Easter is coming

This last week went by really fast. My work with the website was slow but steady and on Friday at Brookville Road Community Church, they had a fund raiser for the summer trip which they had information about the website. So, even though the website is not complete it is getting foot traffic. That is ok with me. I am pretty sure they told everybody it is still a work in progress.

We had a big scare with the graphic design computer on saturday. The power in the graphica dropped a little which made the converter not put out enough volts and shut off the computer. When we turned it back on, it said it had shut down because it overheated. It also wouldn't boot into windows from there. So, we opened the computer up to see the fan that keeps the processor cool completely caked in dust. It was really bad. We did our best to clean it out without having a can of compressed air. When we went to turn it back on the picture wouldn't come back up. So, through all of this Roberto was freaking out a little that he had lost all of the graphic design data. Which despite me reassuring him that the data was fine, he still was worried. Anyway, I basically let the computer sit over night and cool down some more, then in the morning I turned on the computer and got into the bios and from there everything was fine. This morning Roberto came back to the graphica was a PC that is working like normal.

This weekend we also stopped at a new grocery store that I hadn't been to. It is called Tudo Dia which just means "all day". It is the newest grocery store in Carpina and also just so happens to be owned by non other than WALMART. Thats right walmart of all places have invaded Brazil. It was creepy walking into that place because it really felt like a mini walmart. I guess it is good for that town a little, since they do offer lower prices on a lot of their stuff. But, Lindsay and I really can't stand walmarts business practices. I doubt we will be shopping there much if at all. The good news is they have a atm at there store that I bet we will be able to get money from. The other banks in town used to have an atm that worked internationally and we would get the official exchange rate which is better than the underground rate right now. But, this trip we couldn't find any atms that would work. That meant we were giving Tele a check to exchange for us and that is just one more thing Tele had to do. We are all about helping him and not adding more things to his plate.

Ok, I have gone on for too long now. This week is a holiday week because of Easter. That means we only have two days of school!! Happy Easter.

A Fun Weekend

Since it doesn't have a single thing to do with the ministry I will briefly mention that we went to the beach this weekend. We went to Porto De Galinhas. It was a lot of fun and now we are burnt a little. Ok now back to work.

Post by Jeff

Lindsay

Jeff really wants me to post a little about what school is like for me this year. It has been quite a bit different from my teaching experience back in 2006. There were only a handful of students and I taught a variety of ages. Back then we had 2 preschoolers, 4 kindergarten kids, and an afternoon English tutoring program for around 7 kids. This year I have an English nursery program for 6 toddlers (ages 18 months to 2 ½ years) from 8-10am, an English class for 5 Kinder One (preschool ages 3-4) from 10:15-11:30am, and Learning Center* for 1-2 grades in the afternoons on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. In some of the in-between times I’m a hall monitor, playground supervisor, girl’s shower overseer, and 4-5 Grade Learning Center overseer. It sounds like a lot written down, but I actually feel like I have tons of spare time.

At 4pm things slow down for me. I do some lesson planning on Saturdays and prep a little in the afternoons. Unless Jeff and I are practicing Portuguese that day, I have my evenings free. There isn't a lot of paper grading for babies and preschoolers. I feel pretty lazy (especially since we got our hammock put up).

I'm really blessed with the opportunity (and free time) I have, but like most jobs or ministries it has ups and downs. Some days I think my students are the most gifted and brilliant little toddlers on the planet. There are also days I daydream about tying them to their chairs.

Alright, enough gibber-jabber. Here are some pictures from yesterday. We talked about healthy foods with the younger kids and shared a fruit salad snack. Here they are with their fruit masks.

Adorable aren't they?
Keep them in your prayers. Especially this last one:




















She's got a major problem with biting! She's bitten everyone in the class (including me twice) and bites every new kid who comes in the class. It seems to be a security thing half of the time and jealousy/anger issues the other half. She bites pretty hard.
Please be praying for change in her and for the safety of the rest of us!

I'll write more on school and the kids some other time.

The Before The After

Yes this means we have our air conditioner installed now. It is working great!! Lindsay and I don't like the cold very much, we are very glad we are missing the bad weather in Indiana about now, so it might seem strange that we got an air conditioner in the first place. The main reason we got it was to protect our electronic equipment from overheating and also from moisture. That isn't much of a concern right now, but come rainy season it will be. During the day we keep the doors open and let the breeze cool our room. Then when it gets dark we turn on the air conditioner. Here is the funny part, we keep the temperature set at about 27 degrees C. That works out to be a little over 80 degrees F. Yep, we love the heat.
We ended up rearranging our room again. Also, when they put in the air conditioner, they saw we had a hammock and hooks for the hammock, so they went ahead and put up the hammock for us. Hammocks are awesome!! To have one in our room is even more awesome. I feel so spoiled now with these two things.
Here is our little kitchen area that we setup. There is a stove just down the hall from us that we can use. They also have a microwave in the main kitchen. All in all we really like how we have things setup now. We could use some kind of surface with maybe shelfs or drawers below but we are really happy about our room. God is really blessing us here. Now I just need to get Lindsay to tell you about her classes and the biting kid.

Leaving you with one last picture. We moved the computer closer to the air conditioner.