Jefferson Pao

Hello all! It has been a while since our last update mainly because we have been out of town and very busy the last couple days! This week we started going into school in other towns to talk to administration to see if we can come with the level 2 team and do our "culture exchange" and share the gospel. God has blessed our time and every single school we've gone into the last two days has been more than happy to allow us into their schools! Tuesday night we got to all spend the night in a city about 20 Kl away called Lontras. We were with the pastor of the church plant there, his name is Lucas. We spent the night at his house and then went with him to schools on wednesday. Since we don't speak Portuguese fluently yet we let Lucas do most of the talking while we try to make a good impression by talking as much as possible and one time beating some Brazilians in a game of Volleyball. We have been busy with schools and bible studies. We have had a bible study tuesday, wednesday, and thursday night this week. We usually get back to our rooms around 11, take a shower, and then crash after some reading. We have been able to build some awesome relationships and have had great conversations. God is helping us learn Portuguese fast and giving us lots of opportunities to talk with people and also to do some physical labor. We got the opportunity on Monday, which is Johnny's day off, to go help roof a house for a couple that goes to the church. We spent the day putting bricks on the ceiling and running tubing for electrical throughout the house. This was Johnny's "off day". It was good to sweat a little bit, and even though the sun goes down at about 6 the sunsets are absolutely beautiful here! Thanks for the prayers and we will be keeping you all posted! -Andrew Hello folks well the time is midnight and we are very tired, but this is a good kind of tired knowing that God has used us to for his awesome plan here in Rio. Like Andrew said we have been really busy seeing new and old faces, getting opportunities to build new relationships and continue old ones. Today we travelled to a city named Taío, there we spent the day with pastor johnny and we went to three schools who were all very nice and loved the fact that we would be coming back with more americans, and we are excited for what this year is going to have in store for us. We are all growing closer to each other. The late night talks and the laughs are always amazing. Even though i am struggling with TD (travelers diarrhea) for over a week now (at least i hope thats all it is) God is still giving me the strength and the energy to continue on. We love the thoughts and prayers. Much love -Alek About the title... (inside joke) :)

The dog from Hell

On Saturday we went and hung out with the students of the church for a few hours.  We sang songs that we could sing in English and Portuguese at the same time and then played football, soccer, and volleyball for the better part of an hour and a half.  Volleyball turned into a spiking war trying to see if we could hit the brazilians harder or if they could hit us harder.  It was pretty fun and then we went out for pizza with members of the church.  It was pretty cool and we got to bless them by paying for the meal when it was over.  They have been so generous to us all and feeding us their favorite or best meals that we had to pay them back in some way so that was pretty cool for us and lets just say that they were all surprised.

After that we went to the house of one of the church members named Tiago (pronounced chiago).  He will come to New Orleans and Lincoln with us.  There we watched the NBA for a while and then Jon almost died.  They had a dog and it did not like Jon at all.  It barked at him, showed his teeth, and forced him to climb a couch to get away.  Did I mention that I could probably punt this dog twenty yards?  We thought it was better because after a while Jon held it in his hands and then it went bazerk again.  Lets just say it makes for a funny story and everyone laughed.

On a side-note Andrew ripped his skinny jeans in the crotch and it was hilarious.

This morning we went to a park with the church members and got the chance to pray together and sing a song. We also played rugby with them and soccer.  Really fun and tiring but also great for us to be able to have greater relationships with the people and meet some new members of the church.  After that Jon and I went to a friends house for churrasco, Brazilian BBQ.  It was super good and we each ate a steak or two.  Then we had one of our favorite things in Brazil, siesta.  Take a nap, read, relax, shower and then we headed to church.

It was fun to be at church and see what a normal sunday looks like.  No translating, no English, just the people together worshipping God.  That was a new experience for us but pretty cool at the same time.  I can't really tell you what the message was about other than it was about John 3.  Then Jon and I went to get pizza with our host family and we practiced Portuguese and sang Disney channel with our host sisters who are 14 and 7. Fun fun.

Prayer requests for the church (roughly translated);
-For the families, especially for Christ formation
-Pray for Brasil, for more churches to be planted where the word of God is spoken and true
-Pray for the pastors, evangelists, and Christians in general
-Pray for the Haiti project and volunteers to go this year
-Pray for the challenge conference to hep equip Rio do Sul to participate (the group going to New Orleans to be prepared)

God bless. Love you all. Thank you for the prayers

Prayer requests

-To be lead by the Spirit and grow in dependency upon God.
-To be good learners of Portuguese and understand the language quickly.
-Health of the team and people of the church.
-To daily choose God and be open to what He is teaching us everyday.

