If this were your church building...

If this were (was?) the facade of your church building, what would you think? Let's play a free-association type game.

*Look at picture*
*Say what comes to mind*

"Yikes."
"Yowza."
"Yuck."
"Ewww."
"Pewwww-eeeeee!"
"Grody!"
"What is that?"
"Church building? I don't see a church building."
"I didn't know 'Dirt' was an actual paint color..."
"Those 3 columns...what are they for?"
"Oh...that used to be white?"
"May I use the side entrance please?"
"Aww...what a sweet logo..."
"Hmm...is that a two-foot band of red clay tile going up the base of the wall? What in the world?"
"Hmm...maybe they should plant another giant palm tree to cover up the right side, too."

Well, thanks for being so honest....

That picture, which, at one point, to me, was just that...a picture of an actual thing, has now become a portal into the past. Because HALLELUJAH, Glory be to God, were I to stand in the same median at the same time of day and take that exact same picture, the only similarity you would see is a structure with a door in the middle and the same black iron fence surrounding that structure. I'm pretty sure the tree isn't even there anymore, but I'm not really one to pay attention to those kinds of details.*

The remodeling process at CDC has been quite a feat, and a very dusty one, at that, and I have tried my best to document the process with photos. When the final paint coat gets painted and the scaffolding gets taken apart, I will be oh so proud to show you the finished product. Until then...you may go ahead and begin trying to erase thise icky image from your brain.

Like the old adage says, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." My new, church-remodel version goes like this: "You don't know how ugly your building is 'til you make it nicer." Amen.

*Just checked my in-between process photos, and yes, the tree is still there, but there is no need to plant another one. Phew.

Busy Weekend

I got word that I have two very faithful readers who check my blog every single morning, so since I'm working on this "not being verbose so that I blog more frequently" thing, I figured I should try to give them something to read today!

On Saturday I took on every mother-with-junior-high-aged-children's nightmare and invited 14 girls over to spend the night at my house. Granted, none of them were junior-high aged, but if you know Brazilians, you know that sometimes the decibel level reaches that of classic middle-school heights! Kelly, one of the oldest members of our church, will be getting married at the end of this month. Saturday afternoon we had her personal shower, and Saturday night was her "goodbye to singleness" (aka bachelorette) sleepover at my house! We had a lot of fun staying up until the wee hours of the morning chatting and being girly. I felt blessed to be able to offer my apartment for them to use, as it is exactly for this type of reason that I rented this place. The girls really had a great time and Kelly thanked me about 20 times. Andressa, Roberto and Marisa's daughter, always jokes and calls my house "Grandma's house" because anything goes. :) It's true, and I think that the girls were happy to have a place to relax, be able to be silly, and not have any parents coming out and saying "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" (Although I bet my neighbors probably wished they could...oops.)

Sunday we had another English worship service. John and Samantha Jewell, my only American teammates, have decided to return to the United States to work with a church in Miami, FL, so yesterday was one of the last English services that John will lead. It was a great service, and we had some new faces there that have never come before. I always look forward to worshiping in English, although lately it seems like I've been singing a lot of solos! (Have you ever noticed how many songs there are where the women have to echo or sing differently or something? Did you know that I am the one who has to teach those things? Yeah...bummer...)

During the regular Portuguese service we had a special collection for our church building project. We are very blessed to have a really great, spacious building that is ours and we don't have to pay rent on. However, that blessing of a building is about 35 years old and is in need of some serious "reformation," as they say in Portuguese! This was the second special contribution that we have had this year for this purpose, and although our church is small and full of university students (meaning no steady income,) I am always encouraged to see everyone who makes a sacrificial effort to contribute. Our building is used 6 days a week for community outreach, English classes, and church gatherings, so we trust that God will bless our efforts to not only make it prettier but also make the necessary improvements. I'm proud of what our little church has accomplished thus far, and I think you will be, too, when I show you the finished product!

