Well, that was an amazing trip.

I got to the airport in Sau Paulo in good time.  We had a little traffic, but that’s to be expected.  After a quick sandwich I said my goodbye to Mr. Graham.

I only ended up waiting for about an hour for my flight.  After that they checked my carry ons and I was off.  The flight went well.  My TV was sort of working on and off, but that’s OK.  God was good to me and gave me a window seat.  And the seat next to me was empty so I could stretch across both to sleep.

After getting into Washington D.C. I exchanged my money and got me some Subway.  5 dollar foot longs yo!

I had a six hour lay over in DC which only ended up being about 3 1/2 to 4 hours after I went through customs.  I found a quiet spot in the airport and played my guitar for a while.  I wanted to step outside, but the airport was so honking extensive I couldn’t find my way out.  After that I played chess against a pilot who stopped to listen to me play my guitar.  I lost badly, but that’s OK, it killed time.

My flight to Knoxville went well and I am very glad to be home.

God has taught me SO MUCH on this trip.   Things I need to learn mentally, and spiritually.  Ways I need to change my attitude.  How I need to act and behave to be the best Jonathan Randazzo I can be.

I think, ultimately, I learned that Christianity is so much bigger than in the US.  There are people all around the world who love the Lord and one of the biggest mistakes we can make as Americans is to act that we are spiritually superior or more mature just cause we are in fact Americans.  God works just as much in the lives of others as He does with us.  And sometimes more cause we have it so ridiculously easy.  The big problem I think we have is getting complacent in our Christian lives.  We just kind of get into a rhythm and we take God for granted.   Try waking up every morning and asking yourself, “Is this the day I die?”, and see if that doesn’t put a different perspective on your day.

Thanks again for reading and taking an interest in what I did, and what God taught me during my Brazil Experience.

Well, today is the last day of my adventure here in Brasil.  We will leave for the airport around 5:00 PM.  My flight doesn’t leave until 10:10 PM, but with the crazy Sau Paulo traffic, leaving early is a must.

I’m so grateful to God for this trip and everything I’v learned.

I’ll probably jump on one more time once I’m back for kind of a final word.

Please pray for a safe trip back for me and no problems.

I”m actually kind of hoping and praying I get bumped.  I wouldn’t mind being put up in one of the nice hotels in downtown Sau Paulo and probably getting first class the way back,  but thats up to God.

I was at the Travers last night after church.   My parents called and so I sort of finalized things with them.

Like I said, I’ll jump on again once I’m home for a final word, but I want to say thanks to those who actually have read this thing.  Its been good for me to be able to recall stuff about this trip when I’m writing on this so…

Ha, well the fun began last night.  You see, here in Brasil I have had the chance to better my stick driving skills.  I am still not very smoothe, but i can drive a car.

But, last night my motoring skills were put to a new test.  Driving a motorcycle.  Now I have never in my life ridden on a motorcycle.  One of the guys here in the neighborhood said he would teach me.  Now I was expecting he would let me ride with him around for a while, but he just jumped off and handed me the helmet.  I got on and after much explaining and translating through the missionary kids here, I tried it.  It took me about 7 tries before I actually got the right touch with the clutch and the gas.  The first time I got it, I almost ran into the Forans car.  I managed to miss it and the next time I tried, they started me off pointing down a long, empty, straight street.  WHOA that was fun!!!!  I’m hopefully going to get to practice some more today and get some pictures.

This morning Miss Renee and I went off to the mall in search of some soccer shoes.  After visiting many a shoe store, we finally found some.  You must understand that Brasilians are small people with small feet.  So finding a 12 or 13 down here was like finding a needle in a haystack.

We finally found some reasonably priced Nikes that were in my size so.

After that Miss Renee and I went to the food court and ordered pastels.  Pastels are to pieces of dow that have some thing in the middle(chicken, cheese,  beef, pizza stuff…whatever) and are fried.  I got one with with chicken and cheese in the middle and another with banana and chocolate.  MMMMmmm good.

Then we went over to Wal Mart where I picked up some things we used to get in Venezuela that I haven’t been able to find in the US.