Thanks for all your work as prayer warriors.  We really appreciate it!

Crazy Black Woman

So they have a cake here that is called "Negra Mercado" and it literally translates to "crazy black woman" so that's what we decided to call our next post! :)

Last night was the first time that we got to go to schools and we went to the school of our host  father professor Illson.  He is an english teacher there and has 6 classes that he teaches English to.  It was a little strange because were unprepared and the professor used the time to push his favorite soccer team on the students which we found to be extremely entertaining.  We played games with the students, talked a little bit about Nebraska and spoke English with them to practice a little bit.  Afterwards we all remembered how draining it is to be in the classrooms and all slept really well.  During the day we had great conversation with one another and spent time in prayer, reading our Bibles, thinking about the Gospel, and talking with our host families.

So far this trip is way more chill than ones in the past.  We get some down time and are looking for different ways to serve our families like dishes and buying our own food to eat.  This next week it looks like we will get more time to hang out with the brazilians in the church and from other cities as well as visit different schools to set up for the level 2 team.

So we were going to build a house this morning and help a family who was moved because of the flood but we showed up and there were no construction workers!  Now we are waiting for lunch and trying to learn Portuguese by watching American TV shows on TV with subtitles because they don't do voice-overs for the best TV shows like Grey's Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, New Girl and others.  Some learn English by watching these shows and trying to hear the language and learn how to pronounce words better too.  It's cool stuff. chao!

7-3, 3-11, 11-7...Shiftwork

This is us doing it big here in Rio do Sul. Yall know what it is. We went for a run last night in the rain and our host mom told us we would get sick...but we did it anyway. She is such a mother, but we love her. She reminds us of our real moms. We are going to be going to a school tonight to promote English Camp and hangout with some students. Were excited! Thanks for all the prayers for health, Johnny is feeling much better this morning and we are planning to get a lot done today. Also, we forgot to talk about our bible study we had on wednesday night. We got to have some great conversation and had a blast! Love you all!

Cafe = Supper

Hi everybody,
Hope all is going well. It is our second day working Celivres and are already having some health issues. We were unable to meet with Johnny today because he is sick and was unable to work with us today. So we started making some hand outs for a night we are inviting the students to hang out with us. We got to hang out with a few students today that we have made relationships with over the past years and we ended up getting cell phones for us while we are here. We fixed a net at the church that was damaged during the flood. It is so crazy to see the damages and after effects of the flood still. They are doing alot of remodeling and painting at the church. It looks way different here. But we also were told to call people to invite them to English camp and thought there would be 100 but they only let us call the english speaking ones which ended up being only 2. We also found out the hard way that when people ask us for coffee they mean a whole meal so we have had "coffee" three times today.

We appreciate yours prayers so much and would really appreciate them for our health and for the health of Johnny and his family.

Love, The Fab Four

Alek's First Day

Today was a very busy day, we got to see a lot of new and old faces and we spent the day planning out the next few weeks and what pastor johnny is expecting out of us. Relationships and preparation are going to be what we will be doing, preparation for when the level 2 team arrives and building stronger relationships with the people in the church. We will also be going out to schools in rio and surrounding cities to meet with teachers and administrators telling them what we have planned for when the level 2 team arrives, also going around and making phone calls inviting people to the english camp. We are having a great time and we miss everyone at home. Keep us in your prayers.

We landed safely in Sao Paulo and went to check in.  A lady picked us out of the crowd and asked if we were in the right line.  Fortunately she was right and we were checking in at the wrong place.  We got in a way shorter line and got through customs, checking-in, and security in less than 20 minutes.  That's what happens when you don't travel with girls.  Awesome.  So we waited and slept in the airport for our flight to Curitiba.  Then we flew safely there and were greeted with a sign that said "Andrew, Alek, Jon, and Roy." We went to a chuhasceria (BBQ/steak place) where we got all you can eat meat for about 7 US dollars.  Let's hear it for Brasil!  We then had a 6 hour bus ride that wouldn't end but we all were off and on sleeping.  We didn't know how to get a hold of Johnny once we reached Rio do Sul but we borrowed someone's phone and made a call or two and are now in our host homes safe and sound.  Thanks for all of the prayer. - The fab four

Its way easier to travel with 4 people

Well, we are off! We left from Lincoln this morning at noon after a prayer and sending off by our parents and church staff. We are sitting herat the Kansas city airport waiting to board our flight to Houston, and then to sao paulo, Brazil. Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts! We will make sure to keep you all updated on our trek! God Bless! -The Fab Four