Beach Fun

The day before I left for the States, Jason played in a football tournament in Copacabana. Yes...American football, not soccer. They play on the beach and have a lot of fun. It's a great outlet for Jason. Here are some pictures...

Here are some friends who came to watch. They are from the church that we attend.

And here are just a few people from Jason's team (actually this picture is of the flag football team, not the regular tackle team...there are like 30 people on that team, but I don't have a picture yet)

ATL

Jacob and I (kristin) are in Atlanta for a grandparent visit. J is 6 months old now and super fun...except for the teething part of life. We are having a great time visiting family and hopefully a few friends while we are here. Mothers Day weekend we are going up to VA to visit my brother, Ryan, and his wife, LaNell. I'm super excited as I have not been up there in about 4 years. It's hard to be apart from Jason, but the grandparents are so glad to have their grandson here for a few weeks. We return on May 14th.

I'll post pictures when I get back to Brazil.

A Few of our "teens"

Here are a few kids that we work with. These youth are a little younger than our normal target group, but we are helping Compassion International start a program with young teens in a community near us. This community has a day care center with about 150 children (80 are Compassion sponsored kids) that come from very needy families. The program is called Meu Plano Para Amanha (My Plan for Tomorrow) and it is designed to teach these kids about themselves, the world around them, and God's purpose for their lives. Our main responsiblity is to teach the Bible Study.

As you can imagine, Jacob is a big hit with these kids.

This community/favela is located, like most, up the side of the mountain. Here is a picture of part of it:

Each favela is controlled by drug gangs. Occasionally, the police will enter the community and their will be a "tiroteo" (shootout) between the police and the drug dealers "banditos". This happened last week during one morning Bible study up there. The police were shooting right outside the walls of the daycare center. It's so sad that these children grow up with this violence right outside their windows. The reaction to these events by the teens is sad. For some of the boys, it elicits excitement mixed with fear. For most of the girls, it's just fear. So we pray and encourage and try to teach the boys that the life of a drug dealer is not "exciting", but that these banditos are prisoners in their own world of violence.

Jacob's First Hike

Last Saturday we went on our first hike as a family. We hiked to the Tijuca Peak (Pico da Tijuca) with Jeremy, Claudinho and Philipe. Jason carried Jacob in the Baby Bjorn all the way up and Jeremy carried him back down. Jacob slept most of the way back down. It was a beautiful day, but as soon as we got to the top, the clouds rolled over us. Enjoy the pictures and video.

Feliz Pascoa

Happy Easter! This is the best we could do with a family photo. We couldn't get Jacob to look up at the camera...

... so we tried a different angle and it worked, but now we have wires that are protruding from Jason's head. Oh well! Here are our friends, Daniel, Marana, and Mirena. M and M are sisters and D is Marana's husband. We went to their wedding in December just before we left to spend Christmas in the U.S. We spent Easter with M and M and the rest of their family (immediate and extended). They live in one of the favelas (slums) near us. They are a great family and are part of the church that we attend in their community.

On Good Friday, a Catholic church near us had a mini parade (not sure what to call it) on the street in front of our house. Here is a video of it...

Tastes of Brazil

This is a caju fruit. The top part contains the nut...the cashew nut. Each fruit has only one nut...that's why cashews are so expensive! Here in Brazil, they make a juice from the fruit. It's pretty good, but its an acquired taste. The first time I had it, I didn't like it. We took this picture at our friends house. They have a cashew tree in their backyard and Jason picked this one.

Below is another fruit that we don't have...the caqui (it has various spellings) fruit. It looks just like a tomato, but has a different taste and texture on the inside. It is delicious!

One of our favorite summertime treats down here is Acai. Acai is a fruit from the Amazon. It is a small berry that grows high in the palm trees of the Amazon. It is extremely high in antioxidents and is considered one of the top 10 wonder fruits of the world (or something like that). The pulp is frozen and it is made into a delicious frozen smoothie (see picture below). You can add bananas, strawberries, granola or whatever you want. We love it and can get it on almost every street corner here. My parents fell in love with it when they came down for Jacob's birth and actually found the frozen acai pulp in the Whole Foods in Atlanta and have been making smoothies with it. But be careful! This berry is very healthy, but it is also full of calories.

Mondays are our family day. We try to do something different around Rio. A couple of weeks ago, we were walking around the Lagoa (I'll have to find a picture and add it later) and we came across these beautiful flowers growing on a tree.

Phone calls, etc

Jacob has learned how to use the phone...so watch out, you may get a collect call from Brazil. OK, so maybe he doesn't know how to make a call yet, but he sure is trying. Oh yeah...don't you love the mohawk he is sporting in this photo!




He is a week away from his 5 month birthday. He is grabbing for everything. Today as I was trying to fill water bottles from our filter, he managed to knock over all of the bottles I had filled. Our apartment here is completely tiled, so we have a folded comforter on the floor for him to have a soft place to chill out. Unfortunately, since he is more and more "mobile" (as you can see in the video), he often ends up on the tile anyway.

Doesn't he look innocent?...don't let it fool you! :)