GETTING OUR PAPERS,
A BRAZILIAN ADVENTURE, PART THREE
The Police.
It is possible that I am over-using the ‘guard with the gun’ illustration, but in every business here, especially those large enough to have ATM machines, there are armed guards. There are armed guards on the gates of most businesses, There are at least four different varieties of police, The Federal Police, the State Police, The Metro Police and last but certainly not least, the Tourist Police, all of whom (more…)
GETTING OUR PAPERS,
A BRAZILIAN ADVENTURE, PART TWO
Lines.
Upon entry to any official office where business in conducted with the public, you will find several lines. The first line you must negotiate starts at a little cubicle that invariably looks as if it has been placed there as an afterthought. “INFORMACAO’ ” is posted above, often handwritten on a card, and there are two or three people there to direct you to the correct line.
If you know the system (which I don’t,) (more…)
GETTING OUR PAPERS,
A BRAZILIAN ADVENTURE. PART ONE
I knew when we obtained our visas in the US that this day would come. Stamped on the bottom of our visa was a blue statement, “Must report to the Federal Police within 90 days of arrival” (more…)
To The Doctor, Part Three.
If you have been following this saga, you remember that we survived a two hour combie ride through Brazilian traffic to get my swollen legs and Sandra’s UT infection to the hospital where we were to be seen as a favor to my new friend Dr Luis.
This final segment finds us sitting in the hallway of the clinic where we came to be treated, waiting patiently for our turn to come………………
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And then the door opened, the nurse beckoned, and I, along with Sandra, Jody our translator, Daniel our driver, and the nurse all crowded into the Doctor’s office, a small room with two desks and a trim attractive woman in her 50s, who by her demeanor and white coat, was apparently the Doctor we had come to see.
I watched everyone gesture and point and wave their arms expressively for about five minutes, and finally Jody told me to roll up my trouser legs and take off my sandals and sox.
The Doctor rose up from behind her desk and (more…)
Hi All.
First, let me apologize for taking so long to get this last newsletter published, and having said that, I hope you all are doing well and that you are being abundantly blessed.
This past month has been both exiciting and difficult. The exiciting part of it was (more…)
The Sea Goddess supposedly representing life which comes from the sea. An inordinate amount of sexual perversion and homosexuality are associated with this idol, and you can feel the oppression and decay in the area around this statue, as well as seeing it visually. The area behind it is a dump where everyone in the neighborhood deposits their garbage, the breakers create a backwater that traps all the garbage in the sea from about 15 miles of shoreline and deposits it on the shore of this promontory so that the filth is literally so thick it covers the beach. The idol has been horribly defaced with graffiti carved into the plaster and anytime you go there you can find dozens of condoms littering the area from nighttime visitors.
Not a place to take your kids.
To the Doctor Part Two
As the day wore on Wednesday, I was able to amuse myself by watching my legs change color. No longer a fiery red, they slowly varied from bright orange to bruised blue, never in solid colors, but in patches. It seemed that temperature was a factor as well, for they seemed to move toward the spectrum of red when the fever in the skin elevated and then drift back to the blues and greens when it fell and the flesh cooled. Together with the swelling, at times they looked like some grotesque balloon animal in a twilight zone carnival. My confidence in recovery gained the night before with Dr Luis began to slip away.
Wednesday evening I discovered that he had inquired of me during the day and discovering that I was not recovering as quickly as I should, (more…)
Off to the Doctor PART ONE
Here in this land of perpetual warmth and sunshine where the flowers and vegetation grow at phenomenal rates, I have discovered things that, in my midwestern US upbringing, I’ve never before had the opportunity to learn.
Along with flora and fauna growing at speeds that defy the laws of nature, so do the little microscopic critters. Back in Missouri, (but we’re not in Missouri anymore, Toto!) It gets cold enough at least once a year to kill off all the little buggers off, or at least cripple them severely enough to keep them from spreading.
Here, apparently they never die, because every time I touch something with my bare hands, everyone around me gasps, (more…)
The following entry is a write up I sent our prayer partners the day after the meeting described, I do apologize for taking so long to get it posted, but hopefully now we can get back in the groove of posting things in a timely way.
16 Julho
Hi All,
We had an evangelistic meeting tonight, which was the goal of the youth camp, bringing in the whole families of the kids at the camp. (Remember the youth camp was the final “practical” part of the mission school….. so it all works together)
I’ve had this stirring for this meeting for more than a week, since I was asked to be the speaker and asked to bring a simple salvation message.
This morning, I skipped church and (more…)
Green. Really. They’re green. I’ve never seen green sweet potatoes before, but these were. And to top it off, they had purple skin. Something about that just didn’t seem natural but they tasted just like the orange ones that I’m used to seeing on my plate.
I’m sure if you added a couple pounds of sugar and some marshmellows, they would make a fine green Thanksgiving dish. Here, they were feeding about 40 kids from the favelas who came to a youth camp.
We had other things (more…)
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