Knowing the we were soon to leave here, a few days ago I grabbed my camera and set out to take some pics of some of the cool things I’ve encountered since we’ve been here.

Late afternoon found me quite a way from home, and it was a relief when I saw a famliar vehicle with two men I’ve become acquianted with since we’ve been here.

They are members of Brazil’s christian Motorcycle club, the Abutros (means ‘vultures’ from Matt 24:28)

I climbed into the jeep with them and rode to the paderia. We stopped and bought a bottle of coke and I showed them my pictures.

It took some effort, since we don’t speak the same language, but I was able to tell them I am trying to capture the “real” Brazil on film, not the jazzed up PR that you see on the advertisements.

Suddenly, and not knowing exactly what I was getting into, we were back in the jeep and heading over the canal toward a beach community there called Janga.

The majority of Janga is residential with a beautiful well-kept beach front, but tucked between Janga and Rio Doce on the banks of an old shipping canal, and right behind the stature of Irmanjea the sea-goddess is a little village of fisherman.

My friends and I turned off the main road and parked in front of a little house where a man was turning out some beautiful wood carvings, walked through his yard and turned right down the beach.

30 meters later, we knocked on the door of a little house and Jeanne answered.

We talked, Jeanne led us around the village and I took some more pics, then her husban Paulo came in off the boat and we spent the rest of the evening visiting.

It is always awkward when different languages are involved, but by end of the evening Sandra and I had been invited back for a fish dinner.

A week later we returned and sat to the table of some of the best food I’ve ever eaten. Fish, brazilian pescador style, fresh from the ocean, with lime, rice, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, and we made a friend.

Paulo was once a worship leader in a church in another city, but had some problems with alcohol and ended up being seperated from fellowship. We talked about it some, but I didn’t really think too much about it until the following tuesday when Paulo and Jeanne showed up for church here at the Casa de Meu Pai.

We are leaving in a few days for the other side of Brazil, but will always remember these folks and their little cabin with the front door less than a hundred feet from the sea.

click on the pic at the top of this post to see a set of photos from Janga Village.

carl

150 to 200 miles inland, the lush Brazilian coastal band has turned into what is called the Sertao. It means dryland, and is famous for some of the most devestating droughts on earth. In other countries, when you mention the US, the images of TV, and cities like LA and New York are the first thing people think of.

In the US, when Brazil in mentioned, Jungle, or Beaches, or Rio de Janeiro are what comes to mind, but there is so much of Brazil beyond the beaches and big cities.

Click on the pic above and follow it to the Sertao Set in flickr to see some of what we saw on our three hour bus ride.

carl

We took these photos from the bus window as we returned from Lajedo to Recife.

(Please accept my apologies for taking pics through the bus window, but I couldn’t get the driver to pull over and let me take shots of all the beautiful stuff we saw.)

carl

When we came to Brazil this time, We had a short list of things we wanted to accomplish no matter what.

One of those things was to go back to Lajedo and get re-acquainted with Pastor Eliane and her church “Casa de Oracao” (House of Prayer)

This church was one of the places we preached at last time we were here and where our good friend Ebenezer eventually became an associate. It was a surprise to him as well as to us that he was ordained as a pastor in the church this time, but a fitting tribute to the time he has served there.

We fell in love with Lajedo the first time we were here. It is a desert town of about 25,000 and the economy is agriculture based.

Those of you who know that Sandra and I are farmers will appreciate how much we enjoyed seeing folks riding horses in from the country complete with stock saddles and ropes on the cantles. We saw a holstein cow and a 3 day old calf being driven down one of the main streets, and a walk through the town had us browsing through a couple of the dozens of feed and farm supply stores.

Pra Eliane, Ebenezer, another pastor and ourselves went to visit a man who was sick with prostrate cancer during one of the days we were there, and as we all prayed for him, as they led he and his wife to pray to accept Jesus as their Lord, I was touched by how much their farmhouse reminded me of farmhouses back home. Built to deal with the desert heat, it was constructed different, but the straw hats hanging by the door, the buckets and tools scattered around, the big kitchen and table, and of course the milkbarn and the herd of holsteins and milk goats just across the fence certainly made me feel a kinship with these folks.

Our time of ministry there was powerful and impacting. As well as preaching, we visited the childrens home Casa de Oracao supports, we visited and prayerwalked one of the poorer neighborhoods and another church that was being assaulted by theft and vandalism.

