Jeff & Lindsay

New House Video

2012-01-15T12:01:00.000-06:00

We are very excited to own a house in Brazil. This is a short tour video of our house before we have a few more things done to it.

Our Printed Christmas letter in Digital form

2011-12-24T09:03:00.000-06:00

Most of you are able to keep up with us on Facebook, Skype, email, or our blog, but if your Amish or “unsubscribed” to our status updates: we had a baby! It’s kind of a big deal--you know--our first kid. Melody Anabel Cart Turner was born on May 18^th, 2011. We’re quite certain 90% of all conversations in the past 6 months have contained at least one of the following words: baby, sleep, awwwwweee, or poop. The first 4 months were crazy difficult (we thank God for all the help we had imported: Lindsay’s mom, Jeff’s sister, Jeff’s parents), but we feel so blessed to have her in our lives. It’s exciting to learn all about how to be Godly parents!

Melody was born here in Brazil which means she has all the rights of a Brazilian citizen. Before she was born we called her our “little visa baby” (aka, anchor baby). Since she is a Brazilian she has the right to grow up in Brazil, meaning we get to apply for a permanent visa. We filled out all the paperwork and are waiting for the federal police to do a home visit (to make sure that we're telling the truth). Her birth was very timely, since we were just denied a renewal for our work visas. Many of you remember how much prayer has gone into our visa situation. It has been difficult to get visas over the years and we thank God that we may finally be at the end of dealing with all that.

Since it looks like we've got the visa under wraps, we have prayerfully decided that it’s time to move out of our apartment. It has been a great place to live, but with no windows to the outside sometimes we feel like we live in a cave. We are near closing on a house in a neighborhood next to the International School. It’s small by US standards, but just perfect for us. We hope to close on the house here in the next few weeks!

Our day to day hasn’t changed much. Jeff still teaches at the International School and does communication for churches back in the US. He's also a great dad. Melody loves spending time with him. She lights up whenever he comes in the room! Lindsay will return to teaching part-time when the new school year starts in January. We both still teach English classes and help with other ministries at our church in Lagoa de Itaenga.

2011 wasn’t all high points for us though, Jeff lost his last two living grandparents and we have had some struggles learning what it means to be new parents in a different culture. Overall we feel blessed, but stretched, taught, and disciplined, too! Isn’t that just how life should be? We hope that God has blessed, stretched, taught, and disciplined you in 2011, too! And we pray that he will do the same next year!

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Jeff, Lindsay, and Melody

Permanent Visa time

2011-10-06T17:08:00.000-05:00

It has been a long time coming and it is nice to look back and see that God has always had everything under control.
We found out 8 days ago that our work visa (which was in process to be renewed) was denied. It took them 10 months to review it and decide that they were going to deny the renewal. 4 months ago Melody was born in Brazil and automatically became a Brazilian citizen. So when we got the official telegram in the mail saying we had 15 days to do something about our work visa, we got on the ball and got all our paperwork together to get our permanent visa. Basically there is a law in Brazil that says a baby born in Brazil has the right to grow up in Brazil. Since she can't just hang out in Brazil by herself, her parents are granted permanent visas.

The paperwork was a bit confusing at first, but after a quick visit to the Federal Police office we figured everything out. Two trips to Recife later and it looks like everything is turned in. Now, to wait again. Hopefully this time it will be less than 10 months!

From Melody Anabel Cart Turner

Big News!

2011-09-20T21:53:00.000-05:00

Okay?

You want to hear the big news?!

Yeah, do ya??

DO YA?!

We’re pr…

-oud to announce an exciting event!

Cheap trick, I know, but I really am SUPER excited about some upcoming events!

First, October 1^st will be a Huge-Blow-Out-Awesome-Fundraiser for our pastor Ricardo and his family. Here’s some background (to let you know what a great guy our pastor is and what’s up with the situation):

Ricardo and Jeff have known each other since Jeff was 9 years old and interned with him for three months in 2003. Ricardo is like a brother to Jeff and we probably wouldn't still be in Brazil if it wasn't for their support and encouragement.
Ricardo has been to the U.S. three times before this, but never with his wife and two kids.
In August, Ricardo, Kattia, and the kids were denied tourist visas to visit the U.S., and were told that they don’t make enough money or have enough financial investments in Brazil (like a house) to be approved for visas.
Ricardo is a church planting pastor who relies on financial support from the U.S. and Brazilian churches. The trip planned was to help raise more support for his family.

Since they won’t be able to make the trip this year, we would like to encourage them by gathering support so that next year when they apply for visas they will be approved. This SUPER EXCITING event will also be the ONLY Indianapolis open house for the director of our ministry, Tele Moraes, while he’s visiting the U.S. in October.

Christ Our Shepherd Church of the Brethren

857 N State Rd 135 Greenwood, IN 46142 (phone # 882-0902)

October 1 at 7PM

There will be:

Yummy, yummy chili
Bake sale items
Raffles
Exclusive videos and interviews of Ricardo’s family & others!
A silent auction and other fun things for the whole family!

If you are incline to cook great chili or would like to offer other items for the silent auction call Jan Miller at 514-3899 to let her know what you would like to contribute!

The second SUPER EXCITING event will be November 17^th-December 4^th! Lindsay and Melody will be returning to the U.S. for a visit with family and friends. Let us know ASAP if you want to get together with the ladies for a visit!

14 week Baby and Ministry Life

2011-08-23T21:29:00.002-05:00

Lindsay has had this "brilliant" idea recently inspired by a friend of hers and a missionary friend. Basically, our friend has always ran a Colts blog as a hobby, even when he was living overseas. Now, for those of you that know me you already know there is no way I could start a sports blog. She just thought it might be good idea for me to do a movie blog because I always get so, err, what is a good word here, "passionate" about movies. I either LOVE the movie or it was the WORST movie in the whole world. At least that is what Lindsay says I sound like sometimes. So, all that just to say, I am not sure I want to do that. I can barely do a post a month with our blog. I guess time will tell if I do end up doing something like that.

Melody is growing fast and keeps surprising us with cool new things she can do, or new sounds. We have been trying to capture a lot of the new things. So, if you are into watching super cute babies and such you can follow me on youtube. There will be other ministry videos showing up also of course, but right now it is pretty much getting full of just Melody videos.

Lindsay is taking the semester off from the International School, but she is taking four classes online from Liberty University. That means she will need extra prayer for the time to be able to do all her homework. Melody has not been taking as many naps now which makes it harder for her to do the work. I (Jeff) am back to teaching computers for 1st grade through 9th grade. The cool new thing I am doing this semester is teaching Minecraft with my four Design classes. It has been a fun experience. I had been playing a lot of a sandbox style game called Terraria and had heard about some teachers doing classes using Minecraft.

Basically Minecraft is a 3d version of Terraria with less monsters. For those of you who are completely lost, they are both sandbox style games, meaning you can gather materials from all over and build almost whatever you want. It is all about exploring, building and crafting. The short video shows a tiny bit of what you can do. I found some amazing resources for teaching minecraft so I have been using that. So far we have just introduced the world and how to move around.

I guess I will leave the big news for last. For those of you who did not even know our plans this will mean nothing but here it goes...

We will not be coming to the US this December.

Ricardo and his family (our pastor and missionary with WRI, who was hoping to come to the US for fundraising) were denied visas and ticket prices are super high right now. Lindsay and I have decided that it would be a better use of money to stay in Brazil for now and try to go with Ricardo and family next year. My parents even bought a minivan thinking that we could use it to travel around with Ricardo. They are in California right now and needed to buy a vehicle anyway, but it was just an extra bit to add to the disappointment. I guess it will be there for next year, Lord willing.

We're enjoying life with our almost 2 month old

2011-07-09T18:21:00.000-05:00

So we're enjoying life with our almost 2 month old. Here's some adorable pictures...

4th of July

Melody was born on this guy (Caleb)'s birthday!

That's not all though...
There are lots of Americans coming and going. Next week promises to be a busy one - starting tomorrow! The churches in the town where our church is (Lagoa de Itaenga) are doing a prayer walk around the city tomorrow all morning and afternoon. Three churches are getting together with ours to walk around the town and cover it in prayer! Super exciting! Please join with us in praying for our community.
Then Monday and Tuesday we will have a mini VBS with a group of Americans and next week we will be lanching our new Sunday School program for kids (starting before the service instead of during).

Please keep us in prayer. This is my (Lindsay's) first time really getting back to helping with the ministry since the baby was born!

Also if any of you ladies want to hear the birth story (it's a little long, rambling, and a bit "graphic") then click here

What's going on now.

2011-07-02T07:37:00.001-05:00

Well, Jeff is off at the monthly Community Church pastor’s breakfast and I’m home with a sleeping Mel-Bel. Time to write a blog post!

It’s only the second of July and we’ve already seen one short-term missions team come and go. Three more to go! Our roles are pretty low-key this year. By pretty low key, I mean we get to pick and choose what we want to participate in and help with. Emily has lead organizing and planning on our end for the various outreaches, a VBS, the English Camp, and the Youth Conference. We have some great groups coming down and they have done a lot of planning in advance on the US side.

Jeff has an intern, Robyn Smuck, to follow the groups around to document their time here and update the ministry blog. It’s been great! Jeff still has a few projects, but now he won’t be away from home for long hours every day when the groups are here.

I am so blessed to have Jeff around so much to help with the baby. He has been awesome: helping cook, cleaning, and doing the “night shift” with the baby so that I can sleep!

Ok, well I am going to try to get a little nap in, but I’ll leave you readers with a picture of Jeff's most recent project.

Next time I'll post more Melody pictures.

Life with a baby.

2011-06-18T17:24:00.000-05:00

So, lots of parenting going on this month. Melody's doing great, a bit colicky, but healthy. Us? Well, yeah, we're trying to figure this whole parenting thing out. A lot of holding and rocking... and watching the baby in the crib to see if she's breathing, you know, typical new parent stuff.

Ok! Time for more pictures!

Escaping the swaddle and screaming, like she does.

Me & Mel

Jeff & Mel

Melody Anabel Cart Turner

2011-05-31T20:13:00.000-05:00

Melody was born on May 18th at 7:50pm. She weighed 2.72 kilos (6 lbs) and was 48.5cm (19 inches) long. She has already gained back her birth weight and then some. She is doing well and so are we. We have been blessed to have Julie (Jeff's sister) and Jan (Lindsay's mom) here to help with the baby and food. At the end of June Steve and Ann will be here for the short-term mission trips and Ann will mainly help with Melody. We feel so loved and blessed by everybody that has given gifts and helped us at this time.

Now more pictures!

What happened to April?

2011-05-01T18:23:00.000-05:00

Wow. Another month slipped by without an update. School. Church. Ministry. And of course we're still waiting for Melody Anabel to make her appearance.

If you missed our recent prego Lindsay pictures on Facebook or the nursery here are a couple for ya:

(yes that is an Ewok swaddled in the crib - doesn't he look cute)

The Pros and Cons of having a baby in Brazil

2011-03-18T16:27:00.000-05:00

The Pros

Cost: The average cost of having a baby without insurance in a hospital in the US is $9,000 (normal & natural) to $25,000 (complications or caesarian). Our cost here without insurance? - US$4500 (same price even if there are complications) in a great hospital with a great doctor.

