Pele was a Northerner!!

Let me tell you really quickly about yesterday, because I like to think that it was the day that a cinematic classic was made!! Oh yes. The moment you've all been waiting for, I'm sure.
A video short of me in my Pompey shirt being joined by a choir of Brazilian kids in a rousing rendition of 'Play up Pompey'.
That will eventually make it's way onto facebook and You tube, so watch out.

You may ask “How does that help the moral and spiritual education of the young Brazilian kids recently rescued from a life in a slum”?
Good question, of course. I could spend hours debating about the sense of community it gives them, particularly the sense of generosity and humility to be supporting an apparent lost cause. But I won't. I just love the sense of fun we all get out of it.
Football has a wonderful magic of pulling people together.
I saw that in Africa and Moldova as well as here in Brazil where they are crazy for soccer.
I keep reminding them that it was the English who introduced soccer to the world and that Pele was, in fact, English. His real name wasn't Edson Arantes whatever, it was Arthur Smith and he came from Barnsley.
The Brazilian men in particular find this difficult to accept!!

Onto today, which was our last full day with the kids. Strewth how time flies!!
Jane had planned to have a cooking lesson from Vera in the morning ( Lot's of shouting and giggling there I can imagine) so it was left to me and good old Gildo to 'entertain' the troops one last time.
I tried to remember what it was like on the last day of school for me all those decades ago, and I seem to remember it being quite good fun with lots of paints and mess, so maybe we should think of something like that for this bunch.
Jane, who I felt was secretly very happy that she was due to have the easier time, came up with a brain wave as I pondered how to prepare. Before you ask, yes, Jane does have the odd brain wave, or so she tells me.
Jane had remembered a suggestion from dear little Lin Howard that we could get the kids to build their very own Easter garden. Brilliant!!!
Lin does that inside St Paul's with the kids every year and its all very quaint and cute.
We thought we could BIG it up a little and increase the scale by building a garden outside the 'classroom' house and let the kids loose with their imaginations and the paint and the rubble from the building site. It could be CHAOS.
So it was then that I briefed a very puzzled Gildo to translate the garden idea to the kids.
“You want them to build a tomb and plant flowers, then paint the outside of the house? How will this be done?”
“Ok, Ok, forget the translation...just watch me and copy.”
I actually found that method of teaching to be quite effective. Lots of mini john gunners with Brazilian accents running around. What a terrifying image!!
What then followed, though, was a triumph in modern art.
Little kids, Gi Gi, Luiz Carlos, Gabriel and Rafael, carrying great big bits of rock and broken brick from the building site on the opposite side of the road to the front of our house and dropping it inches from my feet as I helped them design a 'tomb' for Jesus.
Nataly, Viviene and Evelyn painting a wonderful rainbow design on a dozen sheets of A4 stuck together with sellotape.
Smaller girls, Josiane, Fernanda and Emily, painting flower heads and sticking them onto lolly sticks and planting them in pots of sand beside the tomb.
Even smaller kids, Gabby and Luiz (he got a bit bored carrying rocks) throwing as much paint as they could onto bits of paper and themselves....
….then it got just a bit messy....the older girls discovered that I didn't stop them from getting paint on their hands, in fact I encouraged it, and they decided wot fun it would be to put multi coloured hand prints onto bits of paper and, what the heck, lets put hand prints onto the side of the house!!
John doesn't seem to mind, in fact he seems to be singing and very happy about the mass we've made, so let's paint our feet too. Whoa. This is great!!!
These can be the footprints made by Jesus as he walked away on the third day. I bet His were red and yellow and green and every colour!!
You've never seen such a mess on the pathway and on their feet and...oh,no, Gabriel has got paint in his hair. He looks like a young David Beckham with a multi-coloured Mohican. Now they've all got paint in their hair and on their faces and on their clothes.
Ok, how mad can their mother's get at the sight of all that paint?
Gildo calms the moment by reminding me “They used to be slum kids. They've been much worse”.
Actually, I bet Leonardo Da Vinci's mum got used to her boy coming home covered in paint.
“Leo. You've got paint in your hair!”
“I've been up a ladder all day paining the ceiling in that gaff in Rome, Ma. What d'you expect?”
Artists have to be encouraged.
The end result was every bit as good as 'that gaff in Rome' as far as I was concerned.
A brilliant, multi-coloured depiction of the original Easter garden.
At the end, Gildo and I retold the Easter story to the brightly shining children, complete with an opening tomb door to reveal the discarded clothes. I think the kids got the point.
Then the kids surprised me again. They never fail to surprise me. They ran to a tap in the middle of the building site and proceeded to wash themselves.
Chaos at first, because little kids don't queue. In fact nobody queues here. But then Nataly displays all of her vast experience of looking after younger children (she is just 12 herself) and forms them into an orderly line and helps the little ragamuffins to wash.
It was marvellous to watch.
I have some great photo's of the house and the apre' wash.
After lunch. I showed the kids a number of the little video's taken over the last few weeks and some photo's.
I felt like Steven Spielberg when they applauded each little video short. Yes, they applauded.
I felt so proud. Not because of the films, but because the kids had grown into little people with social graces and appreciation. Believe me when I say that this is a major answer to prayer.
The video short of “Play up Pompey” got the biggest cheer, as it should.
So, tomorrow is our last day with the families.
It's going to be a choker.
Jane and I will visit in the morning with Gildo, tidy up the 'classroom' and then walk down the street saying our good byes and giving away free hugs. It's those moments that make this sort of thing all worthwhile, believe me.
In the evening we'll return one last time and lead the home group.
We feel prompted to share the message from Philippians, particularly about avoiding complaining and arguing. Sadly, we have become aware of some bickering between the mums, even to the point that some are staying away from the home groups because “her from number 21 will be there”.
This truly saddens us, as I'm sure it saddens the Lord, and will be a test for our gifts of encouragement and counselling. We pray to be truly anointed.
You'll remember that this is where it all started for us. We felt called to return here to encourage the families in Cristo Rei, and in particular those in 'John The Apostle Street', to be persistent and strong in their Christian community. Without it where would they be?
Did we tell you that Cristo Rei literally means 'Christ The King'?