Maybe if my posts were to be shorter I would be inclined to blog more frequently. I, obviously, love to be verbose, and I assume that since I think I'm hilarious and hang on my every word, that everyone else will, too. Well, I guess it's time to face the music and realize that no, people don't think I'm as hilarious as I do, nor do they hang on to my every word. Here's to shorter (and hopefully more frequent!) blogs.

I told you a month or so ago about my advanced debate class on the eve of the first meeting. Well, it was everything I had hoped for an more. I have enjoyed every minute of each class and can see the development in thought and language in each of my students. We have covered topics ranging from "Does Christianity have the highest standard of ethics?" (depends on who you ask) to "Is faith just a big leap in the dark?" (yes, on a certain level) to "What will happen to those who have never heard the Gospel?" (jury's still out on that one...pretty sure it will be out until judgment day) to "Should Christians have to suffer?" (yes, was the consensus that day.)

One of my students in particular, let's call him Thomas, started studying with LST this year and was full of questions about faith and religion. He has had a confusing religious upbringing, and having just turned 18 is stepping out on his own to see where he fits. He never misses a class and usually sits in silence for a long time until I have to draw him out. Once he gets going, though, it's hard to get him to stop! It's been a blessing for me to see his wheels turning and him asking deep questions about how he can have faith in his life. Thomas shared with the LST teams who were here this month how much he enjoys the class, and how he has gotten many answers to his MANY questions through our discussions.

Please pray for these classes and the way that God will use them to water seeds that have already been planted and continue planting more!

(Ok..was that short enough?)

TWO YEARS

Although I'm guilty sometimes of trying to make a big deal out of something that's really a little deal, I don't know that this counts as one of those times. Today is my 2-year anniversary of that fateful day I arrived in Natal and my life, so to speak, changed forever. :)

More later...but until then, here is a collection of some of my favorite pictures from the past year in no particular order...

A fancy graduation party in September celebrating two of our friends' college graduations. It was fancyyyyyyy and the party started at midnight...

LST Costume party in October. A mummy, a flower, and Luigi. Poor Luigi was baptized a couple months later and to this day is still called "Luigi" more often than by his real name, Jefferson. Oh well...I think he likes it...

At the Continent of Great Cities conference in November, with my dear family friend Rachel McClure.

At my birthday dinner in May. The least-ugly candid photo I have ever taken. Clearly I do not have a future in candid photos...

My sister and brother in law visiting Natal in November...one of the highlights of 2008 for me.

At the Festa Junina party in June. Fishing for a paper cup with a number on it so that I could answer a corresponding Bible question and maybe win a tiny piece of chocolate. :)

At the top of the water slide with the ladies from Comunidade de Cristo at the women's retreat in Joao Pessoa, Brazil.

At Sarah's birthday barbecue 2 days before my trip to the US in January

In Abilene, Texas in April at Joe's Italian with Whitney Mann Davis, one of my most favorite friends in the world.

Celebrating my birthday with a cheesecake a bit early before returning to Brazil in April .

For those of you who are longtime readers of this blog, you may remember a post from about a year and half ago where I talked about the way Brazilians mispronounce English words yet continue to use them in everyday speech. My example at the time was about a conversation I had about "Weel Smeetch" (Will Smith) movies. I've had a great time telling that story over and over again, and the Brazilians really get a kick out of the fact that I think it's so weird.

Well, my friends, I have a new one. There is a certain home entertainment system that goes by its English name in this fine country. If you want one, you will have to go into a store and ask for a "homey cheech."

"What on earth is that?" you ask?

To which I say "It's in English, how do you not know?" Except I don't say that. Because I was just as puzzled as you are.

A homey cheech. Known by the common man as a home theater. And yes, if I were to walk into a store and ask for a home theater I would be received with blank stares (and probably a few salesman running in the other direction...although that tends to happen to me before I even open my mouth...they can just SENSE that what I say will be scary.) But if I walk into a store and ask for a "homey cheech," they will direct me to the area of the store over which there will probably be a sign that reads "Home Theater."

Really, you should come visit. Life in Brazil is never dull.