Control over medical documents: In Brazil the patient has total control over their own medical documents and information. I retain all copies of blood tests, vaccinations, etc. and I have to give permission for a doctor to make copies to put in their records. It’s nice not having to deal with a complicated process to transfer

Line perks: I get to head to the front of every line or get in the special preferential line (a line for pregos, the elderly, disabled, or parents with babies in arms) at the grocery store, movies, clinics, hospitals (seriously everywhere). Wait time for anything is usually cut in half!

Kids are more obedient at school: Most people seem to think that pregnant women are the most fragile creatures on earth! Without prompting the kids at school are constantly telling each other to be good because the baby is sleeping and they don’t want to scare her (ha!).

Friends help: I have really felt God’s love from some of our friends down here. Friends at school have stepped up to take over my classes so that I can back down from teaching early. Other friends have recommended doctors, made phone calls for us, and helped us figure out the medical system here. And some good friends from church and school are throwing a Chá de Fralda (literally a “diaper tea”) for baby and me tomorrow!

Visa: A shiny new PERMINANT visa will come along with our shiny new baby!

The Cons

Different medical system: It’s difficult getting used to a different way of doing medicine. Do you get to pee in cup at your doctor’s office? Not me. I have to go to a special clinic to have blood drawn and urine samples, etc. and another separate clinic to have ultrasounds done. Usually there is a long wait to get into the ultrasound clinic (no preferential line if everyone is pregnant). Then it’s usually a 3 to 10 day wait to find the results of the tests. Then back to the doctor for the reading of the results. Where does all this take place? Usually an hour from home in Recife.

Old-fashioned ideas about pregnancy: Again, most people seem to think that pregnant women are the most fragile creatures on earth! I can’t pick up a pencil without being scolded. Suddenly I am incapable of driving, walking anywhere, or carrying anything! I was told by another person not to wear belts because it could give my baby a cleft lip. Although I do appreciate how nice people are about opening doors for me.

Different idea about caesarian births: People usually have two questions when they see that you are pregnant here. First, what’s the baby’s name? Second, are you having a normal birth or caesarian birth? 80% of women in Brazil have a caesarian birth in private hospitals. And 30-50% of women in public hospitals have a caesarian. These are 90% elective procedures. It’s been tough to convenience people that I really am going to have a natural birth, Lord willing. Many hospitals here have to adapt their caesarian operating room for normal birthing room! Luckily, my doctor is very much on my side with the normal birth plan, but if something does go wrong everything is well equipped to perform a caesarian!

Far from home: We are pretty far from many of our friends and family, so many people won’t get to meet little Melody Anabel until long after she is born. But technology and transportation provides some advantages! Some friends and family there are throwing me an over-Skype baby shower! We will also be blessed to have Julie (Jeff’s sister) here to help out in May, along with my mom. Then Jeff’s mom will be visiting shortly after! God is so good.

Now I have seen it all

2011-02-20T19:51:00.000-06:00

Our church has been having issues with the guitar that is used for worship recently. So, they borrowed a guitar but it needed a 9 volt battery for the sound to go through the sound system. So again they found someone who had a rechargeable 9 volt battery. Well, the problem was the battery was not charged and it was 5 minutes before worship time. They did not have the charger either. Now our church is in a small town, so there is no Wal-Mart or really any store open on a Sunday. In my mind that means tough luck we won't be using the guitar, but this is Brazil we are in. Next thing I know the guitarist is asking me to pop the hood of Pastor Ricardo's car and he has the 9 volt in hand with a electrical wire sticking out of the positive side of the battery. That's right he used the car battery to jump start/recharge the 9 volt battery. The battery actually worked after that. He got through 3 out of the 4 songs before it lost its charge again.

I am continually amazed at what they can repair here and how MacGyverish people can become.

Lazy Days

2011-01-09T20:18:00.000-06:00

Okay, confession time.

We have a lot of vacation time here in Brazil.

Between the many celebrated holidays and vacation time we have a lot of downtime here in Brazil. During the school year there are a number of celebrated holidays off (e.g., Saint John’s Festival and Carnival). We also have the months of July and January (from Christmas to February 1^st) off of school. I’ve never really calculated it, but it seems that we probably have at least 10 days more time off than the average school teacher in the US.

And I’m not going to lie we usually don’t do a lot during breaks. Sure sometimes there are church events and banquets, but they aren’t the norm.

There are times before a vacation where we feel like we have some project, church outreach, or school obligation going on all time. For some people (extroverts I suppose) this is exciting and invigorating, but for us (we’re somewhat introverts) it’s exhausting and tense.

After spending most of the day at school sometimes we feel too exhausted to go out with friends and minister to people. It seems like during our vacation time God gives us the energy and time to do more of that. And more often than not we get to reconnect with family and friends from the US during vacations. Last January my folks came for a visit and this year Jeff’s family is visiting. During July (and sometimes January) there are short-term mission groups visiting.

I think the biggest benefit of the breaks, for us and others in ministry here, is a time to reconnect to God and refocus our ministry goals. We return from the break energized. We do a lot of preparation and refocusing on what God’s plan is for our ministry.

My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. -Exodus 33:14

Christmas letter time!

2010-12-23T10:29:00.000-06:00

This year we were so proud of ourselves because we wrote the Christmas letter at the beginning of November. It felt like the book "A Series of Unfortunate Events" or Alanis Morissette's song "Ironic" (which btw isn't about irony, just unfortunate circumstances) when things like the computer that had the Christmas letter on it stopped working for 2 weeks. Then after we got it temporarily fixed it still wasn't really usable and would freeze on us when we tried to open the letter. Anyway, our computer just decided to start working again. A Christmas Miracle! Time to get the letter up quick! You can see our Christmas letter at the link below:

http://wribrazil.com/Christmas_letter_2010.pdf

If it does not display for you please download (for free) the latest Adobe Reader.

WARNING: This post is all about baby stuff.

2010-11-22T13:07:00.000-06:00

Well, if you don’t know already from Facebook or from talking to our folks – surprise! I’m pregnant! I am around 16 weeks, so we are expecting little baby T to show up around May 9, 2011.

Want see a picture? This is the baby at about 13 weeks. We got to hear the heart. Very exciting.

So everything has been healthy with the baby, but I have missed a lot of school recently due to sickness, a few minor health issues, and doctor’s appointments. Emily and I have agreed to “fire me” for next semester. We originally came up with a plan for me to teach the first bimester and then leave the responsibilities to other teachers, but since my absences have been too unpredictable we have decided that we are going to enact operation “Lindsay-Baby” earlier, starting in February. I will be working for the first 2 weeks of school full-time training other teachers, but then only three days a week in more of an administration role with the preschool. I’m excited about this change and look forward working with the preschool English department from a different position.

During the time I have had to be at home I’ve been able to focus on homework for my online classes and catch up on some important work, like watching the TV series Bones. And of course there’s thinking about baby names! Anyone who knows me well knows I love coming up with names, but this baby naming business is tough. I need a name that works in two cultures that my mother can pronounce and, for me, it needs to have some significant meaning (or be named for someone). So far (and it really changes about every week) we like Anabelle, Matilda, Lydia, Levi, Liam, Obie – but none of them have felt like “the perfect” name. Any suggestions for little baby T?

Sunday = Full

2010-10-18T11:49:00.000-05:00

From Reunitaria 2010

Sundays are a little bit busier these days. I have wanted to start teaching a technology class for adults for a while now and it looks like it will finally happen. I really enjoy helping out at our church in Lagoa de Itaenga and of course I enjoy being around Pastor Ricardo. We are already doing an English class on Sunday afternoons at the church and now I will be teaching a technology class, starting with Photoshop, right before the English class. So, from 1-5 we will be ministering in Lagoa de Itaenga. Then, it’s back to Lagoa for the service at 7. Ricardo is talking about starting a Portuguese class for us during that 5-7 time slot before church. It seems like a busy Sunday schedule, but I think it will be fun.
I am also in the process of raising money to purchase a Power Point type program called ProPresenter. I am always looking for new ways to be professional and improve the technology in the churches. This ProPresenter program was designed by North Point Community Church and lets you use videos for the backgrounds of the slides. It also has easy Bible verse lookup and count down timers. I have never seen anything quite like the professional style of software for the worship time here in Brazil. I will start using the software at our church first. Then after I learn the program we will train all the other community churches here that have a computer and projector. The site license upgrade is about $450 which is enough to cover all the churches here. Please consider giving toward the purchase of this software.

Please go to: http://tinyurl.com/2c428l8 to donate online for the purchase of ProPresenter.

Cooking with Jeff

2010-09-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

   When Lindsay is busy with school (studying for her online class or working on projects for her preschoolers) I often volunteer to make dinner. Lindsay tends to be more of a comfort food cook: chicken n’ noodles, mac n’ cheese, tacos (Mexican food is a comfort food for us, ok). I tend to be a little more experimental. So when we decided to have guests over in the middle of a busy week I started brainstorming.
   We recently bought a new Brazilian food cookbook. I really like it and went to it first for ideas. I have already learned to make Galinha Assada com Farinha de Rosca (a baked and breaded chicken dish). I saw a recipe for pumpkin stuffed with beef and thought I would try that, but Lindsay didn’t really take to the idea for guests we don’t have over so often. So I turned to the internet for inspiration, I usually talk to Minh (a friend who is in Iraq) over Skype in the afternoons. He suggested the Spanish Paella dish. While we were in Barcelona we saw the dish everywhere. You would think that we would have tried it when we were there, but no. We really only ate Tapas in Barcelona. Even though we saw this dish everywhere we just couldn’t stomach (excuse the pun) the 12-18 euro price tag.
   To make Paella you start by cooking sausage, onion and red pepper with some oil. Then you add chicken broth and uncooked rice and bring everything to a boil. Add some spice and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Then you cook shrimp with it for another 6 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste and bon appetite! Basically you can put anything you want in, but normally it has at least two types of meat in it. I really like the idea of cooking the rice together with everything.
   All in all it was a wonderful evening. Cris and Ilzo (our friends from church) loved the dish. They scraped the pot clean! I am happy to have gotten to know some friends better and add one more dish to my cooking repertoire.

New Life & Updates

2010-09-09T11:18:00.000-05:00

New Baby
If you follow us or World Renewal Brazil on Facebook you probably already know that Pastor Ricardo & his wife Kattia had a baby. His name is Eric Ricardo. They had the baby early Monday morning, August 30th in Recife. Originally they planned to have him in a town nearby, but there were no doctors at the hospital early in the morning. When they arrived at the hospital in Recife the baby was born within an hour! There was no time to get settled in a room, so Eric was born in the ER. Praise God everything went smooth and fine.

Mission Conference 2010
We are approaching mission conference time for the Community Churches in the US, which means it's time to hand in updates about our ministry. It is sometimes difficult to try to describe what our roles are here in Brazil. It would be too long-winded to send them our previous blog post about what we have been doing lately. So, I need to start thinking on how to summarize everything. They also want pictures of us in ministry, I was thinking of using the following pictures. Let me know what you guys think!