Sadly, this will be our last blog of this campaign as we won't have easy access to the Internet until we return home.
Thank you all for reading it, all 5 of you, and we hope you've enjoyed some of it and maybe even been stimulated by some of it. If you have, please share it with someone else.
All God's BIG BIG blessings.
J & J

Sunday night......

Ok, this may sound a little bit out of sync....and it is, but, you know, we've found it far more difficult to get logged on than we thought, so, bear with us.
Tonight is Sunday night, 14th Feb, which is Valentine's day in the UK, but not in Brazil, so that's my excuse.
So, we've just got back from an evening at a big church close to the project (that's what we call our little street of houses. We had invited a number of families to come with us and, as the church is a good 30-40 minute walk from the street, we offered to give 'em a lift. At that point we had expected to have the use of a 9 seater minibus and our 5 seater car to ferry the lucky ones there and back. This is mission, of course, so things do tend to go wrong and the minibus wasn't now available. Strewth!! That meant cramming who knows how many into our little car, possibly, so that caused a little anxiety.
God had a plan, of course, and sent a torrential downpour an hour before we due to pick the people up and, methinks, that put some of them off. Lightweights!! Anyway, this would be a new church experience for some of them, so, we prayed that there would still be some takers. And there was. Five in total. One adult and 4 kids.
But, you know, we think that they were the ones that were meant to be there.
Maria is sad and depressed at times, She is the mum of Evelyn and Emylyn. She has had quite a bit of prayer from us and it was so good that she came as the massage was about gaining strength in your faith.
Evelyn came too and she and the other kids ran off to kids groups as though they were regulars. Brilliant stuff, especially if we remember that these were slum kids not that long ago and now they are hob-nobbing with rich church kids. Awesome. (Does that sound a little too American?)
Oh, little Gabby didn't go to groups. You'd have seen her in the pictures. She is the cutest, most gorgeous little girl, aged 4.She told her older sister that she didn't want to go to groups and she stayed with us in the main hall. I think she just wanted to be with us.
I spent a little time showing her some origami. Made a cross out of a bit of scrap paper. Wish you could've seen her face when I opened it up. Just wonderful.
After a while, she got bored with me cos I couldn't reply in Portuguese to her little chatting, and she went and chatted to Jane who is just as useless as me, but, obviously more cuddly.
The other kids came back at the end full of it, so we must all pray that they will keep going to this church when we back home in UK. It will be so good for them as this church has many activities for kids that will teach them good morals and responsibilities etc and keep them off the streets that, to be honest, are pretty risky as they get older.
Going to try and keep these blogs a bit shorter now, as we running out of time. Back home in Uk in one week. Blimey, gone quick.

Highlight of the day....presentation of the story of Noah and his Ark !!!

Well, with much anticipation we walked the kids we could find, down to the community centre which had lent us a large room for the day. We were going to spend the morning with paint and material to prepare the neccessary props for their presentations. We seemed to be missing one whole team which disappointed us slightly. So we set up the tables with tons of paint, brushes, paper, and large pieces of material. The kids were so excited and desperate to start, they all seemed to know exactly what they wanted to get on with. So we just stood back. The smaller kids were helped by Luciene, Gildo's wife, who was very patient and just passed paints around. Danielle our little blind girl got straight into painting with a big smile on her face!! She is always so happy just to be involved.