And we made new friends. We discussed the possibility of using Lajedo as a base to do some community evangelism into the desert country next time we come down, as there are dozens of little communities so far back in the desert that they are cut off from what we consider the normal amenities of electricity, running water, or communications.

We were treated so well in this place that it was difficult to leave. We were given a room in a pousada, (the brazilian equivelent of a motel) our meals were supplied, and everyone was so friendly.

How soon we are able to return depends on a lot of things, but I definitely want to return.

click on the picture at the top of this article and follow it to our flickr photo stream for a set of pics from this beautiful city and our ministry there.

carl

Sitting here looking out the window of Casa de Meu Pai, (My Father’s House) with suitcases half packed, waiting for the phone to ring, so I can find out from my friends how the balance of our luggage will ship, I am assailed by mixed feelings. Mixed because of our calling to this area, our love for the people here, and my sincere belief that there is a great powerful move of God coming to this area within a very few years. Mixed because we are leaving before we have been able to accomplish all the things I had in my heart to accomplish while we were here.

This past four months has been difficult physically, the noise and turbulence of living in a house with this many people and the noise generated by a dozen and a half teen-age boys and 20-something workers has worn on our old nerves till it has affected our health, Sandra’s health has been affected to the point that we considered cutting our trip short, but we are believing this move will give her a chance to recover. That is the bad side.

The good side is the friends we’ve made here in Recife. We’ve preached in several churches and been received whole-heartedly everywhere we’ve gone. We’ve been able to make acquaintances across the spectrum of the church body here, and we’ve preached for many different organizations.

The message God has given us concerning a coming revival in this area has been heard, and in every place, has been verified by others, as well as by the Holy Spirit.

We’ve had some powerful meetings with visitations of the Holy Spirit bringing healings, deliverances, and impacting peoples lives by His power.

In every meeting but one, we’ve finished on a high note of worship with people being slain in the spirit or taken to a place of deep intercession and worship.

There is so much need here of revival, so many places where the gospel needs to be shared, so many lives that need hope and power to overcome. Perversion and the occult are strong here. Sexual immorality is prevelant, but everywhere you look, there is a body of believers, highly visible proclaiming the gospel, and I believe that a spirit of unity is beginning to take seed here.

We came here primarily to learn the culture, language, and to make relationships that would support our next trip here. We’ve done well with the relationships and we’ve done well learning the culture. Both of us feel confident in our ability to live here now. Where we are lacking, however is the language.

In our present circumstances, we are not learning quickly enough to accomplish what we need to, and in answer to our prayers, we got an invitation from a friend of ours in the west of Brazil, who is both a language teacher and a missionary to the river people of the State of Rondonia.

So, Wednesday, we are saying goodbye to our friends in Olinda and Recife for awhile and going west. Like so many other things the Lord has done with us, we only have the next step and we’re not sure what will happen beyond the journey there. We have a trip down the river and up one of the tributaries to minister to a settlement so far from the beaten path that there is no communication or electricity.

We have plans to study the language with John and Eulalia, and since the city where we are going is a fairly large one, we should be able to maintain our communications once we return from our week-long river trip.

As always, we covet your prayers. your communications and e:mails, and we delight in hearing news from home. This past month or so, we’ve been blessed with internet broadband in our house and have enjoyed so much being able to read the local news from home and IM with our family, and are going to miss that tremendously if it isn’t available there.

We don’t know whether those things will be available where we are going, so I am posting this and inviting you to visit our photo stream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/theroadtobrazil/ and our blog, which will be updated again within the next day or so at http://roadtobrazil.wordpress.com/ (since I haven’t figured out how to imbed the link here, you may have to cut and paste or type in the url for the flickr photo stream,)

I’ve already uploaded a couple of sets of photos from our last two visits to different places, and am planning (today or tomorrow ) to update the blog with stories from those visits.

Once again on TheRoadtoBrazil, Carl and Sandra

Olinda Busride

We were supposed to go with a friend in her car to some of the places in Olinda where the tourists don’t go.

For some reason, she wasn’t able to make it, so we hopped on the bus, I stuck my camera out the window and started taking pictures.
Most didn’t turn out all that well because my camera has a 1 second delay before the image captures and together with the movement of the bus and not being able to stop when I saw something “really” good, I shot a lot of fuzzy shots of roofs and trees.