From Ministry as a whole

Projects
The Graphic Design Shop is closed to the public, at least until Roberto comes back to Brazil (he is studying at Word of Life Hungry). But recently I was asked to do a special project for one of the teachers at the Intl. School. It was fun to do an outside project again. I think it will be a busy time when he returns. The project I did for the teacher was a CD cover invitation for a party, she designed it and I "digitized" it.

-post by Jeff

A whole lot of catching up

2010-08-26T10:00:00.000-05:00

Giant vacation and then slam back to teaching, helping with the church, and doing various graphic design and communication stuff for World Renewal Brazil as a whole. If you are interested in hearing more about our vacation to Europe well you might just need to wait a little longer considering we haven't even told our parents that much about it yet. I haven't even gotten through all the pictures yet. That is mainly because we had about 2 days before everything started again when we got back from vacation. I have felt like the priorities of the ministry are more important than gathering our vacation pictures.

Things we/I have been working on:

Of course the Intl School is in full swing and has been for about a month now. It is a slightly more intense schedule for Lindsay and Emily because we were not able to get any short term teachers this semester.(we are looking for teachers for February!) But, it has been a blessing the Seth and Kari Bartal has joined the team and they teaching also.
Our home church is Lagoa de Itaenga. As many of you know we attend this church because it is the latest church plant that Ricardo Silva is pastoring. He is like my brother and it is hard for me to say no to him when he asks for things, which makes me stretch myself and get out of my comfort zone a lot. I am an elder at the church and responsible for running the powerpoint for the worship. Most recently (because I/we offered to run the youth group night alone when his wife would have the baby) I was given the responsibility of youth leader. Since Ricardo has started calling me a pastor of sorts, he also has asked me to preach at the church every other month. Again it is difficult for me to say no to Ricardo! It is a stretch for me to be comfortable preaching, but I think is a good thing and I know God can work through even me.
On October ninth World Renewal Brazil will have a booth in Greenfield, IN for the Riley Days festival. I was asked to design the banner for the booth. They also needed a T-shirt design (a very simple one) and an update to most of our brochures and such. I am also working on a business card for Tele to give out when he is in the US (in October/November). I am not used to so many projects all at once, especially when my wonderful design partner Roberto is at World of Life Hungary. *Below is how the banner will look

We record most of the plays and special events for the Intl. school. I am currently behind on editing the videos for some of the past events. I am also creating some DVDs of the events to sell parents. I already provide all of the events free to watch online, but not everybody has internet acess and many want a copy for home. There are some big school field trips right now, so I am getting those pictures up online also. You can see the field trip of 1st -3rd grade at: http://tinyurl.com/24obpt7 (the Charles Darwin Reserve - no evolution being taught - just the name of the place).
Finally, we have been making some "home improvements." We installed some new cabinets/ shelves. I was able to borrow Ricardo's drill and put up our new shelves myself. I am very proud of this because the way things are put on walls here is very different than the US. First you drill a hole in the concrete wall. Then a plastic guard the nail is installed. Then you take a screw and hand crank it in.

Airport Trips

2010-07-05T14:28:00.000-05:00

For a while I started to think I was living at the airport. By mid-June we had been to the airport four times within one week. Two of the times we were there for more than five hours because of flight delays or cancelations. As you can imagine, I have been happy to let my Dad and Tele pick up the short-term summer groups from the airport.
A lot has happened in a short time including flooding that has caused a lot of people to be displaced in our state of Pernambuco. None of that has affected the areas that the community churches are at though and besides trying to navigate the flooded streets of Recife to pick Doug Hood up at the airport, it has not effected us either. Speaking of Doug, he is Pat and Harold’s son. If you keep up with our blog you will know that Pat and Harold are the wonderful teachers that helped the school a few semesters back and left a huge impression on everybody here. Doug came to speak at a conference and help counsel some members of the church. It was a big blessing to have him here and I saw a lot of people get the help that they needed from his counseling sessions. We also picked up Seth and Kari Bartal from the airport in June. They are the newest missionaries to join us in Brazil. They will be teaching at the school while they are learning the language and transitioning over to help start a church plant in Recife. Last, but not least, we have Roland who is from Greenfield, Indiana. I invited him down as a general discovery trip and to see if he fit into the ministry here. It has been super awesome to have him here and he has been a huge help in many areas. He will be here until July 19th. We are trying to convince him to stay for to teach this semester, but we also want him to listen to God about that decision and not just us.
With the influx of people that speak English here, it has been a little different for Lindsay and I. Most of our time has been spent helping people adapt and get things that they might need. I spent some time helping Emily get her apartment furnished for her parents to stay with her. We did most of the shopping at just one store because they consistently had the best prices. I think they really love us at that store now.

From Jeff & Lindsay

Roland & Doug with Paul & Ruth Jessup in the background.

The big groups are here now and they are doing Medical Clinics and a VBS for the next 3 days. But on Wednesday we are taking our big trip, which I think I will let Lindsay write about.

Like Jeff said things are hectic with the short-term groups right now, but that will all mostly slow down again after this week. This year’s big July mission trips have actually been more June mission trips. With exception of a couple stragglers, all the short-termers will be gone by the end of next week. This gives us and the other full-timers here a much needed break. This is especially exciting for Tele’s family. While having groups down in July is extremely beneficial, trying to find other vacation during the school year is difficult.
Jeff and I are taking this rare break from responsibilities to take a dream vacation. We are going to Europe. How can we as missionaries take such a huge vacation? We were blessed last year in a way that we didn’t really want to be blessed. My Aunt Pat passed away last year in June and she left us an inheritance. As most people who receive inheritances can attest, we would much rather have her than a penny of her money. God knows best and we are thankful that we know she is with him right now. It was a substantial amount (especially for poor missionaries) and so we have determined to use the money wisely. We purchased our car with some of the money, put aside money into retirement accounts, tithed, and now with some of the money we are taking our vacation. The best part about this trip is all the good friends we will be seeing/staying with! We are going to meet up with my cousin Amber Cart and also Joanna Cart from the US, a former exchange student, a Dutch friend and her family, and also Roberto and Karine (friends from here who are at Bible College in Europe). We just feel so blessed to be taking this opportunity!!

We may not be in contact much until after the 28th of July, but if you need to get a hold of us the best bet may be emailing Jeff.
Até então!

This is for you, Mom.

2010-06-15T19:24:00.000-05:00

I usually call my mother on Sundays, but recently we have been out of touch. I finally spoke to her this week, but I couldn’t find much to talk about. A lot has happened since our last conversation and she was probably expecting to hear details. All that she got from me was an impassive and jumbled summary.
You see, I don’t feel like I can properly share the emotions or energy of a week of my life. I don’t think anyone really can over the phone (or internet). You have to live life with people. I think that’s the hardest part about living far away –I miss out on the lives of people I love. On the flip side, now that I know and love people here I would miss living life with them!

Emily said that is why she likes Facebook. Specifically, that’s why she likes status updates.

“But not the stupid updates,” she said, “the ones that tell me about people’s lives.”

I agree with her and it makes me want to try harder to share life with those I love. Here or there.

Pray with me that I can be more active in sharing the moments that bring me joy with those in the US. Pray that I share more and more of myself despite a cultural barrier.

So speaking of impassive and jumbled summaries, I need to give one. Ironic? We have begun to receive the other Americans. Seth and Kari are our most recent additions, but before them came Roland. He came all the way from Brandywine Community Church in Greenfield to join us for a couple of months. Last Sunday he preached at our church in Lagoa de Itaenga. He gave his testimony and two people decided to follow Christ! We have struggled a lot to reach people in this community so Sunday was a great encouragement and we are thankful for two new believers.

School’s out soon. The World Cup is on. Jeff and I also have a very exciting trip that we want to share about. So stay tuned.

No, it’s not back to the States. Nor to an obstetrician, Mom.

Post by Lindsay

The calm before the short-term trips

2010-06-07T12:52:00.000-05:00

From Blogger Pictures

There was a big rash of sickness this last month, Lindsay and I were down with some kind of virus for 7 days. It started on a Saturday and we tried to go into school on Wednesday but I think that just set us back a few days. We didn't start feeling better until the next Saturday. Thinks seem to be back on track now. We have gone through a full week without being sick but this week is the last week to do tests and such because we need to turn in grades by next Monday. So it feels like just as we got better school is over.

From Blogger Pictures

The last week of school we are going to have a group from Lifepoint Community Church do an English/ Music camp for the kids at the International School. So, we are looking forward to that. June and July is the big time for Short-term groups so we are preparing for the influx of Americans coming in. First we have a guy from Brandywine Community Church coming in on the 9th, then we have Pat and Harold's son (teachers from a few semesters ago) come to teach a counseling seminar, then we have Seth and Kari Bartal. They are still working on getting their work visa, but they are coming for 6 months to start learning the language and teaching at the school. They are praying that their work visa will come in during this time. So, that is just the people coming in before the actual short term trips. The trips will be early July with a Medical team and then a VBS team. Kenny's faithful crew will be here in July also to make some amazing furniture and such for the ministry. We are so very thankful for Kenny and this year he said that he would be willing to make something for our apartment.

From Blogger Pictures

We took Emily, Paul, and Ruth for a tourist day on the town this last weekend. We visited the old prison turned into a shopping center and we also went to the Ricardo Brennand Castle Museum that has a huge collection of medieval weapons and armor. It also has art from all over Brazil and Frans Post art works. It was a very good time. Lindsay and I have been putting together a list of must take people to, places. This museum is definitely on the list.

-Jeff

From Blogger Pictures

Hello Normal

2010-04-23T12:42:00.000-05:00

I’ve lost my sense of wonderment of this place. I no longer marvel at the open air market, now it’s just where I buy my vegetables. I don’t sigh in contentment looking at the walls of my apartment because I see spider webs in the corners that need to be knocked down. When a child repeats her first full phrase in English I am not astonished by her ability to communicate. I don’t see the adventure any more, no more conquest, only tasks to be done and things to check off my list. I am in a safe place and I am in a dangerous place.

Welcome to the land of ordinary.

We’ve been married for six years now. When we first got together discovering more about each other was full of emotional highs and lows. I remember crying on our honeymoon and telling Jeff it was because, “I was just so happy.” Ha! I was terrified! Everything was new. It was exciting and scary all at once.

We are still learning about each other every day, but now our marriage feels like a warm snuggly bed, safe and comfortable.

The first time we came here was the same. I was torn between the adventure and the nightmare. I felt so lonely and nervous some days, excited and courageous the next. But just like my love for my husband didn’t remain puppy love neither did my relationship with Brazil. It grew up and grew ordinary.
This is a safe place to be. I am no longer motivated by my emotions. I can buy my groceries without fear that I am committing some grave cultural faux pas. I objectively evaluate my students instead of thinking they are all brilliant for learning to repeat basic phrases. I am no longer a visitor, I am at home.
This is a dangerous place to be. I don’t look for new ways to serve God. It is easier to just maintain what I am doing now rather than seek out new things to do for God. I have a circle of friends that I know well enough. Why make new ones? Why get closer to people? Why work harder? I go to work. Come home, housework, study, lesson plan. Turn off. I close out the outside world because I know there is so much more that God wants me to see and do.

I’m tired and I don’t want to!

I want to stay in the ordinary and do just enough.

