The Teaters in Brazil

Bikes!

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:31:38 +0000

Thanks to extra support we have received recently we bought five bikes to ride with the kids. Here at CLM bikes usually don’t last that long. They are ridden almost constantly and when they break the kids try to fix the bikes themselves… So the bikes we bought are only to be used when going on rides with an adult; hopefully this way they will last longer. I will also be fixing them with the help of those who ride them – teaching them about bike repair and maintenance.

I have a couple of trips in mind that I want to take them on. I really enjoy biking since it is something most anyone can do and it is something that puts most on a level playing field.

The first trip I want to go on with the kids is to Guarapuava and back. Its about 20 miles one way. We will take the back rode to Guarapuava which is a dirt/stone road, but has much less traffic. Between CLM and Guarapuava there is a valley, so we will have to ride up and out of it on the way there and again on the way back. The hills are over 1 mile long and have some very steep parts. (Click here to read more about the last time I biked to Guarapuava with the CLM boys and walked half way back… )

I have told the kids that in order to be able to go to Guarapuava they must pass a couple of tests. The first is a 11 mile ride, the second is biking up (or at least getting the bike up) a 1 mile hill that is close to CLM (the hill is a total vertical climb of 600 feet - to put that in to perspective Tremont is 650 feet above sea level). Whoever is able to that will be allowed to go. So far 5 have completed the challenges.

The second trip is something that I have wanted to do for a while - go from CLM Entre Rios to CLM Turvo. I am still looking into how best to do it. One of the best routes would be by going first to Salto Sao Francisco (a 600ft water fall), spending the night and then the next day going to Turvo…

February Prayer Letter

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 01:13:10 +0000

Here is our February Update. Click on the picture below to read our Prayer Letter!

New Video

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:30:00 +0000

The Salahis had their minute with the President when they crashed a party, even some tourists who just went for a White House tour ended up eating breakfast with him. So if I had the President's ear for just one minute, this is the plea I would give.

Lots of Firsts (for Amanda)

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 22:28:33 +0000

It has been a busy 2010 already. In the last 3 weeks, I experienced my 1st Brazilian New Year, 1st Brazilian Wedding, 1st Brazilian Baptism, and 1st new CLM child.

As some of you may have heard, CLM hosted Loeci (former CLM child) and her husband, Marcelo's wedding two weeks ago. There were lots of preparations to prepare the house, grounds, and children. I had started working on laying out wedding clothes for each of the kids about a month ago. And it was a good thing, because I was still working on it up until the day of. With some very excited to but on "more than their Sunday best" and a few who needed a little convincing to put on more than shorts and flip-flops, each of our kids looked spectacular. Jake and a few of the older boys directed cars - in a lot of rain. But thankfully it died down for the most part by the time the wedding started. Despite the rain, the wedding was beautiful.

Last Sunday we had baptism, hosted here at CLM. The service was done inside - again because of a lot of rain. (Apparently, it rains just about every day - and sometimes 6-8 times a day). But, thankfully, the sun came out and we were able to go down to the pool to watch 10 people be baptized - including one of our older CLM girls, Josiele. We praise God that she has decided to give her heart to Christ and follow him. We pray for many of the others to follow suit.

We were excited to receive Mateus, 4, into the CLM family. He is the youngest brother of Alisson, Aline, and Alex who all came to CLM last year. Mateus had been in the government orphanage and he was able to be transferred to be with his siblings. He is a bit insecure and happy little boy. Jake had to use his i-pod and a little guitar playing to get Mateus to go to bed the first few nights but he is doing better each day.

Click here to see the rest of the pictures in the album

Keeping Clean

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

To help keep the kids' rooms cleaner, we have divided up the responsibility. I am in charge of Lucas, Arivaldo and Luquinho's room.

It has been a bit of a challenge, as Luquinho can be somewhat of a Dennis the Menace. Most of the recent problems have been related to his desire to decorate his room for Christmas. First, he tried to decorate it with an entire roll of tape, which he was able to clean up easily. From tape he moved to candles. He set the curtains on fire and the room was a mess from the fire extinguisher powder. He spent 5-6 hours cleaning that one up.