Work

Since I got back to Natal in April, most of my time has been dedicated to either A) getting my life in order (i.e. moving to a new apartment, buying a car) or B) hosting the two LST projects we had in June and July. These tasks can keep a young missionary pretty busy, so my own English conversation classes and reading sessions were kind of put on the back burner until things settled down. Then I had the task of figuring out how one young missionary was going to arrange follow-up with three people's worth of readers PLUS leftover readers from the previous year. Thank goodness July is vacation month, because after the second LST project I had a couple of free weeks to get organized and work some magic to find the answer to the above equation. (3 workers x 12 readers each + 15 leftovers=Cris's 40 hour workweek..nearly impossible...but with God all things are possible, right?)

Thankfully, I was able to start up quite a few group classes last week, (my solution to that nasty equation) two of which are made up entirely of students from the English school where I taught for a month! By the time all is said and done, I expect to have about 10 group classes of varying levels. Any class up until the advanced level will study out of the LST reading materials, beginning with the Gospel of Luke. And the advanced class...oh the advanced class. That is what I am here to tell you about tonight.

The advance class is really the greatest English conversation class in the history of English conversation classes. When I first arrived in Natal, I began an advanced conversation class that consisted of readers with advanced conversation levels but who were also Christians. The class kind of turned into a debate class, and was so successful that the readers all became really close friends and have been asking (ok, bugging) me ever since to start it up again. (We had to stop due to scheduling conflicts.) As I went through all of the paperwork on this year's readers, I was thrilled to see that there were enough readers to not only put together one advanced group class, but THREE!

On Monday mornings, Monday afternoons, and Thursday evenings, I now have three separate groups who meet to "discuss" (ahem, argue) about controversial issues that relate to Christianity. Some of the students are Christians, some are very much not. Our text is "The Top 100 Questions," a book written by a British journalist that has one-page answers to what he considers to be the top 100 questions outsiders have about the Christian faith. The questions range from "Does Christianity have the highest standard of ethics?" to "What are the rights of the unborn?" to "Who is the Antichrist?" to "Is Jesus really the only way?" As I have glanced through the book, a few topics have made me cringe and think "Oh, I really hope the readers don't choose to debate that one..." but I know that it will be an extremely constructive experience for us all. I have even already warned the readers that since the book is written by a British author, we are all in for a new vocabulary learning experience. :) (New vocab words this week: dogged, aggregated, ceased, coined, shallow, deadlines.)

As each group met this week for the first time to look through the topics and get to know each other a bit, I introduced them to a chapter entitled "Who are we? What are we?" and we consequently got into our first debate about whether or not humans are born with the innate ability to distinguish right from wrong. It was a nice way to introduce them to the format of the class, and they all got a nice taste of the ride they are in for this semester.

Please keep these classes in your prayers. I pray that as I facilitate (and mediate) the discussions, God will guide me with a spirit of wisdom and truth. I know that these classes are going to open up some tremendous opportunities for me to share the message of Christ, and I pray that I will take those opportunities boldly yet sensitively.

I hope to periodically update you on the progress of these classes, because I think that they will provide you with excellent insight into my day to day work in Natal, as well as thought-provoking ideas to think about. And if you have always wondered if Christianity does, in fact, have the highest standard of ethics, check back with me on Monday. I expect to have an answer for you!

Viruses...

I've talked about John and Samantha Jewell before on this blog and have even linked to their blog a couple of times. For those of you who read this blog and are the praying kind, I want to ask for your prayers on the Jewell family. You can read the story in Samantha's words here, but my version is that they just got back from a 2-month furlough to the US and brought swine flu back with them. They have 3 boys under the age of 8 and all three have had it. Andy, the 4-year old, has it the worst and today was diagnosed with the beginning stages of pneumonia. Due to the swine flu diagnosis he is not allowed to be hospitalized, so they are trying to treat him at home under quarantine. This is a very serious and heartbreaking situation, so please say a prayer for the Jewells tonight.

As we were all mindful of this situation at our midweek Bible study tonight, Roberto led us in some thoughts from the book of James. At the end, he left us with these parting thoughts in regard to sharing the Gospel: "So, we need to be like the swine flu: attack everyone."

Way to put a positive spin on it...