One month and getting adjusted

Wow, so I can't believe its been nearly a month since I left the US to start my 11 month or so journey in various parts of Latin America. It hard to believe how time goes by so quickly. My camera has decided to not work correctly so for the time being I don't have any pictures to post, but I do have some ministry updates. First, I spent this weekend from Thursday till yesterday staying at the Casa Esperança (community house in the slum) and working with them for the whole weekend. On Thursday I went into the soccer ministry for the afternoon which went well and then returned to the house, helped one of the girls at the house runs some errands and pick up stuff for the next days events before returning to the hosue for a quick dinner before a community game night Around 15 kids and teens came over to the house to play Uno, Jenga, some card games and ping pong (a make shift net on the dining room table). It was fun and I continue to get to know the people better. I taught some of the kids how to play round robin on the ping pong table and they quickly learned the game and enjoyed running around the table and trying to hit the ball. Then on Thursday evening I went and played some midnight soccer with a bunch of people from my church and other local Mennonite churches. Its funny that I ended up going to a Mennonite church near the slum community the church is called (translated from its portuguese name) the Good News Christian Community and is one of several mennonite churches in Sao Paulo. I have been reading a lot about the anabaptist movements and especially about the quaker and mennonite traditions so it has been interesting to land in such a church (although on any given sunday morning it seems like a pretty typical middle class church, even though it neighbors a few slum communities there are also some wealthy to middle class apartment complexes in the same area). Back to the soccer, I went to the soccer game with Valdir who along with his wife are kinda the leaders of the community house, I was nervous to play soccer with real Brasilians and play as an adult (not as a kid when I play with the guys I'm coaching and can't play my hardest). I didn't know how my skills would hold up, but after I netted my first goal I got comfortable and at one point scored maybe 5 out of 6 goals scored and I think left for the night having scored near the most if not the most. It was cool to just feel accepted and that my soccer skills can carry over to Brasil (even if that night's competition wasn't all that strong). This sounds like an odd detail to write about, but for me it was an encouragement and great to meet a few more guys from the church (as I feel a lack of peer age guy fellowship). Then on Friday morning I skipped the soccer ministry to help out with the Kid's day (yup they have one here and I think in most of the world, while the US parent says every day is kids day, here they celebrate one in particular). I dressed up sort of like a clown and just helped out at a kids day party at the preschool run out of the community house for kids in the community. They even had a party bouncing trampoline thing, some typical Brasilian desserts and we watched Madagascar in Portuguese (which I for the most part understood). Then after a quick lunch with the rest of the preschool teachers I went off to soccer on Friday afternoon, returned back friday evening to go to a neighboring favela to remind some of the teens about the sunday youth group meeting. Friday night we had our in house Bible study which ended with a visit from someone who had never been to the house, but heard about it and came with her son who just got out of the hospital, she said she never was a Christian, but just wanted someone to pray for her son.
Saturday morning, I slept in a little (till like 8) and then got up to help plan the days events, help clean the house and then had our kids club on saturday afternoon, watched a movie with some of the kids afterwards and then prepared for our Saturday night community church service. Maybe some 25 people came to the service. Sunday morning I went to the mennonite church and then helped with the older kids group before returning to the missionaries house last night. It was a great weekend to spent at the house and I'm hoping to be able to move in there shortly.

Some other brief highlights from my 4 day stay in the house. Walking past the main place where they sell drugs and there is a bar a guy shouted something at me, I didn't understand him and kept walking until he repeated it and then I understood. He asked me if I was a missionary, I told him I was and we talked for a while, he welcomed me to the community and was happy I wanted to become a part of it, he told me I had a good heart and that he'd see me around (his name is Claudio, he's a really nice guy maybe in his mid 50's, drinks but not usually visably drunk and seems to know everyone, would ask for prayer for him). Also one time when I was coming home from soccer I must have seen like 5 or 6 kids walking through the labyrinth (more on that on a later entry, but basically its all a maze inside to confuse the police) of the favela I heard several voices yell out "hey tio" which means uncle and is an affectionate way to great people older than you. It felt great to walk through there and not feel scared, but to recognize some smiling faces. I will continue to keep you updated. Much love and God bless.