Easter Preaching

2010-04-05T13:18:00.001-05:00

It was Easter Sunday and guess who was standing at the pulpit preaching at the small church in Lagoa de Itaenga. Yep, it was I, Jeff Turner.
I really don't consider myself a preacher at all nor do I jump at the chance to preach. I am normally completely content being the Director of communications and Technology even though I feel like I have been doing much more technology stuff than communication stuff. Lets just say that I am getting pretty sick of reformatting computers because people keep putting viruses on them. Anyway, it seems that when Pastor Ricardo asks me to do something I have a difficult time saying no. This was my first true time to preach. All the other times I usually shared an expanded version of my testimony and how God lead me to Brazil. I actually was suppose to preach the week after Easter but I thought I was scheduled for Easter, so my sermon was all about the Easter holiday and the origins of it. But luckily the pastor that was going to guest preach for Easter could not do it until the week after Easter, leaving me free to preach on Easter day. I think it went well, I started preaching in Portuguese and did about 10% of the sermon in Portuguese but once I had a difficult sentence and switched back to English it was hard to try to go back to Portuguese. Ricardo said that next time we will work on the sermon enough in advance that he will couch me to preach in Portuguese. So, we shall see.

From Lagoa De Itaenga

This is a picture from the Sunday afternoon English class in Lagoa de Itaenga.
I still help Ricardo out with the beginners class, but Ricardo does most of the work and I just help with pronouncing the words correctly.

For Easter the International School put on some really cool plays for the kids. They were like mini plays, because there were stations that the kids went around to and listened to the actors talk about themselves. There was Judas, Peter, Harod, Mary, and a few others.

Welcomed Help

2010-03-16T12:07:00.000-05:00

The international school finally feels like it is in full swing. It took a while (like everything does in Brazil) but we finally have all of our English teachers here and the kids planner books finally came back from the printers yesterday. Our two new more than welcomed teachers are Ruth and Paul Jessup.

I can't find a picture of Paul right now. He was sick for a couple days as his body adjusted to the food, so I think he missed the picture times.

Ruth has been helping Lindsay with the 2nd grade and below kids while Paul has been helping Emily with 3rd grade-8th grade. They have already been a huge help and this semester looks like it will go pretty smoothly.

As for our church in Lagoa de Itaenga (Ricardo's church) it has been going really well. We have started the English classes on Sunday afternoons again and we have about 22 in the beginner class, 11 in the 2nd level class and I think around 9 in the advanced 3rd level class. Last semester we were able to get 2 different people from those classes to start coming to church, so this semester we are praying for at least 2 more.
We do a youth outreach every other Saturday night and this year we are going to try to turn every other event into a community outreach. So once a month we will have an outdoor worship service or movie or food event, to try to bring in more people to the church.
I (Jeff) have been bringing a projector to the church and running a powerpoint for the worship service. Having the words for the songs has been helping out tone deaf church a lot. It also helps Lindsay and I remember and understand the songs better. I am not joking about our church being tone deaf either. Lindsay and I feel like we fit right in because we don't have any musical ability. Some people sing the songs too slow and others sing too fast. I have also never seen everybody stay on the same beat when we are clapping.But everybody still worships with all their heart and we love the church.

From Lagoa De Itaenga

Vacation again?

2010-02-17T21:11:00.001-06:00

From Vacation JAN- FEB 2010

The school semester finally started in early Febuary and quickly stopped for a week vacation. With only two weeks of school in we are on vacation for Carnaval (Marti Grau). We have been blessed to have Betsy with us helping teach this semester. She is from Brandywine Community Church and we will soon be joined by Ruth and Paul Jessup. They will also be helping teach at the international school this semester. We had a bit of a panic moment when a teacher that was suppose to come from Great Britain backed out at the last minute. But, God has been very faithful to bring wonderful teachers to help us. We are looking forward to getting to know the Jessups. They are a young married couple so it will be nice to have a couple to hang out with. I think we are slightly older than they are and married longer.

From Vacation JAN- FEB 2010

We went with the Community church of Amexias to a camp for this vacation. We stayed with them for 2 days and played soccer, swam, and had devotions together. It was a great time and next year Pastor Ricardo wants to start a camp for his church (Lagoa de Itaenga where we go to church). So, this was most likely the last year we will be going with Amexias.

We will upload a video here in the next week that shows both Lindsay's classroom and kids and Jeff's classroom and kids.(well at least one grade of kids) Until then, thank you everyone for your prayers and support. We have been spiritually attacked already a few times this year so please keep praying for us as we are doing God's work here in NE Brazil.

From Vacation JAN- FEB 2010

-Jeff & Lindsay

Christmas Letter of sorts

2010-01-03T10:53:00.000-06:00

The holidays are finally over and the mass amount of food that we have consumed is still lingering in our stomachs. We have never gone to so many banquets before in such a short amount of time. I think the total count was 6 banquets/ lunches. It was such a huge difference from last Christmas in Brazil vs this Christmas in Brazil. We are so very thankful and blessed for our friends here and having a car now so that we can get to these banquets and spend time with our friends.

For us and for most Brazilians the month of January is vacation time. We are off of school until Feb 1st. This holiday season was super busy and exciting for Lindsay and I. We had been preparing for the arrival of Lindsay's parents since the beginning of December. They arrived on December 30th but before they came we had another visitor come from Tennessee. His name was Ben and at the time we did not know Ben at all. He is a friend of a former Word of Life student that was part of Tele's home group when Tele was still involved with Word of Life. Tati (the Word of Life student) was visiting her parents in the near by region and had invited Ben to come see Brazil. We picked Ben up at the airport on Christmas day. We held up a homemade sign with just his first name on it because we never heard what his last name was. Every single guy we say we would say to ourselves, "Maybe that is Ben". Then that guy would come out and head right towards the arms of a women. Some of the other people we thought were Ben would pick up their child that we couldn't see through the baggage claim door. But, finally Ben came out looked at our silly homemade sign and greeted us.

Ben turned out to be a wonderful guy that happened to have an allergy to gluten. Being a person that can eat all of the wheat products I want I did not realize that the US does not label any food items with gluten free or contains gluten. But, Brazil does label absolutely everything with a label saying does not contain gluten. Even the water here has it written on the bottle. Needless to say this made Ben's trip just amazing. Ben also really enjoyed the Manioc root here because they make it almost just like a flour. So he yet again was able to taste a wheat like substance without the fear of getting sick. It was a great time getting to know Ben and seeing his joy for the food in Brazil. He used to be a professional chef until having the allergy to gluten became too difficult for him. So, he really respected food and knew a lot about food preparation.

The day we took Ben to the airport to leave was also the same day we picked up Lindsay's parents. Ben was going to be able to meet Lindsay's parents until they had a 5 hour layover in Salvador (the town right before they came to Recife). But as it turned out about 30 minutes after we said goodbye to Ben, we said hello to Lindsay's parents, Jim and Jan.

Now we are spending time being tour guides for Jim and Jan. It has been wonderful having them stay with us. On December 31st we had Christmas part 2 and opened gifts sent from the US for us. We also were celebrating our 6 year anniversary and of course New Years Eve. I (Jeff) am getting even more confident about driving here and finding my way around Recife, mostly thanks to Emily Taylor passing on a map of Recife that she received. Jim came to Brazil with a cold and cough and we think he might have given it to Lindsay and Jan also. Please be praying for their fast recovery. We are suppose to be going to the beach on Monday for a few days, so hopefully that will be a relaxing/recovery time.

We hope all of your holidays were wonderful full of thankfulness to God for what he has done in your lives.

Jeff & Lindsay Turner

Runaway

2009-11-16T16:45:00.000-06:00

A friend of Pat & Harold Hood (the retired couple that has been down here teaching this semester) is in town for a few days. It has been really nice to have her and it has been really neat to see Pat & Harold be the tour guide of sorts. It is always nice to see how other people perceive Brazil. Also, it is nice to see what we have shown to the Hoods cross over to them being able to show/tell their friend.

So, we were going around to a lot of the churches today just to show the Hood's friend the ministry. We were in the town of Guadalajara about ready to leave. Everybody was in the car and I look over and see a 4 year old child that looked like he might have down syndrome or something similar. The kid took one look at the car and headed straight for the back passenger door. I could see something was up and I thought he was going to start betting on the door but instead he opened the door and started to climb in to join us. I quickly stuck my hand in front of him but he had already managed to get one foot in the door and was trying to sit down. Some of the neighborhood kids saw what was going on and quickly came to my rescue. It took 4 of the other kids to finally get his leg out of the car. Pat Hood was in the sit next to the one the kid was trying to sit down on and I think she was so shocked she didn't know what to do. Something tells me that if I had let the kid come with us nobody would have cared that much. At least it struck me as sad that the kids parents weren't anywhere in sight.

The day was really good. We visited the churches of Guadalajara, Pauldalo, Tracuenhaem, Carpina, and Lagoa de Itaenga. (I might have miss-spelled the names) I took some video footage in Guadalajara of the new classroom construction and some footage in Carpina of Ricardo talking about how many of the church leaders came from the youth group at that church. I will eventually put those up on the World Renewal Brazil Blog.

Please pray for Lindsay because she is still having joint pain off and on. We are pretty sure it is reactive arthritis and we have already been to a good Doctor about it. Basically it can go away at anytime but it can also turn chronic. There isn't a treatment for it but anti-inflammatory medicines help with the pain.

Halloween Birthday & Fun

2009-11-01T08:56:00.000-06:00

On Jeff's b-day there was suppose to be a talent show for the English class in Lagoa de Itaenga (Ricardo's church). When we got to the church, Ricardo's daughter told Jeff "Jeff Jeff tem cake, tem cake." Which means we have cake, we have cake. When Jeff went down the stairs to the church the lights went out and back on again with everybody singing happy birthday. It was a great surprise!

Earlier that day Emily, Lindsay, & Jeff with the vocal assistance of Pat & Harold Hood made a fun video to show at the talent show. It was originally Emily & Lindsay's idea for the plot of this video. I hope you enjoy it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb6hoNG3uag

Prayer for Lindsay

2009-10-27T12:06:00.000-05:00

Please pray for Lindsay because she has been having weird joint pain for about 2 weeks now. It wasn't a lot of pain for a while so we thought it would just go away but it has gotten a little worse. We have gone to see Dr. Santos (those of you who have been on a medical trip know him) and he has ordered some blood tests. We will be going tomorrow morning for the tests.

Please pray that Dr. Santos will discover why Lindsay is having this joint pain and find something that will take it away. It normally hurts the most in the mornings which makes it very difficult to get going and start teaching.

Tele is in the US right now, so don't forget to see him and hear more about what is going on here in Brazil.

Rest & More Work

2009-10-19T13:00:00.000-05:00

Last week we had Monday and Tuesday off from school because of children's day and teacher's day. It is very strange that those two days are so close together. Technically teacher's day wasn't until Thursday but the school decided to stick them right next to each other. Because we had some time off we thought it would be a good idea to go to the beach. We have been trying to take the couple that is here teaching from Kansas lots of different places. We have been doing this partly to get used to driving more and to figure out how to get to all of these fun places. The beach trip was the same. We went to Porto de Galinhas which is the biggest tourist beach in the region. We stayed over night at a beach close by because it was a little cheaper. It was a very fun and relaxing time. I think we are all prepared to take Lindsay's parents there when they come here in late December.