But…….

here are 20 that I thought captured what I wanted to see. My favorite of all is the girl in the window.

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for being a part of the RoadtoBrazil ministry.

We are seeing some changes ahead, for sometime during the first week of December we are going to move to the headwaters of the Amazon River Basin for awhile to work with our friend John Mantonya.

John is in Porto Velho, on the Madeira River in the Brazilian state of Rondonia. He has been there for many years, working as a missionary and in his other occupation as an English Teacher in one of the language schools there, We are going there to get John’s help with the language.

John is truly Bi-Lingual, being able to think, speak, read and write in either language, and we are not. Language learning is one of the areas we have really struggled with since we’ve been here, and we are hoping to be able to increase our abilities.

We have made some awesome friends and relationships while we’ve been here in Olinda, and our hearts are still stirred by the word of the Lord we received three years ago concerning a coming revival.

We love the people here in the Northeast. There is a bonding to them that has been nothing less than supernatural and has even survived the difficulties we’ve had communicating. We’ve seen almost every spectrum of life. We’ve eaten with rich and poor alike. We’ve worshipped with millionaires, we’ve worshipped with people who don’t have a home to live in. We’ve gotten to know intimately some of the boys who’ve escaped the gangs and life on the street, and so we are looking forward to the day when we can return and establish a work here.

A few days ago, I began visiting some of the people we’ve come to know through the Boy’s House, the various Family Retreats, and the church we’ve been working with.

You can find my first article posted here titled Cous-Cous Hill, Life in the Landfill, Olinda Brazil.

and a stream of pictures at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/theroadtobrazil/sets/72157594377406552/

Sometimes I like to talk about what I’ve written, but this time I will let the pictures speak.

As always, we delight in hearing from you and truly enjoy the feedback and comments we get,

Sandra sends her love and together with her, we are moving on to the next page of our adventure, and we invite you to continue with us on the “Road to Brazil”

carl and sandra

Overhead, the vultures circle, drawn by the continuous smell of death in the garbage, and the slight breeze of a summer sunday morning is only serving to stir up the heat, without bringing any relief.

A plastic grocery bag tumbles lazily across the road in front of me like a curious blue tumble-weed, coming to rest against the barbed wire barricade that separates the landfill from the road I walk into the settlement behind the Lixao.

There are thousands of them, twisted into the wire, hanging on the trees, laying in wads in the ditches, ready to be washed down onto the highway below at the first heavy rain.

We pass a man walking down the hill with a huge bag on his shoulder, and I wrap the plastic sack that holds my camera another turn around my wrist.

I am in someone else’s territory now, and while I am not walking in fear, the truth remains that the camera in the bag is worth a years earnings to some of the people I will visit today.

Rafael is with me and since he lives here, no one gives us much attention.

Rafael is a tall gangly kid with a shy smile and a calling to preach. He knows Jesus. He is free from the drugs for now, since he doesn’t have to live in the bairro.

Rafael is 15. He has killed. He doesn’t know how to read or write because he couldn’t go to school. He doesn’t have papers, therefore he doesn’t exist. And when you don’t exist, you can’t go to school.

It is tempting to pull at your heart with stories of the little children growing up in a world that few of us can even imagine, but to do that would de-humanize these people, and to take away their humanity would deprive them of the only thing they have left.

It would be easy to write about the social aspects of deep poverty, or the disintegration of any sort of family structure or values. It would be even easier to write about the resulting chaos that ends in rampant drug use, prostitution and violence of every sort, but most of the articles of that kind I’ve read have left out one important aspect, and that aspect is the ability to see beyond the poverty and the decisions that we “civilized” people consider so wrong, and to see faces.

Faces of women who are pregnant with their sixth or seventh child and have not passed their 25th birthday.

Faces of children who don’t know that eating things they find in the garbage isn’t healthy, because it is worse to go without food.

I found pride there. Pride in having a house with brick walls. Pride in a pretty baby. Pride in a fluffy pink doll rescued from the dump. Pride in a job, Pride in things as they are at the moment, somewhere between the disasters that always balance on the edge of the day that comes and the memories of yesterday.

Last week Alexanders roof fell in. We stood in the “kitchen” and looked at the sleeping room and the living room bathed in the light of the morning sun. It is the dry season and he will have a little time to figure out a way to cover it back up before it starts raining in March, but for the time being, ten people are sleeping in one tiny little corner.