At that point, I decided to help decorate and bought them a small Christmas tree and we made some ornaments. That went well until he decided to paint them, but thankfully he only made a small mess with the paint.

Since then, things have calmed down. The boys were even able to go for 2 weeks straight of keeping their room clean. So they have won the reward of painting the walls in their room. They are excited about it and by process of elimination they have picked blue and orange as the colors they would like. Red was too violent, yellow and brown were too disgusting, etc. So, blue and orange were all that were left. The process of painting may be another adventure; however, hopefully, it will give them more appreciation for their room and cleanliness.

The Beginning of 2010...

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:20:25 +0000

Here is our first prayer letter for 2010. Click the picture to read it.

Live Digital Picture Frame Hack

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:23:34 +0000

Web Cam to Wireless Digital Picture Frame Mod
Wireless digital picture frames have the ability to download content from the Internet. These frames can display everything from friends' pictures sent via cell phone, to Facebook updates.

In this video/post I will demonstrate how to create a 'live' digital picture frame that displays up-to-date pictures from a web cam.

As you will see in the video I did this to be able to send live pictures of the sunset set to my parents house, halfway across the world.

To do this all you need as far as hardware is concerned is a wireless digital picture frame and a web cam. To the left and the right are a couple of different wireless digital picture frame options. Both of these can access FrameChannel content and should have no problem becoming a 'live' digital picture frame.

Cheap Option:

Expensive Option:

Yawcam
On the software side of things you will need the program Yawcam. You can get that here for free.

RSS Feed
Here is a link to a template of the RSS feed I used in the video. Just unzip the file and right click on rssfeed.html:
Open With -> Notepad. (You may have the click choose program -> Notepad)
Once in Notepad search for *** (three asterisks). In between the asterisks you will find a necessary field. Have the URL of your picture ready and just paste it in over the asterisks. Save and upload! Now just type in yoursite.com/rssfeed.html and you should see a basic feed with one picture. Just copy the URL (yoursite.com/rssfeed.html) and add it as a feed in Frame Channel.

Web Server
You will need a HTTP server. If you do not have one, you can look into free hosting options.

Without a RSS Feed and HTTP server - All you need is Windows Media Player and a digital picture frame that can access a Upnp Server

It is possible to do this if you do not want to use a HTTP server or an RSS feed. However, your images will only be available as far as your home network reaches.

First, open Windows Media Player and click on:
Tools -> Options -> Library -> Configure Sharing
In this window check "Share my media" and click OK.
Now go to your picure frame and have it look for Upnp servers. Yours will pop up, but without any pictures. That is because you need to return to your computer and you should have a message from Windows Media Player asking you if you want to allow a device to access the server. Click yes.

Now if you go back to your frame you should be able to see the media folders in your My Documents directory.

The next step is to configure Yawcam to create a file on your hard drive, instead of upload a file to the internet.

First create a directory in My Pictures. Next, in Yawcam click:
Settings -> Edit settings -> File -> Browse
Now find the directory you just created and have it save the images in there. Configure the Image array wizard as is shown in the video. Click OK and next to 'File' click 'Enable'.

Now, at your picture frame just open the newly created directory and select the image. Thats it!

Other Ideas:

Text pictures to it from your cell phone: FrameChannel.com gives your picture frame an email address. You, or friends and family can send pictures to your frame from their cell phones by simply putting in its email address instead of your cell phone number.

Show your friends' Facebook updates on your frame

Display recent posts to your favorite blogs on your frame

Display the weather forecast, current news etc.

Christmas Party provided by the Judge

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:37:48 +0000

Yesterday we had a special outing to Hotel/Park sponsored by the Judge for Christmas. CLM, CLM Turvo, and the government orphanage were invited for a day of swimming, paddle boat rides, carriage rides, lunch, a snack, and Christmas gifts.