Good day…and I hope it gets better….vrooom, vrooooom!

Well well, I’m back here at the Forans for my last couple days in Brasil.  This has been an amazing trip and I thank God for all I’ve gotten to do and learn.

My last couple days at camp I basically painted and painted and painted.   We usually woke up around 8 or 9 in the morning, went up to the house for breakfast, then started work.  We would work until about 5 or 6 in the evening.  After dinner, we would usually sit around and watch Brasilian TV, or play music.

The internet and phone there basically didn’t work the hole time I was there so…

Every morning I would try to wake up a little earlier so I could have some devotional time.  Most of the time, I would just sit out in the hammock in front of the dorm where we stayed, but the last morning that I was there, I went down to the lake on the dock and had my devos down there.  It was really cool.  The day was beautiful and sunny, and in the forest/jungle that was on the other side of the lake, I could here animals and birds making noises like I’v only heard on the Discovery Channel.

Today, I painted a wall on the side of the house here at the Forans.  Before I left to go to camp, I had scraped the wall of all the loose paint.  After I finished painting, Mr. Graham and I cut down part of a tree that was leaning over the house and we dragged it up the hill behind his house and cut it up.

Tomorrow I think I’m going to the mall with Mrs. Renee, so that should be fun.  I’m hoping to find some decently priced indoor soccer shoes.

Well, today Vagnor and I took the bus into town and went to the church that Pastro Nathan Fray started.  First we cleaned this morning and now I’m at one of the members house about to eat lunch.  Apparently they thought that I would like to use the internet so they pulled out their computer and started it up…so here I am.

Later on, we have Awanas for the kids, then a youth meeting tonight.  Tomorrow Pastor Nathan is going to come pick us up form camp and then we will go to church and stay in town all day.

Well, thats about it.

Well, they have definitely been keeping me busy here.  But I like it.  I think that is why I feel God wants me in camp work.  Even though the work is hard, I enjoy it.

We lost the interent connection a yesterday, so I didn´t get to write, but let me tell you a couple of the things I´ve been doing. 

On Thursday, we dug fence post holes so we could build a fence to keep the neighbors cows out of the swim area, I chopped wood(I say “I“ because as it turned out, I was the only person who knew how to use an ax), we aslo painted the soccer goals that day.  That night, before dinner, we decided we wanted to ride the horse.  Ha, easier said than done…stupid horse.  LOL  It took us about half an hour to catch the thing.  The camp horse isn´t really for the camp.  He just lives here.  None of the campers ride him because he isn´t very nice…at all…to anyone.  Once you get a rope around his neck, he is fine(sort of), but until that point, you are putting your life in the hands of God if you get within ten of him.

Today, Vagnor and I(the other two guys had to leave yesterday) spent all day painting the side of the dorm we are staying in. 

So far, every meal I´ve had(except for breakfast) has consisted of beans and rice with some sort of meat.  Now most people might complain, but I actually like the beans and rice.  They taste good.   You see, I am very low maintanance.  It doesn´t take much to please me.  Which is probably a gift from God to someone who wants to make camp ministry his life.

Tomorrow, I go back to civilization to go to the youth meeting.  Fun Fun.

This morning was interesting.  I woke up about a half an hour earlier than I needed to.  I contimplated sleeping until I needed to get up, but I got up to do my devos, and they were awesome.

Well, I arrived at the Frays via train on Monday afternoon.  I had dinner with them that night and then went to an english speaking school to play basketball. 

The next day, we were up at 3:30 getting ready to go on our deep sea fishing trip.  I was pumped.  I had always wanted to do that.  We headed out to Santos and get out on the water at about 6:00 AM.  We rode out for a couple miles and then dropped anchor and started fishing.  I was the first one to catch a fish.  It was a flounder.  I was pumped.  As the day went on, I saw others getting sea sick and making deposits into the ocean.  I hoped that I wouldn´t be one of those people….huh….but I was.

I spent a good part of the day in the holding sleeping off sea sickness.  When I´d get up, I´d feel fine for a while, then it would hit me again so I would lay back down.

