oops!

Time here at Lar Batista seems to evaporate like water under the hot summer sun. I can't believe it's been almost 2 weeks since I left Londrina, and that tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Never in my life have I experienced a green Christmas, and it is green indeed. Green and hot.

My time the last two weeks has been spent in many ways...relaxing, catching up via email with friends in the Northern hemisphere, carting around my newfound friend Veridiana (a precious three year old girl here at Lar), doing some last minute Christmas shopping, ordering packages on Amazon.com, receiving packages with homebaked Christmas cookies...spritz, my favorite, washing sidewalks, unpacking everything into my room in the guest house, and of course spending time with Joaquim. Every day has a relaxed pace to it that fits well with the almost constant heat. Thank goodness for cool nights, and for the occasional rain.

The last two times I was here felt like whirlwind visits where Joaquim and I just wanted to store up time together. I was still terribly unconfident about my Portuguese, and it was too stressful to try to meet and get to know EVERYONE here and in town in 2 weeks or less. When I arrived this time, Pai introduced my visit in church, saying that I will be here for 2 months which will allow all of us to get to know each other in a calmer, more relaxed way. Amen to that. With that in mind, things have been wonderful. Calm and relaxed seems to sum everything up, though sometimes things are busy...

Friday night was a nice calm time of Christmas shopping in town. Joaquim drove the big fan stuffed with people and then we split off, but Diego stayed with us. He's a cool kid, and took his unofficial role as chaperone very seriously. ; ) After the shopping and before we collected everyone else, we grabbed some ice cream. It was delicious, sort of a hidden place off the main avenue, so it was quiet, the owners were sweet, and one of them had even known Diego's mom before she died, and gave him some free candy, heh. We enjoyed our ice cream, and then...all regretted it. Apparently something in all that ice cream didn't agree with any of our stomachs and we each had a rather sleepless night. Yikes.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, which should be a nice time. There will be a church service at 8, with a cantata that people have been practicing for months, and other Christmas festivities until late at night. Christmas day begins with lunch, as everyone sleeps in from the late night the day before. Apparently Santa Clause comes here later. ; ) At 1pm here, I'll be logging on to skype to talk with my family who will be opening presents early in the morning in Palatine...where it is currently -15f....and here I am melting.

All this to say...my apologies for not updating much, especially to my grandma who sent me a nice grandmotherly reminder email. : ) I'll do my best to try and write more, because there is certainly no shortage of interesting stories when surrounded by so many kids, and such disagreeable ice cream. Ai ai ai...

The time has come, the walrus said...

Well the day is here that I am leaving Londrina. At first I didn't know my place in this city, and I felt like a nuisance and an imposter, to put it simply...after a while, and after learning Portuguese, I was able to jump in and get involved in areas that not only blessed my life through the friendships I made, but I know allowed me to be a blessing.

I didn't end up working in the seminary office much at all. I was probably there for a collective 7 or 8 mornings during this whole time. Gwen, with whom I lived, needed the help, but happened to be more overcommitted than she could handle and therefore has spent the entire time that I have been here, running around. She rarely went to the office as well. While I was able to help with little tasks here and there, I was anxious to get more involved with people.

My month spent helping at WEBB was a nice experience, and my 6 weeks studying Portuguese there were incredibly helpful. I am amazed at the amount God allowed me to learn while being in this country and studying the language at the same time. It's the best combination, if you ask me.

The last month, I have been busy. I didn't know at first what I would be doing, but I invested a lot more in friendships and in people and in being involved at the church. There was rarely a dull or bored moment as a result.

Saturday night and Sunday night were wonderful for me, at church. On Saturday, Nice, a dear friend, sang me a song and they had a party for me to say goodbye. On Sunday, Pastor Jhonatas asked me to come up and sing Shout to the Lord with the congregation, in English. That was such a blessing. I was able to sing 3 times in the last month, at church, and wow...it was incredible. I just started to sing that song, and didn't want to give the microphone back to the pastor, ha...So I kept worshipping, in English, harmonizing and just basking in the sound of all of our voices praising the Lord.

The entry below has pictures of me singing and of people and of the party...also including some pictures of me that Pastor Jhonatas had used to make a slideshow of embarrassing Christine pictures for my goodbye party...that was lovely of course.
Enjoy. : )

miscellanious and in no particular order...