To see more pictures click here

We were able to get a rented bus from the city to make one trip rather than several kombi trips. To make the day less chaotic, the CLM team split up the kids so that each adult could be responsible for just 2-3 kids. When we first arrived it was very overcast and chilly. So we started with some paddle boat rides and carriage rides. Within an hour, the sun came out and there were more kids than water in the pool. The smaller pool lost half of its water while we were there. After lunch they opened an inside heated pool for the babies. I took Maria Luiza and had a wonderful time in quiet, warm water. She has no fear of the water and just giggled and splashed the whole time.

We discovered a few more siblings of a couple of the CLM kids. One of the little girls met her little brother that she hadn't seen in a few years. Apparently the rest of her siblings have been removed because her dad took the little brother to a bar with him and gave him some to drink. This may help move her release for adoption. Pray that the process may be moving forward. Our CLM baby also met her two older sisters. They seem to have more fetal alcohol characteristics. Maria seems to be the cutest and most animated of the siblings.

As with Brazilian style, Santa Claus was about 2 hours late! The kids didn't complain about the extra play time and then received their gift from the judge. I would guess that 1/2 the bus was sleeping on the way home. We are thankful for the special time that the Judge provided for the CLM kids.

Homemade Solar Water Heater < $300

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:06:01 +0000

Why Solar Hot Water?
Heating water requires a lot of energy. For example here in Brazil we use instant water heaters that are built into the shower head. To raise water by 45F degrees (from 60F to 105F) about 5,000 to 7,500 watts are required. That is equivalent to heating your shower water with four or five microwaves on at the same time! In America typical water heaters have 4,500 watt heating elements (think 45 100 watt light bulbs on at the same time). Needless to say with electricity costing 0.22 cents USD per kilowatt hour here in Brazil, there is a financial incentive to find an alternative way to heat water.

Before I get into how I built the heater here is some basic information about it:

It heats 80 gallons (310 liters) of water to 135F (55C) on sunny days.

It cost me $300 USD

I used PVC instead of copper to reduce costs

To increase efficiency I sheathed the pipes in the collector with glass tubes made from old florecent bulbs. Click here to read why I did this

For $30 USD I installed an automatic electric backup for cloudy days.

It is a passive solar heater, so there are no moving parts - it relies on a thermosyphon to circulate the water.

The solar collector is approximately 27ft2 (2.5 m2)

Sponsored Links

Building the Heater

The solar water heater consists of two basic parts, the hot water tank and the solar collector. The tank is 310 liters (80 gallons), it sits in the attic and is insulated with spray foam insulation.

The solar collector is made up of 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch PVC pipe and florescent light bulbs. The collector is encased in an insulated box with glass on one side.

The solar collector is approximately 2.5 m2 (27 ft2), the pipes that are exposed to the sun have a total volume of about 18.5 liters (5 gallons), which is equivalent to 6% of the volume of the hot water tank. (Meaning that if the water circulates 16-17 times all the water in the tank will have been heated once, in theory).

To make the plumbing part of the heater I bought 64 T fittings and with them made 2 pipes, 32 T's each with the T's butt up against each other. Then between the two I put a pipe that was just a bit longer than a florescent bulb.

To prepare the bulbs I tore off the metal parts on each end, then poked a large hole in both ends so that a 1/2 inch pipe could fit through. (Click Here to read more about this step) Then I pushed a piece of a sponge through a couple of times to clean out the powder. When I was done I had a long glass tube. While I was taking apart the bulbs I used a mask and was sure to wash my hands and cloths afterwards, since they contain mercury.

Close up of the bulbs and pipes, The entire array, The solar collector in the insulated box.
Click for larger images.

The bulbs were painted black on the back side, and the pipes were completely painted black. Then I closed off the ends of the bulbs with tin foil and a bit of spray foam, since they are just used as a basic insulator its not that important that they be air tight. The solar collector was lined with black plastic, underneath were some Styrofoam sheets to help insulate the heater.

The Heater installed (before glass I tried transparent plastic sheeting but it wilted in the heat), Installing the Water tank
Click for larger images.

The panel was installed at a 35 degree angle and about 1 foot below the bottom of the water tank. It is below the tank so that it does not act as a water cooler at night. Basically, the cold water is already at the bottom, so it should not circulate with the water in the hot water tank. Click here for more on how to connect it to the water tank.

