Bonito Part 2

Each night we decided to eat a different, yet exotic meat. And so our first night in Bonito, we had Jacara, or in Eniglish it is known as the Caiman Alligator, served two different ways, grilled and in a soup. Both very tasty. We also planned all our excursions Thursday night. Friday we woke up early to head to a cave called the Gruta do Lago Azul. It was absolutely magnificant! We had the first tour of the day, whiuch is the best. The early morning sun shines right into the cave and illuminates the water in the lake! Early morning is the o=nly time of day you can see the water so clear and brillant. The excursion took about 2 hours to hike in and view the cave a several different points and hike out! That afternoon we went to a farm called a Fazenda, had lunch and relaxed before our next hike to several different water falls. That night we decided to try piranha and a different local fish. On Saturday we snorkeled in the Rio da Prata, a crystal clear river. We snorked 2 kilometers and it took about 3 hours. But it was amazing. The fish were huge. You aren't allowed to fish in Bonito, all the rivers are protected but it also makes them very clean and clear. After snorkeling we again went back to the place where we signed in and they too had prepared an azaming lunch followed by some napping in hammocks. Though, we were all very tired we decided to go to a giant sink hole that has become a safe haven for the big Macaws! It was amazing to see them fly by! Saturday was our final night in Bonito and so we wanted to end our trip with experiencing more exotic food. So we had a ;meat from a wild boar and capybara(which is part of the rat family, but much larger, similar to those rodents in the movie the Princess Bride). Sunday was bitter sweet, we woke up late packed said good bye to our hosts at the hotel and headed to tube down a river. It was cloudy and at first we thought it would have been really cold but it actually made the water feel warmer that it was. Though the tubing trip seemed really quick it was a nice end to our time in Bonito.

Bonito Part 1

I know some of you are still waiting and waiting and waiting for the update on how the MY Hope broadcast went!!! That is still to come. With a country the size of Brazil follow up takes million times longer, but an update with come soon.

This past week we had Joe's friend from younger years here visting!!! Drake arrived on Wednesday last week and left monday night. We wanted to be able to show Drake as much of Brazil as we could in him time here. With that said, it is very hard to do. Most people don't realize how big Brazil is! It is the size of the continental US. So we decided to rent a car and drive to a place called Bonito! It is 13 hours away and it is near the Pantanal. It truly lived up to it's name, Beautiful! We stayed at a Pousada, which is like a small, simple hotel or resort. The Chale da Bosque, sat at the top of a hill overlooking the small town. Our room was a stone chale or cabin, with a back porch including a hammock. After arriving we decided to take and swim and check out ther rest of the property. It came with it's very own wildlife that called it home too. In an old tree stump, a family of tucan's lived. Along with Macaws flying around.

Excitement!

Ah, I was finally able to add pictures from the wedding we attended


Their are just so many exciting things going on right now, and I have no time to post them so I hope you will have patience with us for now and we promise to update everyone on everything SOON! Like next week when the madness slows! Today Joe is driving for the first time in Sao Paulo traffic (yikes) and I can't go with to help him navigate because I am teaching this afternoon, I moved all my classes around so we could head out of town super early tomorrow morning! Joe's best friend from Davidson flys in today and we are taking him to a place called Bonito, the name literally means beautiful! Our friend Jeremy who works with us here and Drake and Sadaysha will all be making the trek with us. But just to give you a little something to enjoy, Joe and I attended our first Brazilian wedding two weeks ago. It was very interesting. They had 4 pastors and a friend all speak, ALL of the family walks in the pressional and I mean ALL like 2nd cousins twice removed ALL. And their is no respect for the sanctity of it. Everyone in the pews were carrying on with their own conversations in a normal tone of voice. Very Odd to me. But it was beautiful and we always enjoy getting to experience the culture! Enjoy the pictures of us at the wedding! Ok so for some reason blogspot won't let me post the pictures so I will post them later, same with the spellcheck button so sorry!

My Hope Broadcast!

Hey all! We just wanted to let you all know that this is the big week! We've been working for 12 months so that this Thursday, Friday and Saturday the My Hope broadcast would be on national TV at 9:00 at night. There are over 50,000 churches involved and we expect a national audience of about 10 million, just from the churches that are mobilized. They will be inviting their friends, family, and neighbors over to their homes to watch the broadcast, to see testimonies and music videos that show what Jesus did on the cross for us.

Would you please join us in prayer for this huge week for Brazil?

We'll keep you posted on how everything went next week!