I ended up cathing 4 out of the 115 total fish we caught that day.  I was proud of myself.   I also caught the biggest fish of the day.  It was about 4 lbs and was almost 2 feet long.  Regardless of my first bout with sea sickness, I had an amazing day and would do it again in a heart beat.

The next day, we went out to the camp where I would be staying for the next ten days.  After Mr. Fray left, Fabio, Flavio, and Vagnor(the three guys staying at camp with me) had to move cinder blocks from one point in camp to another by loading them up into a cart, pulling with a tractor and stacking them in another part of camp.  It took us a  couple hours, and we moved over 1000 cinder blocks.

Now we are just chilling.

All righty then.

Well saturday was a rather cool day.  One of the coolest I’ve experienced since being here.  It would be comparable to a fall day in the US.
I played soccer for a bit in the afternoon, then went off to the youth meeting that night.

The youth meeting was a lot of fun and we had a really good group of young people show up.

That night, at Mr. Grahams request, I gave a quick talk/challenge on purity.  I think it went well, but I’m one of those guys who sits down after he is done and then thinks of a dozen things he could have said, should have said, or maybe should not have said.  But oh well…such is life.

Today, church went well in the morning.  I played an offertory on my clarinet along with the CD I have.

This afternoon, I went to Embu(a larger out door market place) with Mrs. Renee and Emily and Alicia Traver.  We had to pick up some things that my mom ordered when she was here.  I picked up a nice leather wallet.

Mrs. Renee let me drive home.  That was an adventure.  I’m not the smoothest stick driver in the world, but we made it.

At one point, we had to stop and the car stalled, and it took me at least 7 tries to get it going without it dying.

Tonight I played another offertory on the clarinet, except I had there church pianist accompanying me.  It went really well.

Well, yesterday we drove back from the Seminary.   I got to drive part of the way.  Mr. Graham is kind of teaching me how to drive a manual transmission, so that is fun.

That night, as we got home, Mrs. Foran was on the phone with Nathan Frey(the director of the camp I will be working at).  She gave it over to Mr. Graham and he talked with him for a while.

Today, I worked pretty much all day chipping and scraping paint off the side of the house here.  The paint was peeling so it needed to come off.  Tomorrow I will have to paint it for them so that should be fun.

I spent tonight out playing tennis in the quadra and talking to the Travers girls.  Later after dinner I went up to their house and played on the Wii for a bit.

It was a good day…no complaints.

I know, I know, I haven’t written in a couple days…just hush.

I’m writing now.

On Monday the 25th, I traveled back from Osvaldo Cruz to Sau Paulo.  The trip took about 8 or 9 hours by bus.

I was a bit more comfortable with trip because I had a better idea of how things worked, and I knew exactly where I was getting off.

I managed to order some lunch at one of the nice bus stations we stopped at.  I was very proud of myself, except I must have done something wrong because they gave me my order to go.  But that was fine, at least I got what I wanted.

When I got back into Sau Paulo, Mr. Graham picked me up and took me home.   We made it home in record time apparently.  It took like 40 minutes.

That night, I just kind of chilled and relaxed.  We all sat down and watched some Lord of the Rings before we went to bed.

The next morning(Tuesday the 26th), I went to church with Mr. Jeff Travers(A missionary partner with the Forans) and we took down and old sign that they had up, and put up a new one in a more visible spot.

Later that day, Mr. Graham and I left for the seminary which is a couple hour away from their house.

The drive was really cool though.  We went up through the mountains.  There were a lot of truckers going up and down the mountains, and it must have been really bad on their brakes, cause ones guys truck caught on fire right in front of us as we were going down this for ever long hill and a rediculously slow pace.  We raced up the the cab and told him so everything worked out fine. 

They grew bananas in the mountains like they grow corn in the US.   Acres and Acres of it everywhere.

It was dark by the time we got to the city where the Seminary is.  So we stopped at a Churrascaria for dinner….it was incredibly good.  I made sure to stock up on those fried bananas.

We should be heading back later today.

I had a lot of time by myself today, and I was really able to get close to God.  I’m looking forward to getting back to the room so I can start up on some verse memorization and such.

God is good to me and He gives more grace.