God has been stretching me (Jeff) recently. I am so very thankful for my brother in Christ Pastor Ricardo. He always seem to try to challenge me and keep me growing. He asked me to preach at his church a few weeks ago and I always give the excuse that I am not a pastor and don't have the skills. But, I told him I would be willing to if I could make it more of a testimony/sermon. So, last week I talked about my life and how God brought me to Brazil. A lot of my life has revolved around the verse John 10:10: ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.. God has shown me in many ways that He wants to the best life for me possible. I talked about the time in my life that I finally gave up complete control of my life to God.
It sermon went well and it was encouraging to see how people responded. So, then Ricardo said that he was going to go to his first church plant at Guadalajara and asked me if I could preach the same thing there. This was last night. It was a lot bigger church but again I trusted in God and He worked through me while I was preaching. Normally I feel very ackward preaching but God gave me a peace. After I preached yesterday Ricardo asked me if I would talk at a youth conference they will have in November. He asked me to talk to a group of all boys about sexual purity. Now, that is a big difference of giving my testimony/ life story to actually preaching about sexual purity. But, God gave me a peace about saying yes and I have agreed to talk about that subject at the youth conference. Please pray for me about this. I will give you the dates later.

It took us a while to get back into the swing of things once we got back from the beach. I have been working on a video about Pastor Asseurio going to Africa. Tele will be presenting that video while he is in the USA. I will also put it online soon. I want to start a video mini series about the church and town in Lagoa de Itaenga. I am not sure if I will start that soon or wait a few months after I get some more video equipment.

Please keep us in your prayers.

Video update from the town of Lagoa de Itaenga (Pastor Ricardo's church)

2009-09-28T18:22:00.000-05:00

I decided it might be a good idea to do a video update since I have started doing the video update "Tele Talk" for the ministry. I am not sure why I haven't done this type of thing earlier.

Here is the link to the video: Lagoa de Itaenga Video update
I recommend watching the video in HD

Life with a Car

2009-09-15T10:22:00.000-05:00

Having a car now is such a huge blessing. I have never felt this much freedom/independence in Brazil before. It is finally starting to feel like we are here for a long time and that we are home. It is so nice to be able to take Pat and Harold hood (the teachers from Kansas) downtown and other places when they need a trip away. It still feels very weird driving in the car and knowing that I am not just borrowing the car but it actually is ours. This last weekend I went to Ricardo’s church on Saturday night for the youth program, then we went there on Sunday afternoon for the English classes. We also went again that evening for the church service. I am starting to feel like we are Pastor Ricardo’s groupies or something. But, we really love the ministry that he does and we are so happy to be able to help out that church plant.

A big part of having this car will be being able to go to the other churches and gather information about the ministries. My first stop will be Guadalajara early next month. I am going to try to bring back the Church spotlight section for the WRBrazil.blogspot.com site.

Lindsay has been super busy this semester. She is teaching full time at the school plus she has a teachers class where she teaches English to the international school teachers. Emily is splitting the load of that class with the more advances people with Emily and then Lindsay has the beginners. Lindsay & Emily are also teaching English on Sunday afternoons at Ricardo’s church. Then, Lindsay is taking 2 online classes from IUPUI. So, some days I feel like she never stops doing things. My schedule is a lot lighter but it seems like I do things at weird hours sometimes, like start a project at night when I hadn’t done very much that day. Generally I have class in the mornings on Monday, Tuesday, and Fridays. Then on Wednesdays and Thursdays I am at home working on the blog sites or websites or video project, or really whatever is going on at the time. There are a lot of peaks of tons of work then all of a sudden there will be nothing else to do.

Overall Lindsay and I are doing fine. Right now I have the car filled with ethanol in the tank because it is a flex car which means it can take gas or ethanol. The car has a computer in the dash that keeps track of KM/L and such but I am still trying to figure out how it works. I think the car gets about 8 km per liter. Which I have no idea if that is good or bad.

Fiat Palio

2009-09-08T17:06:00.001-05:00

God has been so good and we just bought this car. We will be paying for it and picking it up tomorrow. (9/9)

Back in Brazil

2009-08-20T12:12:00.000-05:00

We are back in Brazil! It was a super fast trip only 13 hours to get here. I feel like we just took a long car trip to get here. We want to thank everybody that we were able to see during our trip to the USA, Thank you for being apart of our lives and taking the time to see us and find out what is going on with the Brazil ministry. We had a fantastic time meeting with people and being able to hang out with our friends. Julie Turner now Julie Landrum’s wedding was just perfect and made the trip complete. We wish Julie and Tim all the best as they start new lives together. We hope that you will make your home a “vortex of love” (taken from Julie’s fake vows).

When we got back to our apartment, I had Lindsay wait outside the apartment because she didn’t know that I had bought a futon for our living room (thanks to a donation). When I went to open our wood door the key just melted off into the lock. I barely had even turned the key. I called to Lindsay to stop Gilson (our ride) from leaving. Luckily he hadn’t left yet. It was about 7pm though and everything in town closes at 6pm. Gilson went down to the locksmith places and they were all closed. He took down all of the phone numbers though and came back to us. He went to call them and discovered he had no more credit on his cell phone ( almost everybody has pre-paid phones in Brazil) so thanks to my dad we still had Reais (Brazilian currency) in my wallet. I gave him R$10 and he was able to go to a drug store and buy credit. Thankfully some drug stores stay open later than normal shops. He finally got a hold of someone and then we told Gilson to go be with his wife, because before he dropped us off he dropped off his wife at the hospital because she thought she might be pregnant and had been throwing up. (we do not know if she is pregnant yet) So, Lindsay and I waited outside for the locksmith to show up. Lindsay kept speculating if it was the locksmith every time a car stopped near us. She never guessed right. Ok, to be fair she went to the bakery to get a drink for us when he arrived. The locksmith went up to the door and jammed in this metal key looking thing and started to wiggle it around so fierce that you would have thought he had fire ants on his hand. I couldn’t figure out if he was trying to pick the lock or was just hoping that he would randomly find a combination of moves that would open the door. He finally stepped back and said he needed a different tool. He went outside and walked the 100 feet to his shop to open it up and get this other tool he talked about. Lindsay and I went back outside and sat by the street again to wait for him. The next thing I know he comes walking up with what looks like a 3 feet long screw driver. It only took him 30 seconds to open our door with that monster of a tool. We were very overjoyed. He continued to mess with the lock more until he took the whole part out and said he would go make two new keys for it. R$50 later we were happily in our apartment with two new shiny keys. Gilson showed up again right at the end to make sure we got in. I still made Lindsay wait outside the apartment to make sure the place looked clean and the new futon looked good. When she finally came in she shrieked with excitement that we had a futon.

Today, we have been cleaning our apartment after finding some mold in a few places. We have yet to unpack but plan on doing that later this evening. We are at the Alcance right now, Lindsay is getting all of the updates on how her classes have been going and what they have been doing, (Rachel Winzeler has been teaching her classes) and I have already helped two people with computer issues. We do not have internet at our apartment either because we haven’t paid our bill in a month or because our ISP is terrible. Either way we are switching to a more reliable internet service. But, that means we might not have internet for a week to 2 weeks at our apartment. I will be able to e-mail and such from the Alcance but I won’t be able to talk to people over skype.

Well, I think we will head back and finish cleaning and unpacking. I hope you enjoyed hearing about our adventures of trying to get into our apartment.

Jeff & Lindsay's Ministry Open House

2009-07-13T10:19:00.003-05:00

Jeff is officially in the USA now so don't forget to come to our open house. If you can't make it please get a hold of us so we can get together with you. 317-215-7093 or Jeffroyturner@gmail.com

Come and hear what Jeff and Lindsay have been up to in Brazil. There will be Brazilian snacks and lots of sharing/fellowship time.

Date:	Sunday, July 26, 2009
Time:	1:30pm - 5:30pm
Location:	Steve & Ann Turner House 9925 E 12th ST Indianpolis, IN 46229

Groups etc.

2009-07-03T18:23:00.002-05:00

From Missions Groups 09

I look really sleepy and Amish in this picture. Well, the groups have arrived and I am busy yet again. But, in this case I am very happy to be busy. The teachers have been getting ready for the end of the semester program and the Medical group has been packing medicine in individual bags for the medical clinics. The school program this year is all about the different regions of Brazil. I think there will be dances from all sorts of times and regions.
I have been very happy to realize that I can translate general things for the groups here and help them understand different aspects of the culture and food. I will be filming the program tomorrow and taking pictures, afterward some of us are off to Lagoa de Itaenga for the youth program there.
Please pray for the groups that are here and continue to pray for me as I am still missing Lindsay.

Lonely June

2009-06-22T17:38:00.003-05:00

It is coming up on July and that means a break from school and the short-term trips start arriving. I (Jeff) have been a bachelor this month. Lindsay won't come back to Brazil until August 19th. I will be going to the USA around the 21st of July to spend time with my family and be in the US for my sister's wedding. We also really need to raise some more support while we are back.

This month has been rough because I miss my wife like crazy and I have had to teach most of her classes. I finally managed to sit down over the weekend and finish the new redesign of the ministry website. You can check it out at www.wribrazil.com. I put a lot of time and effort into it but I am still open to suggestions. I think I still have a small issue with the menu bar when viewed in Internet Explorer. Anyway, I have been trying to keep myself busy and well feed. I look forward to when the groups arrive because that will help keep my mind off of missing Lindsay. I think this will be the longest we have been apart since we got married over 5 1/2 years ago.

I think I am basically done with all of the big projects I have been working on. I am slightly still setting up a website for the Bible Seminary here. It is finished but just not on the right server. Which I am affraid that trying to switch servers is going to end badly. I think that is why I haven't done that yet.

Both Lindsay and I will be in Indiana from July 21st through August 18th so if you would like us to speak at your church or would like to know more about what we do here ect. we would love to fellowship with you. Like I said before we do need to raise more financial support, so if God is leading you in that way we would love to talk to you and let you know how to get involved supporting us financially and spiritually.

Lindsay going to the USA

2009-06-01T13:45:00.002-05:00

*Lindsay is on a plane back to the USA
(Note from Lindsay before she left)

I am going to come back to the US this week Lord willing. My Aunt Pat, my dad's sister, is in the hospital with terminal pancreatic cancer. I was planning on coming back the first week in July to help take care of her, but the doctor is only giving her one more week. I'm just really shocked right now. Numb. I guess I was in denial about how bad things were. She had a big part in raising me. She lives up in northern Indiana on our family's farm alone. She helped care for my dad with my grandparents until they all three died. She doesn't have any children only nieces (3), nephews (2), and cats. So I need to be there.
She has a secure faith in God and so I try to play it down in my heart because I know know I will see her again regardless, but I don't want to wait 50 years to talk to her again in heaven. I need to be there with my family.
I'll try to talk to you again soon. Please pray for her and pray for everyone here. It's really hard to leave, you know, this is home. I feel like I am leaving things unfinished, my responsibilities, but I really feel have to go since I am able. I know I would regret not going for a long, long time. I am just going to change my plane ticket that was for July 8 to this week. Jeff will teach my classes for the remaining 4 weeks of class.