A few seconds later we heard a bit of a kerfuffle and saw the missing team of girls struggle in with a large wooden structure!!! We could quite clearly see that they had a large Ark made of an assortment of wood, it even had a cabin on the deck !!! We were so astounded we could not speak, and just stared at the detail! We eventually asked who had made it and they pointed to themselves - well you could have knocked us over with a feather. They had only had a couple of days to prepare, but they had managed to find the wood, design and construct this beautiful Ark, and then they had struggled to carry it some distance to the centre!! If you knew these kids, you would understand the enormity of this task. We felt so humble, and were so thankful that they had understood the message of working together and had actually done it. It was a huge milestone for us, and Andre told us what a massive step forward it was that they had done this, he was so touched too !! We are really seeing the fruit of our imput now. We hear the kids talk to each other with the English sentences they have learnt. They now ask for things politely, rather that shout and grab at things, and then we hear them say, 'thank you', and 'you are welcome', it's nothing short of a miracle honestly!!!

So they all got down to making back drops of the sky, sea, and water on the large sheets of material, and carboard. One group had even made a pair of purple net curtains!! ( it turned out later that this was where 'God' was going to hide behind to talk to Noah!!)

They began to tie each other up in pieces of material, very gently for which we were grateful so no tears today, and soon we were surrounded by many 'Noah's' and family members!

So onto the presentations!! Well the first group were assisted by Andre, who played the part of God and hid out of sight, then called out in a booming voice to 'Noah' asking him where the various animals were in English. They had drawn pictures of animals on the board, which were like our flash cards that we had taught the kids with !! Then 'Noah' would say in English, 'Here are the elephants, pigs, horses', etc. It was very funny as it was a copy of the way we had taught them!!

The second group had 'God' hiding behind the purple curtains. He asked the rest of his group, in English, to place various animals into the Ark, before he appeared from behind the curtain, to sprinkle paper 'rain' onto the Ark. The third group was very similar. They had managed to find various small cuddly toys that looked like animals to use in their productions. Some of the kids had made animal masks which they had stuck to their heads with lots of sellotape - ooh painful !!

Having sat through various childrens' Nativity offerings, all of which were quite delightful, I found that these three presentations were in some profound way so much more touching because of the self-initiated imput. I felt like a proud parent, watching my 'little darlings' perform. We videod every second and athough they would probably bore you rigid, we shall cherish them!!

We had the difficult task of choosing a 'winner', but gave prizes to all the teams for participating.

The children returned to school on the third week. They either go for the morning or the afternoon. So we continued to teach English to those who were there in the morning, and then in the afternoon we would take Gildo and visit the parents in their homes. We would ask them how they had been since we last saw them, and how their children were doing in school. We also asked how their children had responded to the English lessons, and whether or not they had learnt any English from their off-spring!! Most of them laughed hysterically and said they had not learnt any English as it was too hard. Some of the parents said that their kids were using Engish at home to talk to each other which was encouraging. Some parents actually used English to say their names, and to ask how we were !! Fabulous !!

We also talked to them about whether or not they were still going to the cell group. A few said that they had been going, and some said that they had stopped going because of bad feelings between other families. After many long conversations we found out that when the kids fall out with each other, the parents then get involved and fall out as well. There were some quite serious disputes going on, but when pushed some of them had to admit they could not acually remember what the initial problem was.

One involved two children aged 3 and 4. A stone had been thrown by the 4yr old which had hurt the younger child. The 14yr old brother of the injured child went into a rage, and broke down the door of the house of the 4 yr old, then threatened to kill the mother of the 4yr old. This mother now lived in fear of the 14yr old coming back to harm her or her family. This same 14yr old boy had the day before made a wonderful coconut cake for me as I sat chatting with his mother!! I could not believe it was the same lovely boy. These things flare up so quickly that you can not judge who could be capable of such behaviour.

We spent lots of time talking about forgiveness, and other issues surrounding building a new community. They seemed so grateful to talk and to be listened too, and they also accepted our advice and suggestions to getting on with their neighbours. Time will tell. I must admit it took me back to my time plodding the beat in Somers Town in Portsmouth, going to dozens of domestic disputes!! Do you remember that time Debbie (Barron), can you believe it was over 20yrs ago ??