The stories go on.

Leo is almost 15. He has killed twice. The first time he was in a gang shooting. The second time he found a man beating his mother and he shot and killed him. It took weeks for his mother to recover, but she did. The police didn’t come for Leo because they don’t care how many people get killed on the hill. Every one who dies is one more problem they don’t have to deal with.

Leo likes to laugh and play practical jokes. He doesn’t live in the dump anymore because he was given a chance to go to a house for street kids where he can have his own bed and regular meals and no one is trying to kill him. He has a mischevous smile and curly hair.

Rodrigo is almost neurotic about his appearance. Rodrigo’s mother has mental problems and is dying from aids. When she goes into depression, she lashes out at the children and has broken bones and cut them with knives.

Rodrigo lived alone in the dump with his 5 year old step-brother for nearly a year. Now he and his step brother both live in the same house with Leo and Rafael. Rodrigo loves school, and always does his homework. He has a crush on a girl from England who visited here last winter and left him an email address. He keeps his clothes spotless, his teeth and hands washed and works out with weights to make his arms bigger.

This story doesn’t end, because this story has no ending. As I can, I will tell more, but for now…

follow this link and let the pictures speak. if this link does not activate, click on the little girl at the beginning of “my photos” link at the top of this article

www.flickr.com/photos/theroadtobrazil/
sets/72157594377406552

I couldn’t even go to the funeral or visit with his family because I’m on the other side of the world, and even though I have a good reason to be here. for the moment, thatreally stinks.

His family and mine have lived in the same neighborhood for almost as long as I can remember.
William was one of those men who spent his time looking after every one else even when he didn’t have time.

He was a skinny teenager when we first went coon-hunting together. He had an old Walker gyp that was even skinnier than he was, and to put it gently, she wasn’t the best hound in the woods, but still, she was better than the worthless mutt I owned, and we certainly had fun wandering around the woods at night. We hunted together for years, his dogs kept getting better, although somehow mine never did.

William was milking a herd of holstein cows by the time he graduated high school and as hard as he worked he still had time to hunt. One of my best memories was of a night when, while waiting for me to retrieve a hound, William fell asleep sitting against the side of the truck.

When I returned, I could not find him in the dark, and for three hours I walked up and down the road, whistling and shouting, even honking the horn on the truck. I made so much noise that the local residents loaded their guns and came to see what was taking place in the river bottom.

After three hours I was convinced that he had fallen into the river and drowned, but while I was trying to explain this to the angry farmer with the shotgun, he suddenly appeared by the truck and wiping the sleep out of his eyes, asked what all the fuss was about.

Another time, as we returned from the woods, we were challenged by a man who lived nearby waving a large rifle and demanding to know what we were doing there.

Having permission to hunt the land we were on and being on a public road gave us some sense of confidence so Williams answer was to point to the two hounds on the leash, the coon I was carrying, and the rifle his little brother was carrying, and reply “Bass fishing! “Caught one too! “How ’bout you?”

After a little more conversation in which William reminded the gentleman that we indeed had permission, and were legally hunting and walking on the public road, and that He needed to take his rifle home and go back to bed.

Their family farm was next to ours, and as neighbors do, we shared work for years. Putting up hay, fixing fences, working cattle, and visiting at the feed store when we happened to meet.

William’s greatest impact in my life was his visiting my parents two or three times a week after they got old and weren’t able to get out. At the time I was working two jobs and taking care of the farm, so I wasn’t able to do as much as I needed to do, but William never failed to look in on them, to listen to their stories, and to fill them in on the neighborhood news.

A few years later, I remarried a city girl, and since I was still working nights, when the weather was bad, he would never fail to stop in and make sure she had a good fire built and everything was put up for the night.

A good friend of mine died a few days ago. It was sudden, and I’m not going to pretend I have the words to express my sadness to his family. I’ll never be able to tell them properly how much he meant to me, because he was, to them a son, and a father, and a brother, and as much as I lost, they lost even more.

William died like he lived. He was working. He always worked. He lived the principles I admire most. He worked hard, He helped people who needed help. He detested free-loaders and liars and cheats. He paid his bills and he took care of his animals. He was good at his job, and he was proud of his heritage and his family.