Tennis

2009-05-28T09:53:00.002-05:00

From Tennis

The last two Sunday afternoons Jeff has been able to get to Recife and play tennis. Recife it the closest place to play tennis. Jeff is in the process of getting an estimate to build a tennis court at the international school. Which most likely will mean Jeff might be teaching tennis in the future. It was a lot of fun to be able to get to play tennis which just so happens to be right on the beach. This last Sunday David Moraes joined in on the fun.

Redesign

2009-05-13T15:11:00.003-05:00

Last time I talked about how I wanted to redesign the official World Renewal Website. Well today you can get your first glimpse of what it is going to look like. It still has a long ways to go but the basic design is done. I also found a really nice RSS flash based feeder for the homepage. The right side is currently blank, but I plan on making a few catchy images that link to things currently going on. Like if it is summer time, have a link to Short-term trips. I haven't fully figured it out yet but I think it will end up looking good.

After looking over the original site and because of the link progression that I setup for the new site. I have a lot of information to add still. If anybody reading this is good at writing I could use some help in this area. Mainly to condense some of the things I already have and to create a few small sections. For example, the history section is giant and needs to be condensed to a size that a normal person would be willing to read.

Without any more delay you can check out the design at http://www.wribrazil.com/wribrazil/

Websites

2009-05-05T12:47:00.002-05:00

I (Jeff) have been working this month on a lot of things for the international school. I finally got around to editing the videos from things like the Christmas play. I edited video from 3 different events and uploaded them to youtube. Then I put them up on the Internationalschoolofcarpina.com website.

I am still a novice when it comes to web design so these last few months working on two different websites has been a challenge. I feel like I am learning a lot about CSS and sadly a lot about how terrible Internet Explorer is. Please please use Mozilla Firefox. It is so much better and powerful. Even after making two websites I am not so sure I like doing it. Mainly because I like designing from a visual aspect but it is better to do things from just code. Anyway, the other website I designed with Roberto's help is www.engenho-verde.com. There is an English version of it, you just have to click on the US flag at the top left.

So, I was reviewing the WRIBrazil.com website. Which is the official ministry website. I am going to redesign it. Mainly because I didn't design it and would like a crack at doing that. So, if you have any suggestions let me know in the comments.

I few things that I know will improve the site:
1. Have a RSS stream of the blog site on the homepage
2. Simply the links
3. Have a non blocky design.

Passion of Christ Play

2009-04-07T09:53:00.004-05:00

From Passion of Christ Play

On Sunday we went with Roberto, his sister, and Jessica to the Passion of Christ play. It was in a town called New Jerusalem that is 3 hours away in the interior of Northeast Brazil. The whole outdoor theatre is the largest in the world. There is 9 different stages. We got to the town around 1pm and had time to look around and eat. Then the doors opened at 4. They have a statue in the middle of the place of the guy who build the theatre. During the play when you are suppose to move to another location, the statue rotates and points to where you need to go.

It was a bit scary when we moved locations because I think there was around 10,000 people there. Besides the stage all you could see was people.

From Passion of Christ Play

Overall it was a very good experience, but it was a long day and made us tired.

2009-03-25T11:28:00.002-05:00

This has been a crazy couple of weeks for Lindsay and I. First Lindsay got the stomach flu that was going around, which then turned into a bad cold. Luckily she only had to miss one day of school. There was some random saint holiday on Thursday so she was able to use that time to recover. Then our internet (which has never been super reliable) went to lower than dial up speeds slow. So, it got so bad that when we called people using skype they couldn't hear us at all. It was really annoying because we were trying to make sure Jessica got all of the right stuff from my Dad to bring back to Brazil. It ended up that they had to much stuff and went over weight and paid a fee of $150. Since they couldn't get a hold of us my Dad ended up paying for that fee (bless him).

I am very grateful to have my father helping from the USA with the Brazil Ministry. He is going to go full time in the ministry this next semester, which is going to be a huge blessing for me and for the overall ministry. This is going to take a lot of faith for him and my mom. It also means that they are going to have to raise support. So, please be praying for them and be asking God is this is something He wants you to help with.

Now I sit and wait for the internet people to come and hopefully make my internet the speed I am paying for.

English Class Outreach

2009-03-18T08:38:00.002-05:00

Lindsay has started teaching an English class as an outreach project at the Community Church of Lagoa de Iteanga. We go every Saturday and then every other Saturday we have a youth group program during the evening. Last week we had about 14 people from ages 18 to 30 at the English class.
Please continue to pray for this Church and this outreach.

Washing Machine

2009-03-11T08:27:00.002-05:00

Lindsay and I feel so blessed to have wonderful people in our lives. We want to thank everyone who gave us money for our washing machine. It took us a while to finally buy it, because we wanted to make sure we were getting the one that would last for the money that we were paying.

Washing machines here in Brazil are expensive. We finally got our for R$1,025. which is around $450. Most of the washers we were finding before God provided this one were around R$1,400.

We were told that Brastemp was a good brand that will last. We have been taking our laundry to the Alcance every Thursday to was clothes. This has been difficult because we don't have a car, so we had to take a bunch of bags of laundry on the bus with us. Most of the time we ended taking stuff back to the apartment at different times. Roberto has been really awesome and giving us rides home a lot also.

So again THANK YOU for your gifts!

Mini Vacation/ Carnaval

2009-03-02T04:52:00.002-06:00

Lindsay and I got a week off of teaching school because of Carnaval. Carnaval is basically Marti Gras also know as Fat Tuesday. Brazil goes nuts for Carnaval, that is why we get a week off for a one day holiday. Generally all of the Christians just hide during the events. So Lindsay and I did the same. On Monday and Tuesday we went with Pastor Ricardo Silva and his family to join the Community Church of Amexias for a camp. Camps here basically mean that people will rent a house either near the beach or away from the city and swim at the pool, play volleyball, and have other activities.

From Amexias Church Camp 09

Amexias had their camp in Caruaru which is a town in the interior of Brazil. It is further inland than Amexias is. The camp was a lot of fun. When we arrived I played volleyball, then we had dinner. At night we had a worship service. A little later that evening we had funny skits. Ricardo had recruited Lindsay and I to help with that. I think he gave me the biggest speaking part there was. It was a little weird and I almost didn't do it because it was all in portuguese. But, I got over my fear and God is good. I was able to do the part just fine and it made it even more funny because of my bad accent.

This is Loraina Pastor Assuerio's daughter. Amexias Church Camp 09

Pastor Ricardo and I relaxing. Amexias Church Camp 09

These guys were crazy. They cooked that pigeon they caught.
Amexias Church Camp 09

Lindsay being all cute. Amexias Church Camp 09

Ricardo's daughter Rebeca being all cute. Amexias Church Camp 09

Happy Valentine's Day, America!

2009-02-14T05:35:00.002-06:00

Another busy week has come and gone. The school days flow like normal now. The International school has more similarities to a high school campus than a grade school. Children have many different teachers that they visit from class to class. The younger kids have a teacher who stays with them, but the older students move about with less help.
We've received about 99% of the books we need for the English classes. It's been a huge ordeal to get all of them and now we are just waiting for the three teacher's manuals.

I could write more, or I could leave you with some pictures.

Pictures it is.
Happy Valentine's Day, in the US.

Lindsay

Jessica, our newest English teacher.

Typical evening

There's a party in my tummy! So yummy, so yummy!

Foundations (all day kindergarten) with their teacher Paula!

Some of our awesome 6th and 7th graders!

So it begins...

2009-02-06T08:11:00.010-06:00

The first week of school passed by quickly! Actually, all of January passed by quickly!
We spent the 17th through the 22nd with Jeff's dad and pastors from Community Churches in the US. They spent the week visiting churches and the three new church construction sites. That's right, we have three new buildings being constructed!

Jeff and I rode along a few times to visit the church construction sites and took pictures. Jeff filmed interviews with the pasters of many of the churches to show at BRCC. Someone at the church will be editing them together, we hope to get a copy back afterward and post them here. If not Jeff might just make his own edits and post them later.

This first week of school has been good even though we are still waiting on a lot of the English curriculum books to come in. Ordering books has been a long terrible process each year. This year we have been very blessed to have Emily Taylor helped research and contact the book sellers to find the best curriculum for what we need.

Jeff is now the Informatics teacher and he teaches seven classes. Basically first through seventh grades once per week. The first week went well. He is mostly teaching typing right now, since everybody seem to be bad at it. Third grade is a bit big. There are 13 kids and only eight computers. Jeff taught the older kids today and is enjoying those classes because he can teach a little more advanced stuff to them. Like the parts of a computer.

During the time that Jeff wasn't teaching he was working on the International School of Carpina website. This will be for the parents and people interested in knowing about the school. So it is in Portuguese and the content isn't all in the site yet, but he was mainly working on the layout and design. You can check it out at www.wribrazil.com/escola

Lindsay has kept herself super busy and a little stressed. She has been working on getting the school curriculum with little success. Like we said before Emily has been a big help with this.

Lindsay teaches the nursery class. That is right we teach English to toddlers, two years old in this class. She really enjoys teaching the babies and this year we have a really nice new classroom/playroom for them. Newly this year she also teaches the gradeschoolers a daily English class. The children are divided into two groups, older students (forth grade through seventh grade) and younger students (first grade through third grade). From there we divide children further into one of three levels. We don't want some students to feel slow or dumb so instead of telling them what level they are in we've given names to the classes. For first through third grade there are Otters (Lindsay's class), Moose (Jessica's class - she's our newest teacher from the US for the semester), and Okapi (David's class). For the fourth through seventh there are Heroes (Lindsay's class), Gypsies (Jessica's class), and Pirates (David's class). Lindsay also teaches History/Geography in English to each grades once a week in the afternoons and an English class for the teachers and staff. Since we are short staffed our English teachers plan and teach more than 22 English classes a week!

We haven't started helping in Lagoa de Itaenga yet because Pastor Ricardo is still on vacation. But, that has been good because that means we still have some downtime to "relax" (and plan more lessons)!

Please pray for good attitudes for us and the kids as we are teaching. Please pray for God to use us and protect us from evil (there has been a lot of spiritual warfare since we have gotten our visa).

Apartment Tour

2009-01-17T12:57:00.003-06:00

We are all moved into our new apartment located downtown Carpina. It took a while to get everything we needed for the apartment because apartments in Brazil come with absolutely nothing. We had to buy our own seat for the toilet. We still need to buy a few more small things but it is pretty well done. Check out our video tour of the apartment.

Apartment Tour from Jeffrey Turner on Vimeo.
To view an HD version click on the link above.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T14:57:00.003-06:00

Feliz Natal!

Priceless

2008-12-22T16:55:00.002-06:00

Plane trip to Argentina then to Brazil: $3,500
Lawyer fees to make sure our documents were good: $1400
Mostly hidden fees paid for getting a work visa: $750

God blessing every step of the way and providing what we need: Priceless

BRAZIL!

2008-12-17T10:41:00.003-06:00

Jeff & Lindsay are in Brazil now!

We left at 6:30am from Buenos Aires, Argentina. We didn't sleep the night before because we had to leave the house at 3:00 am. We just stayed up and played Settlers of Catan and Dutch blitz. The plane flight was good even though what we thought was a direct flight ended up having 2 other stops. We went to Rio first then to Salvador. Thankfully we didn't have to get off the airplane.