We are pleased to report that by week three we had 5 folk from the street joining us. Gildo led the evening with a talk on Phil. 4 v. 6-8. These, coincidently, were the first verses we learnt. So it was all about not worrying, but rather pray and tell God all that's on your mind. There was a lot of animated chat during the talk and Gildo seemed to be very happy, and there was lots of laughter. We did not have an interpretor this evening so had to make do with a few words that we recognised every now and again. When it finished, Beatrice one of the ladies in the street, came up to us and said through Gildo how glad she had been that we visited her today. She was finding it all too hard, she had made her husband leave home because he had been spending all their money on drugs, and now she was struggling. She is the mum of the lovely Gabby and Fernanda. Beatrice said that she had been ready to stop going to church and cell group, but after we had spent time with her and praying for hope that she felt called to go to the cell meeting. She said she felt wonderful, and really at peace and enjoyed the talk which she felt was just for her.

The next day when the English lesson finished the kids went off for lunch. It was really pouring with rain when we heard a little knock at the door. When we looked we saw it was a dishevelled and sopping wet Beatrice. She came in and said she felt she had to come and tell us something. Via Gildo she told us that after the cell meeting the night before she had been desperate for food, so she prayed to God and told Him. Today she had received a phone call from someone she used to work with who said that they wanted to visit Beatrice and bring her some FOOD, and to bring some other friends to visit her. Just totally out of the blue, no explanation given. Beatrice said she knew that God had answered her prayer and wanted to share that with us. She was beaming, and just sat with us smiling.

Oh, I can't remember if I told you about the adult craft??!! If I have already mentioned it please forgive me. During the afternoons Lou, Gildo's wife, and I have been visiting the homes to show the mums how to make greeting cards, necklaces and bracelets, and some stitching ideas. Greeting cards are a bit of a novelty here, especially hand made ones. Andre got very excited about the idea of teaching this craft as he could see it being very popular. He has a businessman friend in the church who could advise the ladies on how to market the cards, and to sell them via the church and similar outlets in the bigger towns. I had been given loads of card making bits, stickers, etc and the ladies really took to it. They have great imagination, even though none of them had ever sent a greeting card, and had no idea how to write one or sign it. So we spend lovely afternoons around a table, elbow deep in craft bits, sticky tape, glue, and stickers, 'chatting' of sorts with me and my limited language.

Did I say that Lou has also got a qualification to teach English? She is very arty, and will continue with the card making, bead making etc when we leave. She is very keen also to keep up the English lessons, and basic reading and writing for the parents too. She and Gildo will be staying with the project with Open Hands for at least a year which is marvellous, so the things we have started will hopefully continue with their support and real love for the families. It is great to think that these small ideas will possibly grow into a real prospect of these families gaining self-esteem, and being able to better support their families.

It is really a wonderful team effort you know. We are so lucky that we were in a position to come here, but we could not have done it without your support at home. All your lovely, kind words of encouragement, your prayers for us before we left, and most importantly whilst we have been out here, your donations of craft materials, money, and ideas have all be invaluable. We have been able to show your compassion and love in a practical way to these families, and we believe to give them hope for a better future in the knowledge that we care about them. They all understand about the 'folks back home' who sent us. We tell them everyday that you are going to see all the photos and the videos we take, so the smiles and waves you see are for you wonderful people back in old Blighty, bless your hearts !!!

Well it's getting late now so will sign off. I know it is late here without looking at a clock. At a certain time of night the sounds outside change. It's been quite spookily quiet for a while, but now the night people are out and about. The deafening music blaring out of cars that should be in the scrap yard has started, the speakers in these cars defy description. They take up the whole boot, and in some the back seats. The vibration starts before you hear the music. They drive at speed around the town, for reasons known only to them. The police seem to ignore them, and just let them carry on.

Only today, as I was cooking at Vera's home, I heard a horrible story. A female friend of Vera's, who was 50yrs old and her teenage son were shot dead yesturday. The son had been involved in drugs. His family had been trying to get him some help from our Samuel who has helped young lads come off drugs in the past. ( Samuel for those who don't know is the founder of the project Open Hands, he is the master builder of the homes in our street here.) But trouble flared up quickly. The bodies were found on some waste land near their homes, with horrible injuries to their faces. Poor Vera was going to the funeral that same day, after our cookery lesson. It was a stark reminder of how volatile their lives are here.

On a happier note some of you may have seen the photos of our visit to the orphanage. The orphanage is for children who have been removed from their parents permanently. There is no hope of them ever being returned for reasons of severe neglect, abuse, or death of the parents. Also most of the children have 2/3 siblings living in the same home. By law you can foster children separately from their siblings but you can not separate them for adoption. The children in this home are to stay together, and hence it makes it almost impossible to find people who can afford to adopt 3/4 children. So the church and it's supporters have opened these orphanages which support all the kids until they can support themselves. This means all their education too.