On sunny days when the outside temperature is in the mid 80's the water heats up to about 135 or more. Even on cloudy days the water heats up to the 90's.

How to prepare the florescent bulbs

There are two ways to break open the ends.

Method #1:

The simple, but tedious way is to puncture them with a screw driver. Here's how I did it:
First I tore off the metal caps, then I put a screw driver in the end and wrapped a rag around. The rag is dual purpose. One, it helped protect me from the mercury inside (I also wore a mask and did it in a ventilated area), the rag also helped slow down the air as it flowed into the bulb. The bulbs seem to have a near vacuum inside them, so when they are punctured the air enters pretty quickly, and can propel some of the debris from the puncturing into the other end and break it. The rag helps slow the air down. After the bulb was broken on both ends I tapped out just enough glass so that a � inch pipe could fit in I found G.E. bulbs to be the easiest to work with. Afterwards be sure to wash your hands.

In the end the bulbs are just for insulation so they don\'t have to be perfect. They just keep the hot air around the pipe, and the ends are sealed off with foil, which covers up a lot of the imperfections. Of the bulbs in my collector about � of them have breaks or small imperfections. But it doesn\'t seem to matter, it still increases efficiency.

Method #2:

Here is a link to the other way to break open the ends. It isn\'t nearly as simple. I haven\'t tried it, but it was published in a magazine so I am sure it works. I found it with an article about a florescent bulb solar air heater. It uses common items to build a glass cutter. From what the site says, it should make nice looking cuts. Link to cutter instructions

Connecting it to the water tank - I put 5 holes into the tank. They are listed here from highest to lowest.

Over flow - just a pipe that carries water out of the tank if the float were to malfunction and it were to over fill.

Water Intake Valve. Just a pipe and float that fills up the tank with more water as we use it, similar to what is used in a toilet tank.

Hot water pipe. This feeds the house with hot water. It is above the two pipes that feed the solar heater so that there is always water in the solar heater. This protects it from over heating if our water pump shuts off and no water comes into the tank to replace the water we have used.

Return from Solar Heater. This pipe connects to the top of the solar heater, and to the top of the tank, just below the pipes above. As the water is heated it becomes less dense and rises. As it rises cold water takes its place. So the hot water flows slowly through the return to the top of the tank.

Supply to the Solar Heater. This pipe connects to the bottom of the solar heater, it also connects to the bottom of the tank. It supplies the solar heater with the cooler water that settles to the bottom of the water tank.

Cheap $30 Backup System for Cloudy Days:

On mostly cloudy days the heater reaches about 90 degrees, on very cloudy and windy days it wont get above 80 and may only reach 70. So I came up with a backup. (Note: while I have this tested and installed, I actually have it unplugged to save electricity). I bought a 'Bucket Heater' that automatically turns on at 80 degrees and turns off at 110.

I suspended it inside the water tank so that it only heats the upper portion of the water. I assume that if it were resting on the bottom that the hot water would rise. By the time the hot thermostat measured 110, the water at the top of the tank would be well over that.

Why I built the solar water heater this way

After doing a lot of research on the internet, and a couple experiments I came to a few conclusions.

While glass does block/reflect some of the light, it also creates an insulating buffer. The benefits of the insulating buffer out ways the lost light. This is essentially the same insulating concept used in double glazed windows.

Since the temperature loss increases when the difference between the outside temperature and the temperate inside the water heater increases, it is better to heat a lot of water to 110-115 degrees, than to heat a little water to 150 degrees. For example, if the hot water tank is at 150 and the outside temperature is 80, there is a 70 degree difference and more heat will be lost through the insulation than if the temperature difference was 30 degrees, and the hot water was at 110.

Passive solar heating requires (as the name implies) no moving parts. As water warms up it becomes less dense and moves upward, pulling cold water into the collector. This requires no pump, making it very simple and energy efficient, as well as there being less to go wrong.