It has just about been 24 hours since we have arrived and so far we have been recruited to run the sound system for the Christmas play on Saturday. We are also helping setup the paintings that the kids did. Jeff has already fixed the internet and a few other problems like a printer issue. So now we are taking time to unpack and organize.

Time for pictures from Argentina.
Burial place of San Martin a liberator of Argentina and other parts of Latin America
This is the Argentina "White house". Jeff is standing with Nate Dunlevy who hosted us in their house.

Jeff and Lindsay get a visa.

2008-12-14T17:11:00.004-06:00

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!
We got our Work Visa!
God is good!

Isaiah 40:31
But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

PS
Here is a drive around the area in La Plata Argentina.

Brief Update 2

2008-12-12T10:03:00.000-06:00

We are still in sunny Argentina, just south of the capital in La Plata. No news from the consulate yet, but like they say no news is good news. If we hear from the consulate it is because there is a problem, so we don't really want to here anything. We'll head back in to BA on Monday and pick up the visa if all goes well!
We have just been relaxing with the Dunlevey fam. or in the empty duplex they rent behind their house. More of their team will join them in a few months, so they are renting this amazing two bedroom duplex. It is sort of serving as a guesthouse, so for now we have all to ourselves. I'll try to get a few pictures posted later... after nap time. :)

We went to the zoo yesterday with the family and had a good time until we visited the last animal of the day. Elle, their four year old, got a boo-boo from slipping on some metal bleachers. She had a pretty sizable gash above her eyebrow, so they spent the rest of the day getting stitches. She's fine now.
"I'll go back to the zoo again, but I'm not going to go back to that other place," she told us.
We hung out with their two year old, Scott and the puppy back at the house while they spend the day at the children's hospital.

We had some major accomplishments yesterday:
playing with dinosaurs
reading
napping
watching the movie Evita
eating icecream

I even had a few spare minutes to work on our budget for bedtime. God is so good, we're really having a great time.

Lindsay

Brief Update

2008-12-10T19:47:00.001-06:00

We arrived in Buenos Aires today. Headed to the Brazilian Consulate straight from the airport and spent about 3 hours there. Everything looks promising. They said that our visas will be processed and ready on Monday between 12-1.Just very surreal. God's been working on this for how long? And it's happening. It's hard to take in.

So we went out for Argentine steak, a lovely way to celebrate. Our host showed gratitude that I was no longer a vegetarian.

We are so blessed. Especially to have such a seriously wonderful family, the Dunlevy fam, (thanks Tim for the hook up!) to stay with here in Argentina. God is such a ninja. He's always pulling off the most amazing moves when we least expect him to. Everything going crazy up to the time we left. This week of downtime is really what we need while we wait for our visa to go through. And we thought it was a mistake that our visa was sent here. Ha!

Lindsay

Argentina or Bust

2008-10-27T20:32:00.000-05:00

This is going out to everyone! It’s been a while since our last correspondence (again). We wait and wait for something definite to happen, but it never does. We hate to confuse everyone with the long and complicated story (especially before we know how it ends), but it’s definitely time, past time, to share what’s happening.

We are going to Argentina.

Argentina. You read right. We have been trying for 2 ½ years or so to stay in Brazil long term, but now we’re going to Argentina... to get our Temporary Work Visa for Brazil! It is a weird story. Here’s the big picture: six months ago, when we were still in Brazil, we asked the Brazilian Ministry of Labor to send our work permit to the Brazilian Consulate in Argentina. It was going to be easier and cheaper to pick it up there since we were already in South America. Well, we had to come back to the US when our Tourist Visas expired after the last 6 months stay. As Jeff was leaving to pick up the Visa in Chicago last week we discovered some interesting news. The Visa was sent to Argentina. We thought we had changed the pickup location (to Chicago), but there had been a recent change of policy with the Ministry of Labor and they said it couldn’t be done.

Part of the change in policy means that we need to pick up the Visa and be in Brazil before 90 days. Even though there is more paper work to fill out, a work permit is a visa authorization in the eyes of the Ministry of Labor. Our work permit was issued a month ago. That means we have until the 16^th of December to be in Brazil with visa stamped passports. That’s less than two months away!

Woah. It is now going to be more expensive and difficult to get these visas since we are starting out in the US, not Brazil, but, Lord willing, when it’s all done we will have our Temporary Work Visa, which is what we have been working to get for so long.

When it’s all over we can stay in Brazil for 2 years straight, then when the first two years are up, take a 45 minute trip to the Federal Police in Recife and get it renewed for another 2 years. That is 4 years without needing to leave Brazil! Lindsay and I are so very excited about finally being able to settle in at the World Renewal Ministry in Northeast Brazil.

This time around both of us will be teaching at the International School. Lindsay will be teaching English and Jeff will be teaching computers and technology. On top of that Jeff will be keeping up on the WRBrazil.blogspot.com blog site and finding new ways to get the word out about all the amazing things God is doing in this church planting ministry. We also hope to rent an apartment away from the main ministry headquarters in downtown Carpina to learn the language better and be more immersed in the culture. If it works out this will be the first time in 2 ½ years that we will be away from communal living, not in the ministry headquarters “hotel room” and not with family or friends.

We are finally going into FULL-time ministry so we need your help. Our budget needs a kick in the pants with all the new expenses we are expecting. And we have a lot of new startup costs again. It almost feels like we are fundraising for the first time. We are extremely thankful for our supporters that have stayed with us even when we have been back and forth so many times and have been poor communicators with our situation (it’s been tough enough for us to keep up with all the changes). Your support (especially the prayer support) has allowed us to get through this crazy, crazy process of getting our Work Visa. Included in this letter is a copy of our monthly needs and a list of startup expenses that we will mostly be purchasing in Brazil. Please pray about supporting us monthly or giving a one-time gift to help launch us full-time in Brazil.

Jeff & Lindsay Turner

PS Please keep reading our blog – jlbrasil.blogspot.com or find Lindsay on Facebook to keep in contact with us!

*Launching Needs*
Bedroom Set	$1,000.00
Household items	$1,000.00
Camcorder	$1,000.00
Plane Tickets to Argentina then Brazil	$3,000.00
Total	$6,000.00

Monthly Needs

Total needed after taxes & WRI fees $1,870.00

Current support $1,085.00

Amount needed more $1,300.00

To give send a check to World Renewal earmarked Jeff & Lindsay Turner or you can give online at https://www.usaepay.com/ make sure to put Jeff & Lindsay Turner under the Description section.

WORLD RENEWAL
P.O. Box 399
Greenfield, IN 46140
(317) 467-9899
fax: (317) 467-4615

Personality Test

2008-10-13T14:33:00.002-05:00

So I (Jeff) took a personality test online that was recommended to me by a friend. I didn't really like a lot of the questions and didn't think it was going to be very accurate. Then I saw what careers they said I would be good at. This list is just freaky to me because it is almost like looking at my resume. I have been working in Social Service industry for 4 years of my life as a Direct care provider. I have been in school for Religious Education and of course am exposed to that a lot in Brazil. I will be teaching come January at the International School in Brazil. I will be teaching Technology and computer classes. Which leads to closer to the bottom of the list. I was a Tier 2 Desktop Support technician at Roche Diagnostics for a year which is like combining the Customer Service and Technical fields. Then the big job I do in Brazil is Graphic Design and communication. I can assume I will be doing a lot of translation once I learn the language better.

This was a very weird look into my life through a simple personality test.

YOUR TYPE
I	S	F	J
Strength of the preferences %
33	38	6	44

Career
Social Service
Social Work
Religious Education
Education
Child Day Care Management
Health Care
Health Care Administration
Medical Records Administration
Nursing
Radiologic Technician
Customer Service
Customer Service Specialist
Real Estate Broker/Agent
Secretary
Paralegal
Art/Technical
Translator
Computer Programming
Design Graphic, Industrial, Interior
Engineering
Famous people of your particular type
Jimmy Carter, Frederic Chopin, Jane Fonda

Work Permit

2008-09-16T17:50:00.001-05:00

We officially have our work permit now! Praise God! Now It gets sent to the consulate in Chicago and we can apply for the work Visa.

The Long Wait

2008-09-05T13:12:00.002-05:00

The depression set in once we arrived back in the USA. It seemed that every other day one of us was feeling it. That is part of the reason I have no posted a single thing since Lindsay and I have been back. I wanted to wait until we actually had some news for you. So, here comes the news:
We were able to get the reference documents legalized by the Brazil consulate and off it went to Brazil. Then we got a bill for all of the translations that they had to do for all of our documents. Shortly after that we heard that all the documents were in the right hands. I just got off the phone with Emily Taylor who is in Brazil and the rumor is, that we will hear on the 16th of this month if we get the Work Permit. Then all we would need is to take that document to the consulate in Chicago and get the Visa.

What we are doing now:

Lindsay is at IUPUI going for an English major. This was always part of our backup plan if we came back to the US this time around. Lindsay is also working at Maria's Pizza part time.

Jeff has been doing odd jobs and helping his parents. He has been applying for I.T. jobs like mad, mainly places in Indianapolis. He has applied for 3 positions at IUPUI and 1 at UofI. So far no one has gotten back to him.

Please pray for the outcome on the 16th and that God will provide a job for Jeff if that is His will.

Saudades do Brasil

2008-07-17T05:04:00.002-05:00

It’s 6:30am. I can’t sleep. I’ve been awake since 4:30 and there is probably no going back now. About 40 teens here right now on a short-term mission trip. It’s been a lot less noisy than I feared – and a lot busier. And we have kept them busy right from the start – so I’ve been pretty occupied also. Mostly sorting gifts for Brazilians and prepping for English Camp. It starts in about 2 hours. All I think about is English Camp, but I’m trying to make sure I have time to pack, too.

I don’t really know what to think. Things change so drastically so fast. Last week we didn’t know what we were doing next. Now we know we have to go back to the US. We'll be going back next week thanks to an awesome flight deal from my cousin. I’m heartbroken, nervous, a little excited (about seeing loved ones), and trying hard to remain a hopeful. We’re going back a little more visa savvy this time. We know that it might still be a while before we get this work visa. We know there are still mounds of red tape. We aren’t even sure that this work visa will go through. We’ll be living out our contingency plan (see the post on July 06, 2008), meeting up with family, visiting our supporters, and trying to recruit some new English teachers for the school.

We do still believe that God wants us to serve Brazilians. We feel like we fit in here more and more. We feel like we have a place here and that they need us. We’ll be back. It might be one month. It might be one year, but we’ll be back.
So, see you soon.

-Lindsay

Update #4

2008-07-11T11:00:00.000-05:00

Etc. (The Beach)

A couple of weeks ago was a holiday called São João (St. John the Baptist day). Saint John festivals are a big deal around here; they’re a country-style harvest party where dishes made with corn are served. The best part is school is out for two days. Perfect time for a road trip to the beach, right? We thought so. Tele let us (Roberto, David, Alyssa, Emily, Jeff and I) visit his parent’s beach house for a few days.