When William stepped in front of the truck that killed him, he was living the life that made this country what it is today. Because he was working for the State, there were flags flown at half mast all over Missouri in his honor, but that honor should be rightly bestowed on him, not because of the way he died, but because of the way he lived,

I lost a good friend a few days ago. I will miss him every time I hear a coon hound running a track in the bottomlands. I will miss him every time I see a holstein cow or a field full of big round hay bales. I will miss him on the cold winter nights when the wind is blowing, but I will remember him when I see his two sons growing up on the same land he lived on. I will remember him because he was my friend.

Wind blowing our hair, the night coolness washing away the heat of the day, we held on tightly as the battered old Chevy pickup dodged and bounced through the maze of speed bumps and pot-holes in the granite cobblestoned streets.

Roaring up a steep hill to a little shop in the old part of Olinda, we backed up to the door and jumped out to begin our work for the night.

A bushel of rolls from a bakery down the street, three gallons of sweet coffee and two large gunny sacks of 2 liter soda bottles with the tops cut off began our load along with a couple of old wooden chairs and a battered sign wired to the tailgate announcing “Ministerio do Sopa, um ministerio da Casa de Meu Pai”

Back in our places in the back of the old truck we did a roller-coaster descent back down to the beachfront and bounced into the parking lot of a little restaurant.

I am a large man by any standard, and especially here in the Northeast of Brazil where people tend to be rather small I always draw comments. Tonight was no different, but tonight my size and strength were welcomed as I helped to hoist a full 30 gallon container of hot soup into the back of the old truck and slide it forward to the front of the bed between the two old chairs.

It wedged tightly into place and it was obvious this was a method developed by past practice.

The regulars took their place, Klebber, the owner of the truck and the official “head” of the ministry is a sign contractor in the area. Leda is the owner of a small shop in Olinda and coordinates the food and clothing contributions. Tonight she rode in the front with Klebber in the navigator’s seat.

Wita and Pretinha took the chairs on either side of the kettle and Leide, Sandra and I took the open areas in the rear of the truck between the crate of rolls, the coffee jug and the bags of containers.

More on each of these people later as we cruise the streets of Olinda. But now, the old truck roars to life and takes a left turn onto the main street of Olinda. It is after Ten pm and almost all the businesses were closed for day.

Olinda is an old town. As often happens with old towns, the new town offered all the attractions and the money and affluence drifted there, leaving the old town to suffer the deterioration that comes to places that no longer offer any political or financial leverage.

Here and there are beautiful buildings with well maintained facades, but they are sandwiched between old, tired, dirty buildings and the hustle of people trying to make a living where it isn’t easy to live.

We cruise slowly down the street watching under the awnings of the businesses for the clusters of the cacadores who shelter there for the night. A few blocks later we see our first and we pull over.

“Sopa,” someone shouts and the cluster of men under the awning slowly roll off their cardboard pallets, rub the sleep out of their eyes and drift over to the truck.

We hand each of them a liter and a half of hot vegetable soup, two or three rolls and a cup of hot coffee, even carrying some of it over to the ones who are so tired or high on glue to come to the truck.

Most are grateful, most express their thanks and visit for a moment before finding a place to sit and eat. Occasionally someone will grumble because their soup wasn’t the flavor they were expecting, but hey, even the best restaurant have a disgruntled customer every now and then.

The cacadores (meaning “hunters”) are a special breed of the homeless. They make their living by sifting through the garbage and collecting everything that can be recycled, then selling it for whatever they can get.

Many of them have large hand carts made from old car axles and some even sleep in or under the carts. Far from being lazy, many of these men work 10 or 12 hours a day and make 10 or 15 dollars for their efforts. You can see them everywhere during the day and while many of them have homes in the favelas, the ones we visit this night are homeless and sleeping in the business district because of the safety it offers.

Many of them are suffering the effects of the glue bottles they sniff as a numbing drug against the hunger, but we aren’t here to judge, or to fix or to give advice. Tonight, it is enough to give them an old plastic bottle full of soup and let them know someone cares.

We continue down the streets watching the parking lots and sidewalks as cars and busses pass us, honking at our slow pace. Occasionally someone shouts something and Pretinha will shout back with the Brazilian equivelant of “Praise the Lord” or wave at them and sing a verse of a song.

