our young adult lives. God really showed us His love and how truly blessed we are to have this team that night. On Tuesday morning, we had breakfast and packed up. Two of the teams (Thailand and yours truly), went to another state park not far away to go kayaking for a bit while the other two teams (Africa and Cambodia) stayed behind. The trip concluded with a stop at the famous Roadhouse Restaurant across from the state park. Here are some highlights, copyrights to Kelly Davidson and his awesome new camera!

Prep Time with the great Jenny Christian

Our team campsite. We're pretty sure everyone was a bit jealous that we had enough lawn chairs for each person.

Beautiful.

This picture will attempt to explain Dragon Tag. Think of the games "amoeba" and "capture the flag" mixed.

One of the two balloon games.

Aggies For Christ- Summer Missions '11

Alex and Enoc helping out with breakfast.

Part of the gang on our way to do some kayaking! Not pictured: David who was our driver, and Traci, who probably took the picture.

We're ready and pumped for South America!

At Bastop's famous Roadhouse Restaurant.

Trenton.


While mostly everyone left to go home, Alicyn and Enoc ended up staying in town. This was perfect since we actually still needed to pick up our passports with our new Brazilian visas. If you can recall, we went a couple of weeks ago to the Brazilian consulate to get the visas. After we left, we got a call telling us that they were done. Seeing as they only do visa pickups from noon to 1 p.m. on weekdays, we couldn't find an opportune time to go until now. When we went, the same nice lady who attended us remembered us and told us how she was actually worried about us since we had not picked up our passports! We were in and out in a flash. Here's a pic of Alicyn inside the Consulate with our Brazil-ready passports!

To the right of her is the Brazilian flag and to the left is President Dilma Vana Rousseff.

Since our plane departure is early early Tuesday morning, we've decided to leave from College Station after dinner on Monday evening and spend the night at the airport since we have to check in around 2 a.m. We are so blessed to finally be at the start of our missionary journey. Thank you all soooo soooo much for your prayers and support! Please tune in to see what God has in store for us and the people of Peru and Brazil.

With love,

The Few