yup being really stupid i managed to leave my phone (well it fell out of my pocket without me realising) on a bus in salvaor and only realised once the bus had driven off! .................bugger!!!
so could all you guys´s please give me your mobile numbers so when i get back to england and hopefully get a new one i can contact you all. that would be ace!
Sunday, 29 April 2007
on the road again!
after a month of not living out of my rucksack anymore its a bit surreal to now to once again have all my belongings attached to my back! i am now in salvador bus station having just arrived by night bus and am now very smelly and grimey but with no bus until 11 oclock tonight it doesnt look like ill be getting a shower until tommorow morning! great!
this last week at casa do mau pai went alot better then the one before my previous posting, it was by no means perfect (but i dont think it ever would be) but i interacted with the kids alot more had a bit more patience for them and more smiles too. but none of that was down to me, it was all due to your guys´prayers and more little chats with god throughout the day. so thankyou for your thoughts and prayers!
it was a biut heartbreaking sayiong goodbye to the boys and all the otherlovely people in olinda and i am missing it more then i thought i would. the thought of not knowing how those boys are going to turn out or who they will grow into and the fact that i probably will never know that huts a little. but then i suppose (well i know) thats all in gods hand and he´ll be guiding them every step of the way!
in the meantime im waiting for a bus to a place called lencois (which means sheets?!) where im going to find some awesome mountain scenery, then off to rio for another weeks capoeira training then i´ve got 2 months to cram in as much of south america as possible!!
time is short, and yet im sitting around in a bus station! how bizzarre!
off to do some present shopping!
lots of love and prayer!
andrew
this last week at casa do mau pai went alot better then the one before my previous posting, it was by no means perfect (but i dont think it ever would be) but i interacted with the kids alot more had a bit more patience for them and more smiles too. but none of that was down to me, it was all due to your guys´prayers and more little chats with god throughout the day. so thankyou for your thoughts and prayers!
it was a biut heartbreaking sayiong goodbye to the boys and all the otherlovely people in olinda and i am missing it more then i thought i would. the thought of not knowing how those boys are going to turn out or who they will grow into and the fact that i probably will never know that huts a little. but then i suppose (well i know) thats all in gods hand and he´ll be guiding them every step of the way!
in the meantime im waiting for a bus to a place called lencois (which means sheets?!) where im going to find some awesome mountain scenery, then off to rio for another weeks capoeira training then i´ve got 2 months to cram in as much of south america as possible!!
time is short, and yet im sitting around in a bus station! how bizzarre!
off to do some present shopping!
lots of love and prayer!
andrew
Saturday, 21 April 2007
right!
so ive finally got alot of things sorted (well my wonderful mummy has). john and i are both now flying back to england on the 5th of july (hurrah) and because we want to see more of south america we are probably leaving olinda next weekend. the plan is travel south to the iguacu falls hitting park chapada da diamantina, and rio (for a bit more capoeira) on the way down. from here we will then go to the bolivian salt plains, la paz, then travel across lake titicaca to peru, do the inca trail, do some surfing and dune boarding and see the nazca lines and then come home =D!
meanwhile in the present this weeks been hard. appart from a week of rain (which reminded me of home), a little crab living in our shower and war and peace (an awesome book) my weeks been a bit of a struggle. i think its a mixture of tiredness and hunger, but i havent coped at all well with the boys this wee. just been a bit dispondent and unwilling to play, so if you could all pray that i would have more patience eneergy and love for them that would be great! especially if this is my last week here!
oo almost forgot had an american pastor come visit the house, didnt speak a word of portugues but despite this carried on talking to the boys as if they were fluent but was really lovely and full of energy!
also taught how to play a brazilian game of marbles, was pretty cool!
God bless, see you all soon
meanwhile in the present this weeks been hard. appart from a week of rain (which reminded me of home), a little crab living in our shower and war and peace (an awesome book) my weeks been a bit of a struggle. i think its a mixture of tiredness and hunger, but i havent coped at all well with the boys this wee. just been a bit dispondent and unwilling to play, so if you could all pray that i would have more patience eneergy and love for them that would be great! especially if this is my last week here!
oo almost forgot had an american pastor come visit the house, didnt speak a word of portugues but despite this carried on talking to the boys as if they were fluent but was really lovely and full of energy!
also taught how to play a brazilian game of marbles, was pretty cool!