The kids in the photos have been in this home for about a year. They had to be taught how to eat, wash, and behave properly as they had not been cared for by their parents. They all have their own bed, they have chores to do, like washing up etc, they have a routine every day so they know what they are doing. They get full support for their emotional problems, and it is a Christian home so they have Bible classes too. The children were very relaxed with us, they asked to be taught English, songs, and craft, and you can see from the photos that they had a good time. It is a credit to the loving staff that they seem so well-adjusted now. When the chef left after lunch all the kids queued up to give her a kiss and big hug - it was so heartwarming to see. Then they put a video on and showed us their hip hop dancing !! The video was in English so they asked ME to interpret....and to dance - yikes !!

This style of home is different to normal homes in Brazil which separate sisters and brothers into single sex homes when they get to about 12 or 13yrs. This home lets them all stay together, and for as long as they want to live there too. Normally at 18 yrs they get thrown out to fend for themselves. The homes are called 'Happy Homes', and their vision is to be one big family, to educate the kids, and nurture them to have their own families in the future. One example of this was that a young girl brought up in one of the homes, trained to be a child psychologist and then went back to work at one of the homes. How wonderful!!

The Happy Homes have followed a Christian ethos, nurturing the childrens body, soul, and spirit. The body is the health side of things, the soul is to show love, care, and encouragement, and the spirit is a love of Jesus. They find that the self-esteem raises as soon as they introduce them to the spiritual side, as they get introduced to Church and Christian families. Once a month a church family takes a group of siblings into their home, and shows them how to live in a loving family environment, something which they have never experienced. This is apparently extremely popular with the children. If you feel that this is something you would like to learn more about please let us know.

Team excursions!!!

It's Sunday, end of the 2nd week and we've managed to get to a pizza restaurant where they have free wi-fi. What a great find!! Don't know if the waiter is that impressed that we seem to have moved our office in (2 lap tops) and have only ordered drinks!!
Anyway...in our first blog I mentioned a trip to the zoo.
Let me tell you about it, but first, we had a trip to the cinema. Oh joy!!
We took 25 kids and half a dozen adults to the local cinema last Wednesday. Wednesday is special rate for kids (about £1 each) and many had never been to an actual cinema before.Thought that would be nice!!!
Must admit, Jane and John envisaged a hot little room somewhere with a tiny screen and a thousand kids scrambling over tiny hard seats. But No!!! What a pleasant suprise we had. Air-con and luxury seats. Fab!! And only our party and a few others.
We could enjoy this.
Ah, but then remembered as soon as the curtain went up that the film would be in flippin'Portuguese. Of course it would!! Be too much to ask for English sub titles...after all, these kids can speak a little English now, well, 'stand up, sit down, please, my name is...' etc etc. No sub titles, so almost 2 hours of Alvin the chipmunk and his chums squeaking Portuguese in surround sound.
Still, the kids loved it. Gabby (4 yrs) fell asleep on Jane's lap...lucky thing.
So, that was a success. Donations from some of you guys paid some of that, thanks so much.
Friday was ANOTHER excursion. This time to the zoo.
Somewhere else most of the kids aint not been. This would be a lovely treat again, especially as we had taught them animal names in English. Colin the crocodile, Gordon the giraffe...that sort of thing. Wot fun!!
As with Wednesday's trip to the cinema, forgot to tell you, we had the use of a 15 seater mini bus free of charge from a local hire firm (just the fuel to pay). Andre had worked his magic on the owner who could see the good we were trying to do.Praise the Big guy!!
We also used a 9 seater van owned by Samuel and the car we were using.
So far so good, until we got onto the highway out of town. AArghh!! The locals drive like loonies. Overtaking on the inside, outside, above and below all at 100 miles an hour. We had to drive in convoy with John driving (driving Miss Daisy at the best of times) and, needless to say it was a nightmare journey there and back. Can't talk about it...but we survived, thankfully.
So, the zoo. Not quite Marwell park, but it was free and the kids were excited, not least by the animal noises we could make to describe the forthcoming attractions.
It was hot, hot, hot again (over 33 degrees) and after 2 hours we were exhausted.
we took some bread rolls and hot meat to feed the kids as a picnic...but there is never enough food is there? We were famished...but it's not about us. remember that us guys.
Joy on the little faces made it all worthwhile (that was just the zoo staff as we were leaving)...so, thanks again to all who donated some dosh to help with this.
I'm going to stop now because the big group at the next table are really noisy and i can't concentrate proper.
Off to eat now.
More news soon. All God's BIG blessings to you all.
J & J

On our first Sunday we make use of the kind offer of the lady whose shed we are living in, to use her washing machine. We wash all bedding and clothes which dry in about 5 minutes. Fabulous!!