Pretinha is in her twenties, a small, very dark skinned afro-brazilian with a heart for the Lord as big as the truck we are riding in. Her songs, her laughter are the highlight and the accent of this trip as she serves the soup and there’s no doubt who’s in charge when someone attempts to get an extra helping of food.

As the night goes on, we’ve made one pass through town on the main thoroughfare, we’ve stopped for a 2 liter of Guaranha and a short break at the 24 hour supermarket and now we are working our way back to the other side of town.

Tonight the numbers have been small, Wita tells us that it runs in cycles and the past few weeks have been rather slow. No one knows why, but sooner or later it will change again and there will be more.

Wita is Leda’s son. He limps from a birth defect, but that hasn’t slowed his faith any. He is a cornerstone of the church he attends and any time there is work to be done, he will be there.
He is in his twenties with a big smile and infectious laugh, and his place tonight is dipping soup out of the big kettle into the plastic bottles and reminding all of us that we have to sit down in the bed instead of up on the side of the truck. A ticket here is outrageously expensive and even though Klebber is an ex-police officer, the risk isn’t worth it.

We sit.

The truck winds its way out of the business district into some of the parks where we find a couple of families who welcome us with waves of excitement. They dig plastic containers out of an old shopping bag and crowd around the truck waiting for their turn. Here we see children and women and the bottles are handed out with more in them, the rolls are handed out in threes instead of twos and the coffee cups are full.

Around the corner find another group of cacadores and in this group is a man/woman couple. She is a little slow waking up so he nudges her with his foot and she tells him in no uncertain terms what she thinks of his foot in her side. Waving her arm and making a “whooshing” sound at him translates in English to “who do you think you are, old man…” and with that, she comes over to the truck. Leda greets her and by their conversation it’s evident that the woman and her man are regulars of the soup run.

Our last stop is a business square in the oldest part of Olinda. There is an old park there, and a lagoon that joins four of the old canals. In centuries past, freight was transferred from the docks inland by a series of canals that form a net over much of the city and are still full of water today. They are mostly sewage tainted and houses are built right up to the edge of many, so any romantic notions of gondolas being poled up the waterways are quickly dispelled by the aroma of floating garbage. The remains of an age gone by remain however and there is a crumbling gazebo and a little park with stone benches and cobblestone pavement built around the lagoon, and the park is surrounded by old shops and lottery kiosks and vacant buildings.

It was here that we met the street kids. As they crowded around the truck, it became quickly apparent that this was a different crowd than any we had seen tonight. There was an attitude of pushing and demanding. Leda warned us earlier that we would have to watch here because many of the people who came would take their food, hide it and make another trip through the line.

The smell of glue permeated the air and the vacant eyes of many demonstrated why. Glue is the drug of availability here. It is cheap, it is readily available, there are no laws against it, and a tube of glue inside a soda bottle brings a sense of relief from the hunger that is so pervasive on the street.

Some here are actually homeless, but many who have homes and families choose the street to escape the violence and insecurity they face in those homes.

We watched as part of the street culture was acted out before us, Two of the older boys got into a disagreement over who should be served first and after some words and a little pushing, they pulled shivs (sharpened steel rods) and began to circle and threaten one another.

After a few tense moments, one backed away and allowed the other to take the place they were arguing over, but interestingly enough no one else seemed to pay any attention beyond staying out of striking distance.

Tonight we fed nearly thirty people in this group, ranging from men in their twenties to girls as young as 6 or 7. These were children of some of the older ones and were as thrilled as if it were Christmas when Leda opened a box of clothes and sandals and began matching sizes and handing out something to each one.

We visited, we blessed each one, and after a while we swept the remnants of our food together and headed back to the little shop on the hill to unload.

Singing, sitting up on the sides of the truck, (it was now late enough that there was little danger of being ticketed..) and holding on the the roll bar as Klebber drove under low-hanging trees or hit speed-bumps at full speed to shake us up a little, we made our way there and as the truck was emptied and swept, Klebber crossed the street and returned with another bottle of Guaranha, a big lump of bologna and some crackers.

We stood together, we ate and laughed and tried to communicate because Sandra and I still speak very little Portuguese and no one else there could speak English.

We finally came together in a circle and prayed for all we had served throughout the night, and back into the truck one last time, we headed to our homes.

Both of us, Sandra and I together are completely hooked. This was one of the most memorable nights of our lives, and we are waiting with anticipation for the next run.