Prayer Requests

At our staff meeting today it was brought to our attention that our small school size is hurting the school financially. We are need of more students. For our school to survive we need about 25 more students. I know that the Lord can send them from all over the place. Pray that the embassies will send their children to our school. Our school is also promoting it's preschool program. Pray that more Brazilians and others will enroll their children. If our enrollment does not increase then 2 of us teachers will be going home in January. It has not been decided who those teachers will be yet. It is not a pleasant thing to think about. We have a great staff and I enjoy working with all of them. Don't let this tear our school apart.

We have parent-teacher conferences this week and I have a particularly difficult family I need to meet with. Please pray for me and for them.

Also found out that our director and his family will be leaving Brazil at the end of this year. They have been with the school for 10 years now and think it is time for them to move on. They are expecting baby number 3.

Lots going on, but God is faithful!

"Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised." Hebrews 10:35-36

Overload....

  Thank the good Lord it is Friday! I am worn out! We only had school for 4 days this week, but it felt sooo long. I found out this week that one of my students went home and told her mom that I said she was dumb. I said no such thing. This girl's mom was upset and wanted to have a conference with me at Children's Day, but a member of admin. told her that now was not the time or the place. I can not believe this girl! She is one of my students who doesn't do assignments or follow directions. Ahhh..
  Next week is parent-teacher conferences, this should be interesting. The students do not have school on Monday and Tuesday, but we have to do report cards and have a teacher-in-service. I am looking forward to a few days student free.
  Last night were were all taken out to dinner and I ended up at a table full of kids...I had to relocate myself. There was no way I was going to last a meal there...I had already reached a sensory overload moment in the full van on the way to the restaurant. I wanted to retreat. After I moved tables it was fine. It was just too much.
  Looking forward to a nice weekend...

Brazilian wedding

  Today was my first Brazilian wedding and it was nice. She got married outside with a reception inside. She looked radiant! I am so happy for her! The reception was low key, no dancing or speeches like North American weddings, but good. The food was crepes--meal type and dessert type. The line we got in moved soooo slow! It was a nice opportunity to get out and get all dressed up. You should see how fancy everyone gets for a wedding!
  Oh...I caught a part of the bouquet....she threw it and it was actually 3 smaller bouquets. Cute. It was a fun time.

Children's Day

  Today was our Children's Day celebration at the school. We were praying that it would not rain and it did not rain until 8:30 tonight! God is good. Things went well...I am pretty sure that my chapel group won the pizza party by having the most tickets earned. Yay!
  Both of our games were a hit, but the water balloons were a huge hit! One odd thing was... I was in charge of supervising at the water balloon area and this 1st grader came up to buy water balloons and he ended up using 40 tickets to mostly hit me! I have no idea why this little boy wanted to attack me with water balloons. I ended up really wet and he was angry while he was throwing them at me! I teach his class music one day a week---where this anger came from is weird! He did help us win though!
  Today was also the last day of one of my prized fifth graders! I am sooo sad. He was a sweetie. His family gave me chocolates and perfume as a goodbye. So sweet. This family is from England and moving to France. I will miss this child dearly! I am losing another student next week---my fifth graders will be down to 3! Ahh. Pray for more students!
  Tomorrow is a wedding! Should be fun! Hooray for a 3 day weekend! Yay!

It is October

  Here is a mini update. Tomorrow is Children's Day and it is currently raining! We need it to be a perfect day. Children's Day is a celebration of children and there are games and sancks. The games are being run by chapel groups. My group is selling water balloons and doing Skee-ball. We need nice weather.
   Today after school we went to get our Brazilian workbooks (the way they keep track of employment) and some other stuff. It is funny how much I appreciate the staff at my school. I say funny and I mean funny...I appreciate them and they add so much humor to my day. It was a good afternoon. Last Saturday night was game night too--fun times. We had a crazy game of Catch Phrase going. God has blessed me.
  I do wish I knew more Brazilians and had time to hang out with them. This week I realized that I have no way to send packages or letters because the post office is closed by the time I get home...great.
  I recovered those monkey pictures...yay!

Things to ponder....

Today was school picture day and I think is went great. I can't wait to see all of the pictures. I took a picture with the 5th grade and the 6th grade. Then we took a joint one. Then there was the whole school picture and later the staff picture.
 After staff meeting Lauren and I went for a run and to do some exercise. When we were outside wrapping it up there was this little boy on a bicycle riding by. He said something and then I asked him if he spoke English and he kept going. Lauren and I were chatting and we saw him go over to the dumpsters and dig through it. Lauren wanted to go over and talk to him. (Really I did the talking since she doesn't speak Portuguese yet). We asked him what he was looking for and he told me toys and what not. I asked him where he lived and he pointed to this tree I know---it commonly has people living under it. He said that he lives there with his mom and 9 brothers and sisters! Woh! Lauren told him to please stop digging in the trash and that she wanted to give him some food. He said ok. We both went back to our apartments and came back with some things we had. He was grateful. He asked what religion we were. I told him that we are Christians and he said that he is too. That was great. We chatted with him for awhile and then Lauren said she wanted to pray for him. She prayed and then I told him what she said. One part in her prayer was about how this experience can help him to help others and tell them his story. He said, "Like a missonary?" I said, "Maybe." He said, "I want to be a missionary." Awww. He went to the tree where his family was. Lauren and I were saying goodbye when he came back with his puppy. It was a cute, energetic little dog, but it has a swollen belly and felt like it had something wrong with it's fur. Sad. He asked us if we could teach him English and we said yes. The words he did know in English were good, no strong accent. I felt bad for him. He said that he goes to school every once in awhile depending on where they live. Things like this break my heart.
  Please pray that I get more opportunities to talk to him, his name is Isaac. He is a sweet kid. My heart goes out to kids living in situations that they cannot control. I did not get to talk to or see the rest of his family tonight, but pray for them also.
  Por amor de ti, Brasil! (For the love of you, Brasil.) On Saturday I saw lots of people trying to sell candies and gum dragging their kids behind them. Help me be effective God.

Sooo bummed!

  So last night myself and another teacher, Lauren, were invited to have dinner at another teacher's house. They live kind of far and have this great big house. While taking a tour their teenagers asked us if we wanted to feed the monkeys. Monkeys? We went in their backyard and there were monkeys in their mango tree. One of the teenagers grabbed a banana and started to cut it up and asked if we wanted to try it. Lauren asked if they were going to bite. They told us no, but that they would grab your hand for the banana. Lauren tried it and I stood by to take pictures. As she was standing there a monkey came down and gently grabbed the banana out of her hand and ate it. It was soooo cute! These monkeys are called 'micu' and have a long furry tail and are small monkeys. I then started to feed the monkeys and it was the coolest experience ever! There were 3 bigger monkeys and a baby. We feed them for awhile and I took pictures and videos of the whole experience. One of the teenagers even got a monkey to lay on his arm for a banana. Then we are starfruit from another tree in their yard. I felt like I was living a cool Brazilian experience. This family has a great view of the famous JK Bridge here. I took lots of pictures. When we went into the house I wanted to see my videos and turn the sound on. I hit the menu button and was talking to someone and ERASED ALL OF THE PICTURES! AHHHH!!! I was sooooo depressed for the rest of the night. I found a couple of websites that allow you to recover deleted pictures and it cost $40. I am thinking it is worth it for those pictures...I just don't have an external card reader, which apparently I need. I want those pictures....so sad.
  In other news...working on my newsletter and my washing machine keeps leaking!