We have had a great lie –in and feel almost human again. Later that day we are invited to go to the Church that Gildo and his wife Lucienne attend. They have a great band and lively worship in the style of Hillsong so we loved it. The sermon is on Jeremiah 31 v 31 onwards, all about God wanting to be reconciled with us. Afterwards they had a stall set up cooking pop corn, which they sell to raise funds for their mission team who are working in north Brazil with the natives of a fishing community. Really great idea, as no one can resist the smell and are all queuing to buy it!!

Monday we move onto feelings and teach the kids ‘If you’re happy and you know it stamp, clap, shout’. They are still so enthusiastic they give us an energy lift which we need. We tell Andre about the mutiny on Saturday so he gives the kids a ‘team talk’ about why John and I are there, and that if they disrespect us by their behaviour we will be unhappy. This seems to do the trick as he gets all kinds of admissions from those responsible and all morning we have kids coming up to us and saying ‘sorry’ in English !!! They are learning new life skills every day.

Gosh, totally forgot to give you update on cell groups. These are meetings which take place in people’s homes like a mini church service. A group of people meet once a week to share any problems, or discuss questions they may have about the Bible, where songs are sung, Bible passages are discussed, questions are posed and answered. It is like a mini community, and it offers great support for each other. Well the youth cell group has four young male volunteers from a local church who are running it now. The street kids love it because these lads have had life experience with bad experiences and now good experiences with their faith in Jesus. The lads play rock guitar, and talk the local street slang so the kids love to listen to them. The lads explain to the youth about making choices in their behaviour and their life, and the consequences of those choices good and bad.

The adult cell had 9 adults attending. Sadly there are no regular attendees from the street any more. We do not know why this is yet, but next week the kids go back to school in the afternoons, so, we plan to visit all the adults and have a chat to see how they are doing since we were last here. But it was still great that 9 people attend regularly, and seem to get involved in the meeting. They tell great stories of answered prayers, of wonderful stories of new hope in their lives. These people are also new to the area, but have not been rehoused like our children and their families. It is so encouraging that the idea of the house group has brought them together, and they find support and encouragement by talking together and sharing what they have.

Andre runs the adult cell group. This week he talks about strong foundations in relation to the disaster of the rain and the effects it has had on buildings near Rio. He uses Luke 6 v 46-49. We talk about hearing and living. Do we hear the word of God, and then live it? When we do this we create a strong foundation in our lives, so when problems occur we don't give up because we have the inner strength to call upon. He explained that the foundation is one of the most expensive parts of the building so many people don't bother to spend the extra money on it. So when the rain comes the house washes away, as the foundation is weak. It's like living our life as God wants us too, it is hard sometimes and takes a lot of effort, but when we come up against problems, like sickness, death, money worries etc we don't fall apart.

Bom Dia, tudo bem amigos !!!!

Highlight of day - hot shower. (Actually it was a rainbow, but the shower came a close 2nd!!)

Having been left alone on our first night, with no working mobile, and no English speaker within miles we realised we did not know how to use the shower in our bathroom which was very dimly lit. With the added horror that one of the 'killer' brown spiders may be lurking in the shadows of the shower curtain we decided against a shower. The next morning necessitated the urgent fumigation of our somewhat niffy bodies, so we ventured into the bathroom. There seemed to be various hoses, electric cables, and some dodgy looking wires protruding from the shower head, but no obvious on/off button. There was a tap but when turned no water appeared. We scratched our heads for some time, (which resulted in John getting splinters ha! ha! .... I'm sorry about that....it's the heat, I'm getting hysterical ) and decided to turn the light on. When we tried the shower again the water came out - yippee !! But it was a bit cold to say the least, and as it was very over cast and fairly cool outside we had hoped for a bit of warmth. As we fiddled with tap to change the speed of the flow of water we noticed the light dimmed to almost nothing, and lo and behold - hot water came out of the shower !!!! Cracked it at last. Showers in the dark it is to be then.

Over the next few days our daily readings directed us to the story of Noah and his Ark. We had never really looked closely at the story, but when we read more about Noah we learnt that he was a very patient chap, who was so obediant to God that he built an Ark at a time in history where rain had never occurred. He was ridiculed for his faith in God by his friends and family, who had lost their faith in God at that time, and who had all begun to live immorally. Noah didn't question God and continued to build a seemingly, quite pointless Ark for many, many years. Then came the rain, and everyone perished except Noah and his family, and all the animals. God kept His promise and saved Noah because of his faith. It was a fresh start. God's promise was that He would never again flood the earth, and He gave a sign- a rainbow. We decided that this would be a wonderful message for the children and to teach them ARK, acts of random kindness.

