Crisis at Christmas

Christmas for Joe and I might always be the busiest time of our lives. A year ago, we moved from Montevideo, Uruguay to Sao Paulo, Brazil at the end of November, 2007. We found an apartment, checked out some great places to buy furniture and enjoyed the summer weather a little and then made a mad dash for the airport to join family and friends in North Carolina for Christmas. This year knowing we still had some follow-up left in Brazil and would be returning, we headed to NC thinking this is the year we are going to relax and enjoy the snow! Well, relaxing is a very relative term when we are home. Their are always a thousand things we have to do once in the states. We have to do all our doctors and dentist appointments, catch up on all our mail that has been sitting in a box for months and months. Plus all the holiday stuff, like running to William-Sonoma at 7:45 on Saturday night without anyone knowing your gone(it is much more impossible then it sounds). This Christmas was joined with the celebrations of my younger sister getting engaged in November so of course we had to go dress shopping. I don't know if this sounds busy yet, but it is. We alot of times we feel like we are srinting through an entire marathon. But we really wouldn't have it any other way. While we were home, we were able to do what I love, do it yourself projects! No, seriously I really enjoy them. Joe's aunt and uncle hosted a painting party the day after Christmas to get his grandparents house ready to sell. While there we had the discussio of "did you take your ring off" "yes"(melissa), "did you" "yes, I put it in my jacket pocket"(joe), so after a wonderful evening with family and celebrating Christmas on the Mott side of the family, we drove to joe's parents house all stuffed and cozy riding back in the farm truck. When we got to Davidson, we unloaded everything and started getting ready for bed, when Joe asked me if I knew where his jacket was, and my response was No, the last time I saw it was on the porch at his grandparents, on top of some trashbags. So we go ask all other members of the family if they had see it or if their were any other bags that had come from the house. When the No's started piling up I started getting really frustrated, we searched the inside of the truck, inside the house. And Joe isn't quite at the hysterical point of driving back to High Point that I was at. (it's an hour and twenty minute drive). So I said he had a choice he could call his uncle, or we could drive back up (and we were both exhausted). So he called his uncle and rolled his eyes while doing it. Casey promised to go back by the house and see if he sees it or look through the giant trash heep we had created that day. The next morning Casey goes by but doesn't find it. After Joe got the cold shoulder from me all day. Casey calls back and says that after all the scavengers had taken alot of the trash during the day, he noticed several black trashbags on the ground at the very bottom of the heep. Inside one is Joe's jacket, with his wedding ring inside. THANK YOU, CASEY! To some of you, you might be thinking, what is the big deal? Well until that day I didn't realize how much these circular pieced of metal meant to me (and Joe). They symbolize so much more than just metal. They mean an endless trust, and commitment to each other, a choosing to love one another everyday! And know that no matter what, HE will always be the man God chose for me!

Final Bonito Pictures!

One of our friends had an underwater camera with us on the trip. That = Fun.

A whole lot of nothingness, that is meaningfull

So Joe and I know that many of you want to know where we are because we haven't updated lately! Well, we have been a little bit of everywhere. Right after the broadcast we travelled to town in Brazil, Bonito, the pictures are below in our last blog and then a week later we were Florida for a dear friends wedding,which was beautiful and really just reminded me of what a true church body should look like and how it should really function, we are waiting for pictures from others, our camera was on hyatus that night. Congratulations, Again, Tracey and Jeff. And we have only been back in Brazil for about a week and a half and again we will be off next week for Christmas! By the way, it doesn't feel like Christmas, it is arriving too soon! As some of you know, I LOVE CHRISTMAS, and everything about it! The meaning of it, the decorations, the music, especially the music! Joe has put up with alot of what he calls "corny" Christmas music lately from yahoo radio. Small tangent real quick, Yahoo radio has this absolutely revolting commercial about STD's and condoms. And if you open the webpage and that is the commercial assigned to you, you hear it over and over every 4 songs, so in that case we close the webpage and reopen until we get a different one. Along with preparing for Christmas, I always enjoy wearing the "christmas clothes" we all have. The red wool sweater, or green or both. My wordrobe is having a identity crisis! As we are headed into summer, it has been steadily, 85-90 degrees. Most of my short sleeve shirts and tank tops are in the beachy tones and pinks!
I learned something else this season, deoderant can go bad! One day I realized I smelled like a really cheap bar of soap, like the kind you took from the motel 3 years ago. It's ok we all do it. The investigation began and we realized that my deoderant had lost it's scent. So I opened a new one, smelled it and it too had lst its scent. (And the experation date on the bottom was 2 years away).
Some of you are wondering what happened with the bradcast here in Brazil! We thank you for your prayers! Brazil, is a wonderful friendly culture, they are so people oriented! Joe and I have enjoyed this about Brazillians all year. They don't consider themselves to be great at some of the paperwork and logisics that go with it. Currently we are Praising God for the 103,925 decisions that have been reported!
Last week we had the honor of having Gwen Matthews down in Brazil with us! She is the wife of Joe's boss Greg, and just a wonderful person to get to know. I decided on Friday I would take her downtown, show her some of the old city and then head to an area that is called, 25 de Marzo. It is where all the wholesale shops are. This is where all the people the south of Brazil come to buy goods for their stores. On deciding to go, I told some of my students and their response was, we will start planning your funeral. It wasn't that bad, but it was really crowded! If you like your personal space you wouldn't like this. At one point I saw some people start running with armsful of goods and told Gwen to get out of the way, and she asked why, what was going on? I told her I didn't know but it was always better to stay out of the way of running people. I asked a friend and she said that to sell things on the streets you have to have a permit and so when they start checking so permits, those who don't ahve one, run, they grab all their stuff and run!
I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas Season and Joe and I can't wait to see people VERY SOON!

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!