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!!