melting iron

The best thing about carnaval wasn't having to cover my eyes while watching the news, but it was having 4 1/2 days of rest and relaxation with Joaquim. It began with a barbeque on Friday night and ended last night by going out to dinner with some of the people around here.

Sunday was incredibly relaxing, in the best way. After church I came back and went straight to bed for almost 2 hours because of a very short night the day before. When I came staggering out of my room around 1, it was time for lunch, and after that I brought my blanket outside on the grass, covered by the shade of the palm tree and another giant tree of some tropical-ish variety. With the breeze, I hardly noticed the upper-80's degree heat. I played a few games of chess with Joaquim, which I lost terribly because I believe my brain is entirely incapable of strategizing. Joaquim's however, is very able, and thus he continued to beat me and later complained that he wished he had had to try harder. I informed him that's not really something you should say to someone. Haha.

The rest of Sunday was beautiful, I sang in church with Jorge, a friend here at Lar who has a fabulous voice, and had been asking me all week to teach him "The Power of Your Love." Well, he learned it and we sang it on Sunday night. I was a little wary of singing again in church because a few weeks ago a girl sang a song and Pai was saying later at dinner that it was awful, that he only likes a few hymns...therefore I was a little wary of singing again. However, much to my great joy, he actually congratulated me and Jorge for singing such a beautiful song, said that he liked it a lot, and that even though he couldn't understand the words, being in English, he felt like he could. Everyone commented later about how rare that is, so I was very blessed to have been able to bless him that way.

The rest of the few days were spent playing games with more visitors, playing with more kids, watching Casino Royale, which was once again a great movie, and Joaquim is now obsessed with it, going out to Japanese for lunch on Monday, going out to dinner on Sunday, lots of activity and laughing and fun.

Yesterday morning, on a more serious note, I read something interesting in My Utmost for His Highest. Oswald Chambers talked about how we need to put our lives, our wills, everything on the altar, and only after being refined through fire are we ready to withstand anything. A line that caught my attention was "don't complain when the fire starts." So many times we say ohhhh yes, Lord you can have this, blah blah blah. Because we know in our minds that He actually knows what He's doing, and that it will be the best for us. But when we actually start to see what that "best" is...we're not too happy, especially with the process. I realized that I was starting to feel the fire getting hotter and hotter. Starting to think about not knowing when I will be back here next, or rather when I will be with Joaquim next, I'm feeling the fire. We're both feeling it. But I had a thought.
Say you have two pieces of iron. What do you do to put them together?
Throw them in the fire, then take them out and hammer them to oblivion...or something like that.
But after that, can you take them apart?
Nope.

On a lighter note, returning again. One thing I've noticed at Lar is that teasing is often much meaner than I'm used to. However, I can't deny that it's hilarious. For instance, João Paulo is very overweight because his mom gave him medicine to gain weight when he was a baby, and gave him a year's dose in a month. So now he's here at Lar and has already lost 6 kilos, but still he's a bit blubbery. While playing soccer, people (meaning my boyfriend) yell "let's use João Paulo as the backup ball!" Or while driving with a tire that is going flat people (once again, my boyfriend) yell "don't worry, we have a spare tire...João Paulo." It made me think that Americans are often very oversensitive. Thinking that teachers can't give a child a bad grade because it might hurt their fragile ego. Not so here, these kids have egos harder than rocks.

Well, I'm not sure what else I wanted to say in this terribly unorganized and stream of consciousness entry. But it's true that I'm leaving 1 week from today, and I'm not exactly happy about that. What to do, what to do...