Partnering With Paula: August 2012

I went to Brazil on a work trip July 7-25 to prepare for and serve during a conference called CONPLEI (The Council of Native Evangelical Pastors and Leaders - English Translation). The purpose of this conference is to encourage indigenous Christian pastors and leaders to take initiative to reach the Indigenous people of Brazil (and all of South America). It was a great trip! I don't think their are words to express the impact this trip had on me...

I am not going to go into a lot of detail now because I am going to do an update in the next few days that will give a lot more of the detail. Below are a few picture of people and things from the trip. :-)

The sign says "Welcome."

Lucia and Geane - two young women that lived in the dorm. Lucia was an intern at Ammi, and Geane is a student. I will have more to say about them in my update and later on my blog. God is using both of them in a big way!!

The dinner serving line. There were around 3,000 people there and 6 serving lines for food. I was pleasantly surprised at how fast the lines moved.

Big pot-o-beans!!

Lettuce....lots-o-lettuce!

I think this was dinner one of the first nights we were at AMMI.

It was REALLY good.

Chicken Coop? No... Throw a little plastic around the front and back, and then put a post in the ground and some plastic around that and attach it to the building so no one could see in..... Viola! Ladies dressing room!

The multipurpose room became sleeping quarters for many that attended the conference. It was too cold and windy for many people to sleep outside.

My sleeping quarters....the girls dorm.

Wouldn't change that arrangement for anything!

Scary, but true... This is the light switch and where we plug in our phones to charge (below) and the fan switch (top). The nice thing about the loose wires is that you don't have to let your phone dangle down, you can just shove it in behind the wires and it holds perfectly. #lookingforthebrightside

There is a reason they call these "widow makers."

I thought this was a little funny & scary until I saw the one in the girls dorm...

#hotwater

Girls dorm shower....not so funny...

#nohotwater

Actually - the cold water wasn't bad after working outside all day...

Cute little kiddos I hung out with one morning.

WA Area Director, the dude over the Portuguese speaking countries (I am sure he will appreciate the formal job description there :-), and the new Site Vol Coord for Brazil (currently in Portuguese Lang School); taking a break and having coffee in Chapada.

Hanging out in Kay's kitchen.

Kay and her husband, Dave, have been missionaries in Brazil for 30+ years. Karissa is their daughter.

Kay made coffee and breakfast for the WA team and whoever else showed up at her house in the morning. Good cook and good friend!

Tapioca - It is some kind of stuff sprinkled into the pan that firms and sticks together when heated (a crust). Then you can fill it with whatever you want...meat, cheese, fruit, etc...

This one had banana, cinnamon, and sweetened condensed milk. Breakfast!

We are at a lookout point about 8k from Chapada. See pics below.

The WA work team that went to Brazil.

Matt, me, John & Horace

I am standing on the center point of South America.

That hill is as big as it looks, and the bus to take me home is at the top. ;-)

The view!

Yes....this is exactly what it looks like.

There is video, but I want to protect the face of the innocent...

One of the adults joined in too...it was all his idea....

he had to bribe the younger ones to do it by promising he would do it.

There is video of this one too...tempting... :-)

Kissing Post? NO...surly you know me better than THAT! It was "measure by Paula day." You've never heard of that? Me neither... There was one morning when we had two different projects where we needed things set at a consistent height. In this picture we were putting up clothes lines. It was decided that we would use my face as a way to measure where to put the holes in the posts to run the string through. The second project we were hanging electrical wire between posts. It needed to be high so that people wouldn't hang clothes on it, but we didn't have enough ladders. Since I was the tallest one working on the project we hung the wire "as high as Paula could reach to keep tension in the wire." So I stood on my tippy toes holding tension in the wire as high as I could while someone else hammered in the staples. Whatever works, right??