A solar heater would heat the water using two forms of heat transfer, radiation and convection. Radiation would reach at best 180 degrees of the pipe, convection would reach 360 degrees of the pipe, doubling the surface area. In other words, as well as trying to expose the pipes to as much sun as possible, I needed to also trap hot air produced by the radiation around the pipe to help heat it even more.

With this in mind I set out to design a solar collector. I priced copper but found it to be very expensive. PVC was much cheaper, but it does not withstand more that 135 degrees. This I found out not to be entirely true.

After some tests I found that the PVC pipe itself will withstand higher temperatures without losing rigidity, however I assume that the fittings would begin to fail at lower, but still hot, temperatures. I should also note that the water pressure in the collector is very low, just as much pressure as is created by about 2-4 feet of fall, others who had failures in their PVC fittings had put their heater inline before their water heater, as a primer. Unlike houses in the USA where the water enters the house already pressurized, houses in rural Brazil have water tanks in their attics to create pressure. So I figured that the max temp for my PVC would be higher than the standard since I have sub standard pressure and will subject the pipes to much less stress.

So decided to go with PVC and to insulate the fittings from the temperature inside the collector and protect them from sunlight. That way only the pipe itself would be exposed to the sun light and the highest temperatures.

Since I wanted to try to keep the heat close to the pipes I decided to use old florescent bulbs to act as a second glazing. The wind will cool the glass panels that cover the solar collector, which in turn cools the air inside the collector. The florescent bulbs act as another barrier. The trap in the hotter air around the pipes and keep it from circulating with the cooler air outside of the bulbs. In tests the pipes with bulbs heated up faster and to a higher temperature than those without.

HDR Pictures

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:53:10 +0000

I recently found out about HDR pictures. Normally when you take a picture, of a sun set for example, the foreground ends up very dark, since the camera adjusts itself for the bright sun by darkening the entire picture.

HDR pictures are a composite of multiple pictures taken at different exposures. For example, if I were taking a picture of a sun set I would take one with a short exposure which would capture the colors and details of the sun set, but leave the foreground dark and blotchy. Then I would take a picture with long exposure, capturing the foreground but leaving the bright sky washed out.

After that the two pictures are run through a program (photoshop, or even some online services) and it creates one picture by combining the images.

It also is able to understand how the camera interprets color and is able to increase the color saturation in a natural way (or in an unnatural way, for example the picture of the tree). So you end up with a picture that captures the sunset with all its color.

Here are a couple of pictures I took using this process:

Click on a picture to see it in its original size.

November Prayer Letter

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:35:35 +0000

Click on the picture below to read our latest Prayer Letter!

Children's Day 2009

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:28:56 +0000

It's taken us a week or so to get a video together and get it up on the website but here is Children's Day 2009 ...just hit "play".

Children's day is a national holiday here in Brazil, similar to Father's Day and Mother's Day. Sunday the church plus 50 some others from the community came over to CLM for a wonderful lunch and activities planned by the church. Sunday was also the opening day for swimming. The kids had their bathing suits on at 8 am waiting for the pool to be open at 3 pm. On Monday, we celebrated CLM as a family. Mike & Mary introduced the kids to street hockey which has quickly become a new favorite. Mike also put up a jousting beam across the pool which was thoroughly enjoyed by the older boys. Jake & I organized some water balloon games. We finished off the day with swimming and hot dogs and chips at the pool.

We praise God for these kids - that we can be a part of their lives and daily try to show them how special they are and how much God loves them.

October Prayer Letter

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Click on the picture below to read our latest Prayer Letter!

Remodeling

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:52:04 +0100

Check out a little video we made of our home remodeling project! Just hit "Play".

Our First Week at CLM

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

We have been at CLM now for one week now! We are pretty much settled in with all the major stuff inside finished. It will probably be a few months before we get the outside of our house done. Jake is hoping to get the solar water heater up and running today so I can have hot water to wash dishes!!!!