One of the trips that Andre had planned for the children was a surprise trip to a zoo in Curitba, the nearest city, about one and a half hours drive away. This was to be a treat for those children that came regularly to the classes. We had also bought many flash cards of animals to teach the children, so a theme was evolving. The children's activity books, kindly lent to us by our friend Lin Howard, also seemed to be full of the Ark story, and had various ideas of how to make animal masks. Between us we hatched a plan to split the children into three groups and give them a project of creating a production of the story of Noah, and to use as much English in it as possible. Well the children loved the idea, after initially arguing over who was in each team. We nominated co-ordinators for each team to encourage team building, and leadership skills. We had no idea if they would bother to do anything, as after we left each day we knew they returned to chaotic households and parents who had little or no parenting skills or patience. But we felt excited about the possibility, and approached the local community building which had a large room to see if they would let us use it - for free of course!!! As soon as we told the staff we wanted to put on a presentation with the children they immediately offered the premises free of charge, and offered to lay out tables for us!

That day followed the usual pattern of English lesson ( I, you, he, she, sorry, thank you, please etc ) and craft. Today we gave them tons of coloured paper, glue, pens, scissors etc and let them do free art, which they set about with the usual vigour. Most of the pictures had our names on them with the childs name and the words 'I love you' in Portuguese - bless them!! We stuck these on the wall and began our art gallery of their work.

Again later that day we had another massive storm. By now the local roads were flooding, and the red earth looked like rivers of blood flowing across the roads. We knew that the families in the flavellas would be in a state with water running through their homes, and it made us feel so helpless. Terrible stories reached us of roads and homes collapsing near Rio, many people were swept away in their cars and homes, many deaths because their foundations are just not good enough. Even in the midst of this seemingly desperate situation we heard stories of hope, with outpourings of incredible kindness and generous offerings of help. It had rained heavily for the past few days, and we were becoming decidedly soggy. The kids were covered in mud as they slipped about the street, but still they came each day with big, expectant smiles on their faces!!

That evening when we finally got home we flung open all the windows and looked out at the incredible lightning storm and heard the deafening roar of the rain. We then saw the most wonderful sight, a double rainbow. It was so close we could almost touch it!! It was so bright it lit up the sky.

Well bom dia my friends !!! Tudo bem !! ( Good morning ! How are things?)

This is a long one as it's setting the scene so bear with me, or else go and make a cuppa tea!!

Today we have managed to get access to our friends home so we can sit in great comfort and log on to catch up with the blog and emails to family and friends - total bliss as we have a fan too ! It's 39 degrees outside - even the locals are suffering !! So let's have a catch up with what has been happening here.



On our last Sunday in Church, with those of you who were there, you may remember James ( our curate ) felt that God was telling us to read Philippians on our journey later that day, which we did at the airport. Coincidentally, that morning on our way to Church, we had been trying to remember a verse that we had forgotten, about Jesus giving us the strength we need. We were starting to feel a bit anxious about the trip and needed to feel that we were doing the right thing. Well, as we read Philippians we found that verse, Phil 4 v. 13 "For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need". Spooky huh??

It was a night flight, leaving at 10pm, and took about 12 hours. We should have slept but we were blessed to be on a plane full of Brazilian teenagers returning home, who were just delighted to find out that they had two English speaking people with whom they could practice their broken English on !!! Deep joy - well it was only for 12 hours.......... don't teenagers have a lot of energy during the night, and boy, can't they talk !!!!! So when we landed the next day we were feeling a bit 'punch-drunk' and could hardly form a sentence in English, let alone Portuguese.

I forgot to tell you that those clever Brazilians had cameras on the plane that showed images of under the plane, and also of where we were heading. ( a fact that our friends Matt and Bob, as pilots, had failed to warn us about! ) And, if you wanted to, you could log onto the web-cam any time to see what was happening - how fascinating! Well for someone like me who is terrified of flying, particularly take-off and landing, you can imagine that it was the last thing I wanted to look at!!!! Unfortunately, the very lovely and helpful Brazilian lady seated next to me, was desperate to show me how all the buttons on my video screen worked and insisted on putting the cameras on to show us leaving Heathrow. In her excitement to point out the wheels lifting off the tarmac, and the slow climb into the clouds, and articles flying past at an alarmingly slow speed which made me feel we were going to plummet like a stone, she failed to notice that my face was contorted into an agonizing grimace and tears where starting to well up in my eyes!! But, as we came into the descent it was pitch black in Sao Paulo. So when my new friend put the camera on again, bless her heart, I couldn't see anything. But a few seconds later we both noticed an incredible sight. There on the run way we could see a load of lights which got brighter and brighter. We then saw that they formed a HUGE brilliant cross, it was just breath-taking, and the lady and I just turned and looked at each other then back to my screen, then she just pointed at me and said in English, 'For you'. I had not told her I was a Christian during the flight.