God bless, see you all soon
right!
so ive finally got alot of things sorted (well my wonderful mummy has). john and i are both now flying back to england on the 5th of july (hurrah) and because we want to see more of south america we are probably leaving olinda next weekend. the plan is travel south to the iguacu falls hitting park chapada da diamantina, and rio (for a bit more capoeira) on the way down. from here we will then go to the bolivian salt plains, la paz, then travel across lake titicaca to peru, do the inca trail, do some surfing and dune boarding and see the nazca lines and then come home =D!
meanwhile in the present this weeks been hard. appart from a week of rain (which reminded me of home), a little crab living in our shower and war and peace (an awesome book) my weeks been a bit of a struggle. i think its a mixture of tiredness and hunger, but i havent coped at all well with the boys this wee. just been a bit dispondent and unwilling to play, so if you could all pray that i would have more patience eneergy and love for them that would be great! especially if this is my last week here!
oo almost forgot had an american pastor come visit the house, didnt speak a word of portugues but despite this carried on talking to the boys as if they were fluent but was really lovely and full of energy!
also taught how to play a brazilian game of marbles, was pretty cool!
God bless, see you all soon
meanwhile in the present this weeks been hard. appart from a week of rain (which reminded me of home), a little crab living in our shower and war and peace (an awesome book) my weeks been a bit of a struggle. i think its a mixture of tiredness and hunger, but i havent coped at all well with the boys this wee. just been a bit dispondent and unwilling to play, so if you could all pray that i would have more patience eneergy and love for them that would be great! especially if this is my last week here!
oo almost forgot had an american pastor come visit the house, didnt speak a word of portugues but despite this carried on talking to the boys as if they were fluent but was really lovely and full of energy!
also taught how to play a brazilian game of marbles, was pretty cool!
God bless, see you all soon
Saturday, 14 April 2007
rugby anyone?
so i suppose i should blog again as it has been quite a while since i got to a computer. there was a possibility that i couldnt get to the internet tonight as i managed to break the key in the front gate, but after relising that i was not a locksmith and would therefore be no help john and i hopped the fence and walked here anyway!
the cadet camp went ok, except it turned out it wasnt a cadet camp (that happens later in the year) instead we just went camping at the churches farm, saw some massive tadpols (i dont want to see the frogs those things create!!) got eaten by midges and generally larked around and had fun with the kids. got back late saturday
sunday was easter!!! (hurray!) but in comparison to my usual gigantic famnily easter egg hunt it was a small affair. woke up early and read psalms 22 and 23 then there was a little service in the house with some poeple from the church. john and i then went for a walk on the beach and bought an easter egg each. and that was about it.... until the evening when we went to church and some of the kids from casa do meu pai were getting baptised awesome!!!! admitedly, however, i did spend most of the service playing with my two new friends! they are a couple of little cheeky boys who are both mutes, so speak about as much potuguese as i do, and for some reason are fascinated by my dictionary and keep pretending to read it (all be it uside dow) as if it were a jane austin novel or something =D!
the rest of this week has been pretty busy, the swimming pool has finally been filled (after various hose pipe bans) so alot of time has been spent swimming and trying to teach the boys to swim properly (julia and mum you would have a field day with all the retained reflexes!) which was quite entertaining. also managed to dig a rugby ball out of somewhere and after a long time convincing the boys that it wasnt an american football have been trying to teach them. as you can probably guess the results are interesting, with overarm spin passes and kick ups being a favourite!
so yeah thats about it, the boys are trying as ever, one with strong homosexual tendencies keeps harrassing john which is a bit interresting and the cook constantly shouts at me (or john as she thinks both our names are) in the hope that i will understand, the food is bad.
so keep praying for me, i hope all you guys are well and smiling!
god bless!!
andrew
the cadet camp went ok, except it turned out it wasnt a cadet camp (that happens later in the year) instead we just went camping at the churches farm, saw some massive tadpols (i dont want to see the frogs those things create!!) got eaten by midges and generally larked around and had fun with the kids. got back late saturday
sunday was easter!!! (hurray!) but in comparison to my usual gigantic famnily easter egg hunt it was a small affair. woke up early and read psalms 22 and 23 then there was a little service in the house with some poeple from the church. john and i then went for a walk on the beach and bought an easter egg each. and that was about it.... until the evening when we went to church and some of the kids from casa do meu pai were getting baptised awesome!!!! admitedly, however, i did spend most of the service playing with my two new friends! they are a couple of little cheeky boys who are both mutes, so speak about as much potuguese as i do, and for some reason are fascinated by my dictionary and keep pretending to read it (all be it uside dow) as if it were a jane austin novel or something =D!