We are really enjoying spending little times with the kids. Mike and Mary gave us a good idea. Jake & I are planning to have the kids over in small groups for dinner over the next couple months to get to know them better. We decided to have them over in the month they arrived at CLM. Our first group were siblings - Lucilene, Janete, and Elielton. They came in 2002 so we knew them from before. As a short-termer, I remember putting the girls to bed when they were just 4 and 7. It was nice seeing how they have grown and changed. We showed them pictures of when they were very little and enjoyed some good laughs together. 3 down, 29 to go. I can't wait.

On the downside, since CLM is on a farm and our house sits next to a field, we are finding all sorts of new bugs that think they are moving in with us. I added a really big bubble to put over the house on Jake's To Do List.

Current Bug Report

2 Scorpions

1 really long centipede

1 big spider

various little spiders, flies, and slugs

August/September Prayer Letter

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:10:51 +0100

Click on the picture below to read our latest Prayer Letter!

Snippits of Brazilian Culture

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:14:51 +0100

We are continually getting used to Brazilian culture. In some ways it already seems "normal". Some aspects that we really enjoy are the focus on relationships rather than time. We have had people stop at our house just to chat. Very few people give hand shakes when you meet. You get a lot of hugs and quite a few kisses too. There seems to be less of a rush.

We have also discovered some quirks in Brazilian culture so far. Everything shuts down at 11:30 or 12 and doesn't open again until 2. Several times we've been on our way to the hardware store to pick something up for the house...and realize we would have to wait a few hours before we could get anything else done. Gas stations can also close fairlyl early at night. If we would have waited just 10 minutes longer... we would have been a half hour away from the nearest gas station and not enough gas to get there. There are also moments when I feel like we are in a Flinstone episode. Also while we were driving, we past a man sitting in the middle of a new construction sight next to a big pile of rocks. He had a small chisel in hand and was carving the rocks into square stones. One last one that made me chuckle this week. I was helping a lady here with some English and she was asking me how to say different types of clothing in English. I came across one I hadn't heard before. In Portuguese, a tube top or strapless dress is called "Tomara que caia", which is to say "I hope it falls down". I think a man must have given it that name. Oh Brazil, How we love you!

Language Training........ check

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:05:50 +0100

Things are moving forward for us here in Brazil. Today I finished my third and final book of portugues so my official language training is finished. However, I know learning will never really be done. I look forward to continuing to learn and mold my speech until I'm not suspected to be an American.

Our house is also slowly coming together. We have the little kitchen addition finished on the outside and our bathroom mostly finished. We have started filling in the walls to make them flat. It is quite a process. By filling them in we hope not only for a more pleasant looking room but also for a warmer one.

Here is a picture of Jake filling in the walls in the family room. Hopefully by the end of the week we will have the final "plaster" layer added so that it is all uniform. In the next couple of weeks, our goal is to finish putting in new ceilings, paint, put tile in the family room/kitchen, and install a solar hot water heater. Our goal is to move in by mid-September and start full time ministry on Oct. 1. We are getting anxious to finish up so we can really start our ministry. But we also realize that the slower pace, more lax schedule will soon be replaced by a much more intense one but with amazing opportunities as well.

This past weekend was absolutely beautiful. The weather was in the high 70's, maybe 80's and so sunny. It has been so good to warm up. We took a hike down to some waterfalls, Rappel, located about 10 minutes from CLM. There is a huge hill and ravine that you climb down in order to reach them. (It reminds me of the hill that Princess Buttercup rolls down in Princess Bride.) It is well worth the hike. The falls are so beautiful. We were able to share them with Sonya Haring and her group from Columbus as well as the Stuber family from Tremont who is adopting Nina (Elaininha) from CLM. It was fun being the one to translate rather than to need the translation.

Click here to see more recent pics

3 months in Brazil & July Prayer Letter

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:24:53 +0100

Today marks 3 months since we arrived in Brazil. It is hard to believe. Every day is still a new encounter - a new word, a new cultural experience, or just trying a new food. But in other ways it seems so normal already.

I wanted to share some thoughts about a devotional excerpt I (Amanda) read from today. It says: "How far do you want God to go in getting your attention? If God has to choose between your eternal safety and your earthly comfort, which do you hope he chooses? What if he moved you to another land? (As he did Abraham.)What if he called you out of retirement? (Remember Moses.) ..."