We were met by our friend at the airport who drove us to the street to greet the children and their families. We got there late afternoon and felt quite hot and tired, but as we got out of the car we saw the children running to us with their arms outstretched !!! It was a wonderful and humbling moment, and we spent some time just hugging them and them kissing us frantically! It suddenly felt so right to be back with them seeing their faces. We remembered that our friend Colin Waterman, had told us that he felt we would be answering one child's dream, to return to show them that Jesus did in fact love them, by sending us back to be with them.

Well after all that frivolity it was down to work. We stayed up til midnight putting the finishing touches to our first English lesson. Just before we left England we had completed a TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) course in Brighton. Having not been to school for many decades it was like learning Chinese - and in fact one day the teacher only spoke Mandarin to prove that we could teach without knowing much of the local language!!

So onto the first day in class !! We met to discuss the day at 8.30am with our translators, Andre and Gildo, and to pray for the children. We then drove to the flavella to start at 10am. It was quite surreal driving along roads we recognised, and then going off-road through the terrible squalor of the shanty homes. So many wild dogs just roaming about with horrible skin disorders, children with matted hair and grubby faces playing in the dirt with no shoes, the small dwellings made from an assortment of discarded rubbish, plastic bags, old planks of wood, battered pieces of corrugated metal. Piles of rubbish everywhere, women hanging out washing on lines strung across all the rubbish, and mounds of earth, disco music blaring out from the homes who have electric, (diverted from over-head cables), cows tethered to gates along the track.

The classroom we are using is, in fact, house number 11 which was now complete and awaiting a new family to be re-housed. We had twenty children arrive, ranging from 2yrs to 14yrs. Very encouraging, as we had butterflies that no one would come!! So we began with, 'hello', 'good-bye, 'my name is.....', 'stand up', 'sit down', 'book' and 'pen'. We got them to repeat all the words, individually and together, over and over, and louder and louder, (well you know what John is like !!) After about an hour we moved onto the craft session. We got them to write 'my name is....' on their exercise books then we gave them oodles of glitter, stickers, foam, material, glue and scissors and got them to decorate their books......to a startling effect, and a mountain of sweeping up afterwards. But lots of happy smiling faces, and lots of shouting for attention and showing off their finished books !!!! Huge thanks to all of you who gave us craft materials!!

Then they went off for their lunch, and returned at 2pm when we did a full review of the mornings lesson. This entailed more shouting and pointing, and general Charades to elicit the English out of the kids. Andre then showed them a short cartoon with a Christian message of 'Punchinello and the green noses'. This was showed on the new projector which we presented to Andre that morning. Thanks to the over-whelming generosity of you guys, we were able to buy a fabulous high-spec projector capable of being used in daylight, which we had very carefully carried from England. We can't tell you how grateful Andre was for this wonderful gift which he will be able to use to reach more children to spread the Gospel. So another HUGE thank you to those who know who they are!!!!

We made a huge screen from a piece of white material, and nailed it to the wall. (all very high tech as you know how UN-gifted John is at DIY !) The kids sat down to wait for the cartoon to start. When it came on a silence descended over the room ( the first we had experienced and concerned us slightly as we thought we had gone deaf !) and they stared open mouthed at the picture. It was a highlight of the trip for us, to see them all engrossed and the look of wonder on their little faces!!

When it finished Andre encouraged the kids to share what they thought the message was about. That it was not right to follow the crowd in order to 'conform', and paint your nose green, because this is turn caused the people to become 'deformed' as it caused fights among the people who did not have green noses, but that Jesus came to 'transform' us by accepting others who are 'different' to us. Sweet message, and the kids seemed to love it, shouting out their thoughts.

Then at 3pm we went down to a boggy field to put up the volley ball net for a rousing game, of pretty much 'any thing goes' volleyball !!!! The field is used by horses and cows, who every now again would race across the pitch being chased by a rogue dog!! Quite unnerving, as all the kids would scream and scatter, with the added risk of stomping into large, stinky cow-pats !!! This was all interrupted as a storm began, with really heavy rain, thunder and the most amazing fork lightning I have ever seen.

There endeth the first day.

We got back to our accommodation, which is a converted out-building belonging to a friend of Andre. It is slightly un-loved to say the least, and not been lived in for some time. We have a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. It would have been fine if Andre had not told us that they had used gallons of paraffin to scare off the brown spiders which inhabit damp wood, which had infested the building. We enquired why such extreme methods were necessary. He told us that there was no known chemical which could kill them, they just don't appear to like paraffin. But if one bit us we would need to see a doctor immediately as we would swell up and be very sick !!! Great timing for our first night in a huge thunder storm !!!! Sleep, we would learn, was to be a precious commodity here !!