To celebrate our 5th Anniversary, we decided getaway to Natal, Brazil for a few days. Natal is a city on the beach in northern Brazil. Click here to see more about it. In preparation for Noah’s first visit to the beach, Amanda put together a ”rice box” to practice not putting the rice/sand in his mouth. Noah has absolutely loved it! He points at it and asks to play in it almost everyday.

When we got to the beach, Noah was already a pro. He loved playing in the sand, helping Jake make sand castles (by knocking them down) and even getting his legs buried in the sand. I think he loved the ocean even more than the beach.

We are thankful for 5 years of marriage (next month), some good food, rest, and some time away together as a family.

Click below to hear about what is happening in our lives and ministry at CLM Turvo.

The Teaters Prayer Letter May2012

Here is an update on our ministry here at CLM Turvo.

March 2012 Prayer Letter

We usually breath a sigh of relief when school starts back up.  During the school year we do not need people to work in the morning except to wake the kids up, get them ready, and take them to school.  However, during summer vacation we end up having people working either a morning/afternoon shift, or a afternoon/evening shift.  This means that the morning and evening shifts have fewer child caretakers.

Now that the school year has started, most everyone works together during the afternoon/evening shift.  With “all hands on deck” we are able to have a lot more quality time with the kids.  For example, during study time (from after lunch until about 3:30) Mary has set up a rotation of stations or centers.  I (Jake) work in the computer station teaching each kid computer skills and Amanda does occupational therapy at her station. Other stations include homework, reading, math reinforcement, and English activities. Since everyone is working, we are able to keep class size down to about one to two kids per station.  Being able to give the kids more personal attention helps us to better teach the kids (who all have difficulties with learning) in a supportive environment. Education also tends to be very weak at most of the schools here; therefore, we are also trying to really supplement their schooling with more learning opportunities.

Here are few school related prayer requests:

• Pray for good school behavior (and good communication with the teachers).
• That the kids would make good choice in friendships and that we could be an influence in that area.
• Pray for their learning abilities.

Amanda and I got a new camera for Christmas this year. It is a standard canon point and shoot camera with a nice zoom. Since it is a Canon, I can install CHDK on it (ie, hack it), which then opens up a lot of new features.  Not all of the new features work well and the quality can suffer.  But it’s fun to try some new things out.

The first picture is of the moon, obviously.  The second picture was taken at night.  I set the exposure for about five minutes, which is why the stars left the trail.  There is a lot of noise in the image, as the camera is not made for long exposures. The third image is of the waterfall behind CLM Turvo.  I took it at dusk  was able to set the ISO low and increase the length of the exposure.  I took five images at varying levels of brightness (adjusting the EV) and then stitched them together to make an HDR image.

We just sent out our February prayer letter. If you did not get it in your email, just follow the link below.

February 2012 Prayer Letter

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When we took my parents into Curitiba I discovered two new reasons to dislike driving in Curitiba.  First, as I was arriving in the city I noticed a new street sign that they have decided to torture me with.   It said “Mão Inglesa” or English Way, (as apposed to One Way).  It seems that they now have a few two way streets in which you have to drive on the wrong (left) side of the road.

My next discovery happened at an intersection that is hard to describe, so I made a little diagram of it which you can find below. Basically, the North/South road is one way and the East and West roads are both one way – but pointed at each other. There are 3 ways to get into the intersection and only one way out.  The intersection has stoplights to control the flow of traffic. So far so good.

I entered the intersection from the west.  The east/west stop lights were red, and the north to south traffic was moving through.  Then their light turned red and my light green.  As I moved into the intersection I noticed that the lights on the east side of the intersection also turned green.  So now there were two one way roads that ended face to face, both with green lights.  One road had three lanes, the other two.  We both had to merge into three lane road, all while avoiding head on collisions.

Thankful we arrived safely and were able to spend some with my parents relaxing in Curitiba.   Below you will find the diagram in the intersection and some night pictures from the top of the hotel we stayed in.

On Saturday we (Bill & Debbie, Abbie and Jake) headed off to the Red Swamp, the village where my adopted brother grew up.  It is a long trip past the paper mill and down unpaved roads.  While we were there we met up with Jeremiah’s god-father Lino and his family (who Jeremiah lived with for a while after his dad died).  We sat on Lino’s front porch and drank chimarrão (yerba mate) and talked about Jeremiah.  They were impressed that not only does Jeremiah own a car, he also rents it to his sister, (Lino does not own a car).

After talking to Lino we headed further down the (muddy) road for another 25 miles to Salto São Francisco, a 620 foot water fall. Because of a recent rain the road conditions were pretty bad and it took us about an hour and fifteen minutes to make the last leg of the trip. While the recent downpoor made traveling difficult, it did make the the waterfall all the more beautiful.

To put it in perspective, the Illinois River drops about 550 feet from Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico.  Salto São Francisco falls that, and more in a matter of a few feet.  It has only recently been made a tourist destination.  The last time my dad was at Salto São Francisco, in 2006, they had just begun to install guard rails around the cliffs surrounding the waterfall.  Six years later the guard rail is finished, the road to the falls from Guarapuava is mostly paved and they have built a nice welcome center with a restaurant.

On Wednesday we (Jake, Amanda, Bill, Debbie and Abbie) went out to a local Fish ‘n Pay, where you fish in a well stocked pond and they cook it up for you.  This fish ‘n pay also has a couple of pools to swim in as well.

We had a good time swimming and fishing – even though we only got two fish.

Late New Years Eve we received some special visitors,  Bill & Debbie and Abbie arrived for a visit.  Their travels went well and their luggage arrived safely.  Bill and Debbie will be staying with us until the 11th and Abbie will be here for four months.  Abbie will be helping out at the orphanage, as well as helping with Noah while Amanda does evaluations and grocery shopping for CLM.