My first thought was - Aha! I already moved, maybe God doesn't need to get my attention anymore. Then, I thought - it seems quite the opposite. God seems to be getting my attention even more lately through a lot of these new experiences. I also had to think back to the long journey of God's getting my attention to come to CLM. God knew my heart and that I needed baby steps - preparing me slowly through many experiences over many years before it became a reality. God is so faithful! or as they say here "Deus e fiel". The more I learn to trust Him the more I realize that the eternal far outweighs anything earthly.

Click here to see a copy of our Prayer Letter

One small step...

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:53:14 +0100

Today in my lesson one of the sentences I had to translate to portugues was about Neil Armstrong first walking on the moon. This afternoon I felt like I was him. I want to say "One small step for Amanda, one gaint leap for her portugues!"

Jake has been in the colonies working on remodeling our future house on the days he doesn't have class. He asked me to run a few errands after my class this morning including: picking colors and buying all the paint we will need and buying tile for the bathroom. What a feat!!! I was pretty worried about it because it was my first real "important" excursion without him. I had gone grocery shopping and shopping for clothes on my own.. but this was a whole new test for my portugues skills. Normally I can just rely on Jake to do all the talking

Half the battle was finding the places. I knew more or less where I was going. But since I was walking, I wandered a bit before I found the right shops. I decided to tell the clerk at the paint store right up front that I was an American and was still learning portugues that way he didn't think I was strange or had some sort of disability. It actually went better than I thought. They showed me colors, and we calculated the amounts of paint from the sizes of the rooms. I even asked questions about matching our bedding to the wall color, how the colors went together, and if there were cheaper/different brands/types. I think it was a success.. but I guess we will see when we pick up the paint. If it is hot pink... we'll no it may have been more like a step backward for my portugues.

I stopped in a few other shops on my way back checking on a few other things we had been looking for and was able to communicate with them without any major confusion. And best of all.. I made it home right before it started pouring down rain. I can say that God has definitely been faithful!!! I know that it is He who is making my brain run in new patterns and making my tongue do some very strange things. I am definitely starting to feel more comfortable in this new Brazilian world and I praise Him for that!!

Sore Arms

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0100

I (Amanda) have had the opportunity for a few new experiences lately. On Saturday (Jake�s birthday) we had planned to go to a churrascaria (Brazilian BBQ) for dinner - which is Jake�s favoirte - unlimited rounds of meat. However, the lights in the car were accidently left on earlier in the day, so when we went to leave for dinner, the battery was dead and wouldn�t start. Since it is a manual car, Jake thought we could give it a push start and hope that the motor would catch. We learned that our driveway has a dip in it, so once we got to a certain point each time, it got hard to push. We tried a dozen times with no success. At this point it was close to 9 pm - and there wasn�t a single grocery store, mechanic, or gas station open within walking distance. So we went back into the house to look for anything that we could use to jump start the battery. We found a remote control car that Jake had bought to use with the kids at CLM a few years ago. With its 12V battery charger and a few extension cords, we hooked up the battery to our car. By the following morning, our battery was charged and the car started right up. We learned later that the reason it didn�t start when we pushed it was because the alarm had been on when the battery died - some sort of feature to keep your car from being stolen.

As my arms were starting to feel better, we decided to begin doing a little work at our future home at CLM. We have decided to add a very small addition onto the kitchen to allow us to fit our kitchen table in the kitchen rather than into the also very small family room. So with a sledge hammer and a few small shovels, we got to work removing the concrete porch that was there and digging a few inches down to prepare the floor to be poured. I don�t think hard (physical) labor is my calling here in Brazil but it certainly seems as if God is giving my opportunities to work my arms.

A Monkey, a Bonsai Tree & a Walmart Run

Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 +0100

This week Amanda finished a knitting project that she started while we were waiting on our visa - a small stuffed monkey. It was a long wait, but he is finally finished. He may need a little reinforcement though - unfortunately he came close to losing his left arm during his first night at CLM.