the rest of this week has been pretty busy, the swimming pool has finally been filled (after various hose pipe bans) so alot of time has been spent swimming and trying to teach the boys to swim properly (julia and mum you would have a field day with all the retained reflexes!) which was quite entertaining. also managed to dig a rugby ball out of somewhere and after a long time convincing the boys that it wasnt an american football have been trying to teach them. as you can probably guess the results are interesting, with overarm spin passes and kick ups being a favourite!
so yeah thats about it, the boys are trying as ever, one with strong homosexual tendencies keeps harrassing john which is a bit interresting and the cook constantly shouts at me (or john as she thinks both our names are) in the hope that i will understand, the food is bad.
so keep praying for me, i hope all you guys are well and smiling!
god bless!!
andrew
Wednesday, 4 April 2007
olinda
So its been a while since my last post simply because i havent had the time and evenj if i did the nearest computer is about 1/2 a mile walk away in a bit of a ruff part of town (which is where i am now) but its all gravy!
John and i arrived in Olinda the sunday before last, pretty knackered from salvador but (vaguely) ready to work for an anglican church out here. we spent sunday sleeping before going to church and meeting everyone. getting 300 brazilian hugs in the space of about 5 minutes was pretty scary at first but by the end you couldnt help but feel welcome, then monday we had some time to ourselves on the beach front (which we spent playing football with some random brazilians) before the real work began.
so i suppose i should tell you what we are doing. the church out here is situated in one of olindas favelas, right next to a rubbish dump, and one of the projects it does (amoung many) is to take boys who are in dangerous family situations, out of those situations and puts them into a house where they live during the week. so currently john and i are living with 9 boys of varied ages, most who have had drug addictions, had abusive family backgrounds and alot of other rubbish messing up there lives. our job really is just to play with the boys, occupy them and help them believe in themselves. but as easy as it sounds its flipping hard! the boys can be absoloutely lovely, but sometimes you just want to trip them up, you dont get much time to yourself (if any) and you get woken up ridiculously early in the morning nearly every morning after not getting to bed that early the night before.
yet with those and other bad points about the whole thing, when i have time to calm myself down and take a look around sometimes it becomes obviously clear why im here: when i see john playing with two little boys in his lap, or see the smile on a boys face when he completes a jigsaw puzzle (which i agonizingly watched him do wanting to do it for him every piece!), or when youve got a little boy asleep in your arms it makes you realise that these boys deserve and need to be loved and even though i am absoloutely useless at giving it damn am i going to keep trying =p.
besides im learning alot about myself here, how ungrateful i can be, how cranky i get when i dont have enough food and how i need to read my bible every possible moment, its a necessity.
so yeah, tommorow im being taken off to a christian cadet camp for 3 days so i wont be in touch. but i yopu could all pray for john and i because we are hungry, knackered and missing all you guys.
lots of love!
God bless!!
John and i arrived in Olinda the sunday before last, pretty knackered from salvador but (vaguely) ready to work for an anglican church out here. we spent sunday sleeping before going to church and meeting everyone. getting 300 brazilian hugs in the space of about 5 minutes was pretty scary at first but by the end you couldnt help but feel welcome, then monday we had some time to ourselves on the beach front (which we spent playing football with some random brazilians) before the real work began.
so i suppose i should tell you what we are doing. the church out here is situated in one of olindas favelas, right next to a rubbish dump, and one of the projects it does (amoung many) is to take boys who are in dangerous family situations, out of those situations and puts them into a house where they live during the week. so currently john and i are living with 9 boys of varied ages, most who have had drug addictions, had abusive family backgrounds and alot of other rubbish messing up there lives. our job really is just to play with the boys, occupy them and help them believe in themselves. but as easy as it sounds its flipping hard! the boys can be absoloutely lovely, but sometimes you just want to trip them up, you dont get much time to yourself (if any) and you get woken up ridiculously early in the morning nearly every morning after not getting to bed that early the night before.
yet with those and other bad points about the whole thing, when i have time to calm myself down and take a look around sometimes it becomes obviously clear why im here: when i see john playing with two little boys in his lap, or see the smile on a boys face when he completes a jigsaw puzzle (which i agonizingly watched him do wanting to do it for him every piece!), or when youve got a little boy asleep in your arms it makes you realise that these boys deserve and need to be loved and even though i am absoloutely useless at giving it damn am i going to keep trying =p.
besides im learning alot about myself here, how ungrateful i can be, how cranky i get when i dont have enough food and how i need to read my bible every possible moment, its a necessity.
so yeah, tommorow im being taken off to a christian cadet camp for 3 days so i wont be in touch. but i yopu could all pray for john and i because we are hungry, knackered and missing all you guys.
lots of love!
God bless!!
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