We also got a bonsai tree - which are incredibly cheap here in Brazil. We looked online for ones in America and they were $40-$100. We got the same type - a Jaboticaba Bonsai for $8. Jaboticabas are apparently fruit baring trees, so maybe in a few years we will have jam! We are investigating how to prune and shape it. We can't decide between making it into a sphere, basic shape, or more clustered like you see in Japanese restaurants. Any suggestions? Aside from the fun of having a little tree, I am also using this as a learning experience for when I put together a terrarium for the CLM kids, which I will put up a post about later.

We made our first Walmart run while we were in Curitiba. It was strangely familiar yet had some very distinctive differences. The colors were the same and a lot of the products were the same just less variety than an American Walmart. At this Walmart, all of the employees wore roller skates and zoomed down the aisles, sometimes making it difficult to catch their attention to get help finding a certain item. But for sure the prices were much better than other stores here... so we loaded up our cart...not knowing when we will have another chance for a Walmart run. We could not find any french vanilla creamer, so we went down the road about 3 miles to a similar store called 'Big' to see if they had some. After about 10 minutes there we discovered that Walmart owns Big, and they stock the same items... But we did find some back in Guarapuava and bought half of them.

To view pictures in larger size, click here

New-old Friends and New-old Cars

Sat, 30 May 2009 18:39:30 +0100

We met some very close friends of the CLM family as well as Amanda's family. If some of you are familiar with CLM history, a Christian man by the name of Jacob Lay donated the land for CLM Entre Rios, having a vision from God to help the Brazilian orphans. As well, this same man was Amanda's Grandpa Gutai's boss in the 50's when he lived in Brazil before immigrating to the United States. We spent some time with Jacob, who is now in his mid 80's, listening to stories about CLM's start and his friendship with Amanda's family. We also met up with Jacob's son, Robert, who lives in Curitiba and has a heart for helping others - especially helping others buy cars. He took us to a dealership of a friend and helped us get a good deal on a car. Robert gave us a ride to Curitiba (a city of around 2 million about 4 hours away)For the price we wanted to pay, here in Guarapuava we could only get a very basic '94 small car. In Curitiba, we found a car with a few more options (still very basic by American standards) but much newer - a 2000 Renault Clio. It has a few quirks we are trying to iron out but we are very thankful to have a better mode of transportation now. Unfortunately, automatic cars are very rare here. So begins driving lessons for Amanda!!

In Brazil cars hold there value and depreciate very slowly. For example, in Brazil a 97 S10 will cost you about $15,000 USD, where as in the States it would cost around $3000. So here cars are an investment. If we take good care of our car we should be able to trade it in for a few years with only a small loss in value.

Our Clio has a 1 liter engine. My friend Kevin King has a motorcycle with a 1.1 liter engine... It means that we get good gas mileage (around 40 m/gal), but we go pretty slow up hills.

To view larger photos, click here

Where we are on Google Maps

Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Below is a map of where we are living. To see it on a larger page click here.

The bottom marker is our house - click on it to see a picture. The top marker is Wizard - our language school (click for picture). The blue highlighted area between is Baratao - a big grocery store.

View Our House in a larger map

When evidencing the reduction of the bursts...

Sat, 09 May 2009 13:51:39 +0100

Sometimes we find some pretty hilarious English translations. Here is one of them, its 4 steps of instructions to make... Well you can try to figure it out.

1. Remove the content of this packaging and places it in the microwave oven with the side of the instructions in the top.

2. Regulate the microwave oven in the maximum power programming the time of the burst for 2 or 5 minutes. According to your device.

3. Follow the process of reduction of the bursts intently, when evidencing the reduction of the bursts, turn off the microwave oven.

4. After blowing up the popcorn, open carefully the packing for the dianogal edges of the superior part of the package (the vapor that leaves is extremely hot).

Yup, that's right, it is instructions for microwave popcorn, made here in Brazil by Zaeli. And if you wondered how to store your microwave popcorn package until you use it, here is how:

To conserve in dry, cool, aired and free place of strange odors.