When we arrived the electricity was out. We were fine with our food situation; the neighbors let us keep food in their fridge and stoves in Brazil are all propane. We bought candles and made a fire on the beach at night. We might have had more fun because there was no electricity. Jeff and I slept out on the beach beneath the stars each night and I got up to watch the sunrise each morning. One of the highlights of the trip for me was watching monkeys in the wild! We saw them at the neighbor’s house two doors down. It was pretty cool, until they came to watch me…

The last day of our trip, while everyone else was at the beach, I stayed back to take a shower. I was almost finished when I heard some mysterious scratching. I looked up to see a monkey looking back at me. I screamed grabbed my towel and belongings, and ran to the next room, where there were two more monkeys in the rafters watching me. I finally found a room that was monkey free, so I locked the door (monkeys can totally open unlocked doors) and changed quickly. It was on my list of things to do before I die. See monkeys in the wild. Check.

Back to the USA

2008-07-11T08:34:00.003-05:00

Our last documents we sent to the lawyer were rejected because they were not "legalized" by the Brazilian consulate. This news gave us our answer about wither we needed to go back to the USA or just wait and see if we can get our visa soon and take a less expensive trip to Argentina and get the Visa.

I really like the reaction from my good friend Jon when I told him the news. He said "it seems like you probably should have everything legalized, notarized, blood sealed and consecrated to several different gods in order to make sure everything is setup ok". We have in no way given up on staying in Brazil and we will be coming back here as soon as we get this visa. But, it is nice to have an answer from God about where we should be right now. Even though this answer is frustrating we are looking forward to see how God uses us back in the USA for a while.

We don't have tickets yet but we should be coming back early August.

Update #3

2008-07-08T06:42:00.000-05:00

Ministry

July is a busy, busy month for the ministry. There are a lot of outreaches that happen through out the year, but July is the biggest month because of the short-term mission groups that come from the states. The first of the three groups have already arrived two woodworkers and Jeff’s dad. The second trip arrived on the fourth, a medical team, and the third group (40 some teens and adults) will arrive on July 15^th. Jeff’s dad comes every summer to coordinate the groups. We have really been enjoying having him around. If you want more info on what’s going on in ministry you can always check out the ministry blog, wrbrazil.blogspot.com.

New drug ring or medical mission trip?

Update #2

2008-07-06T07:00:00.002-05:00

Life

Jeff and I are gypsies. Ok, maybe we’re not real gypsies, but we are really starting to feel like we can’t stay in one place for more than a year or so. Here six months. There a year. Here six months again. Living with my parents, his parents, my brother, at the ministry building, in a tree, on the moon. Where are we going next? What are we doing next? What are we even doing for dinner tonight?

We still don’t know. We still don’t have a permanent/semi-permanent visa to stay in Brazil. We’re trying every avenue we can. We are still working with the same lawyer. He still says it will happen soon. He says that the judge has all info he needs now, hopefully. We’re also trying to pull some strings with some political connections Tele has. In Brazil sometimes it is all about “who you know” to get things done. We’re also going to give the case number for our visa to a friend who’s in law school. He’s studying international law, labor law, and immigration law and he thinks he might be able to help work things out. It’s all still taking time. If things pan out soon we’ll go to the Brazilian Consulate in Argentina to pick the visa up, because we found out for sure that we have to be out of the country to get the work visa.

If things don’t pan out before August 10 (the date our tourist visa runs out for the year) we’ll be headed back to the States. I applied to go to school at IUPUI as a contingency plan if all of our visa arrangements fail and Jeff has some possible job prospects back in Indiana, too. Whatever happens we know that God is with us and that he has a plan for us. No matter how mysterious and nomadic our life seems to be, we continue to trust him with our future.

Lindsay

Update #1

2008-07-04T19:18:00.010-05:00

Jeff does a great job as the communications link to Brazil, but when it comes to my contribution to the blog sometimes I get caught up in daily life and procrastinate for weeks on end. Jeff asked me to write a post about three weeks ago and I’m just now doing it. Oops. We have been finished with all school business since Tuesday. Now, since I have even more free time on my hands and I am out of excuses, I’m writing several posts to try to get on his good side again.

In the next few posts will hopefully catch you up to speed with school, life, ministry, etc.

School

There were two end of the semester programs to prepare for and present the last two weeks of school. Since I mainly work with the preschoolers the last two weeks were filled with repeating the same songs and dance moves, over and over again. The first program’s theme was focused on Pernambuco (the state where we live here). The international school kids presented special projects, sang songs, and performed skits. I learned my first full song in Portuguese as a result of helping the preschoolers with their presentation!

The preschoolers singing for the first program

The second program was a fund raiser event called “Nations’ Celebration.” The children performed dances from around the world and then sampled international food with their parents. We even held an “art auction,” selling the paintings the children made in their art classes this semester. The event raised around R$1,800 for a children’s hospital in Recife. I contributed by helping guide the preschoolers in their South African dance and by making chocolate chip cookies for the American food booth.

Joyce, one of our preschoolers, and her mom dressed up
for the Nations' Celebration

We completely wrapped up the semester with parent-teacher conferences last Friday and a teachers’ meeting on Monday. At the teachers’ meeting Emily Taylor and I presented a new English program that we formed to create a bridge between Portuguese subjects (ex. Math, Science, History) and the English language. We’re really excited about starting the program next semester!

Emily & I being awesome at the beach

-Lindsay

Dia De Namoradas

2008-06-12T09:05:00.002-05:00

Happy Valentines day!! Well at least the Brazilian version which actually translates to "Day of the Girlfriends/boyfriends".

Well for every concerned friend of Lindsay, don't worry I am taking good care of her and giving her plenty of chocolate and goodies. She wanted me to take pictures of her and her presents so that other people can see how happy she is.

School is almost out and my Dad will be arriving on the 24th! I am pretty excited. If all goes well we will be going to the Beach house with Tele and his family this weekend. Please continue to pray for the Visa situation.

The Fundemental Elements of waiting

2008-06-09T08:35:00.003-05:00

We still don’t know much about the status of our work visa and our Tourist Visa only lasts until August 10^th. We currently don’t have tickets back to the US or to anywhere. These things have been stressing us out like crazy. But, it has been becoming very obvious that God wants us to wait and trust in Him.

The past couple of weeks have been busy for me (Jeff) because I have had to help out with the Learning Centers in the afternoons. I usually help out with that one or two days a week, but recently I have had to do it every afternoon. I really haven’t minded it that much. Most of the time I am in Learning center with Lindsay which is nice and I think we work well together in those situations. I have been struggling a little with trying to figure out what else I should be doing here to keep people informed and it has been a slow month. I think with the start of Summer in the US that not as many people check the blog site and such. Plus up until a few days ago we didn’t have a memory card for our camera. Ours broke about 3 weeks ago. Thanks to Roberto’s friend we have a temporary card until my dad arrives with some new cards.

I think the whole theme behind this post is that Lindsay and I need prayer for guidance and that we will not just do what we think is best but wait on God for direction. I am really thinking the smart thing for me to do is go ahead and buy plane tickets now because they will be more expensive the longer we wait. The problem is, I don’t think that is from God. I just think that is the best choice in my head.

We have been able to do some fun things while we are here. We went to the beach with Roberto and Emily Taylor because Emily had yet to go. It was a good time even though it is starting to become the rainy session.

2008-05-23T11:25:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was a holiday. We went to Recife and were able to watch the new Indiana Jones movie. We also ate at Burger King. It was a very American day for us.

We still don't know anything with our Visa and Tele is sick right now. We need to have Tele call the lawyer and see about going to Brasilia to get this taken care of. At this point I don't see anything else we can do to speed up the process. I am finally at peace about the whole thing. If we end up going back to the US I will be fine with that and I know God has something for us there. I think if we go back to the US we will stay for a while and Lindsay will go back to school. If that is God's will that is. We have thought about a lot of things. We just want to do what God wants us to do.

Iron Man and Visas

2008-05-12T11:24:00.002-05:00

Last Thursday Lindsay and I renewed our tourist visa for 3 months. It went very smoothly and afterward Tele wanted to go to a Money conference so he dropped us off at the mall for a few hours. We had a wonderful time together. We ended up finding a Donut place inside the mall which you can't find to often. So we sat down together and enjoyed a banana and cinnamon donut. Lindsay said it was the best donut she had ever had. I think I would agree with her, it was pretty amazing. We also went to see a movie, since there was a cinema in the mall. We got to see Iron Man which I had been wanting to see. It was an amazing super hero movie and I think they did a perfect job on keeping true to the origins of Iron Man. Overall it was a very good trip to Recife. I even ran into somebody I knew there, which is really weird when you actually know so many people in a foreign country that you can bump into people almost everywhere that you know.

The Work Visa situation is still really up in the air. We are in Brazil for another 3 months for sure but are uncertain what will happen after that time. We got a call from our lawyer telling us that we would have to leave the country in order to get the work visa and we told him to send it to Argentina if it comes. That way we only have to spend about $300 on plane tickets to leave the country get our visa and come back. But that is only practical if it comes in the next 3 months. So, we still need a ton of prayer about this.

Also, because of this stress and being in ministry we are getting attacked emotionally at lot by Satan. Please pray for Lindsay and I's emotional states and stress. Even though we had a fantastic Thursday the weekend was the most depressing and emotional weekends for us. Maybe it was because it was Mother's Day weekend, who knows. We just could really use your prayers about stress.

15 Years of Ministry

2008-05-07T12:16:00.002-05:00

World Renewal Brazil is celebrating 15 years of ministry and it is very weird to think that I have been coming down here for 14 years of that. I first came when I was just 10 years old on a short-term missions trip with my family. I guess that is what happens when a family does stuff for God together.... God uses you for His glory. So beware parents if you send your child on a short-term missions trip they just might get involved with missions and furthering God's kingdom.

To celebrate the 15 years the Churches held a Forum where several Pastors talked about different areas of ministry and everyone shared about their experiences. The last one was Pastor Ricardo Silva and he was talking about the Unity of the Community Churches. The example he used was getting all the strong, big guys to circle up.

Then he had Duda (the all around handyman at the Alcance) pretend to be a "problem" or "difficulty". His job was to get inside the circle.

It was awesome to watch and even though Duda gave is his best, he didn't manage to get in the circle.

The whole forum was amazing to be apart of and was so uplifting to have so many of the Church Pastors around to share about their Churches and experiences. Gary Wright came from Indiana for the celebration and he started it off with a sermon on Jesus movements.

Holiday & Boxing

2008-04-22T10:39:00.002-05:00

This weekend was back to Lagoa De Itaenga!! But I (Jeff) was sick. It was very frustrating because I really wanted to go and help out but my stomach was bothering me a lot. That morning a group of people from the Alcance went to a lake in Paudalho and had a picnic for Karine Moraes. She will be leaving soon to go to England and then to Word of Life Hungary in August. But, I was not able to go to that either. I am feeling better today but please pray for health. I haven't been nearly as sick as everybody else has been recently so I most likely got the tail end of the stomach virus thing going around.

Lindsay and Emily were still able to go to Lagoa De Itaenga. They were 20 mins late so they only had 4 kids at the English class, but the class went really well and they have decided to do it every Saturday now.

Lindsay & Emily teaching the English class

The Youth program will still only be every other Saturday. By having the English class every Saturday it will help a lot more with the comprehension of the kids. It was just to much time in between classes to retain English that have no other outlet of learning it.

At the end of this month Gary Wright the president of World Renewal Intl. will be coming to Brazil. The month marks the 15 year anniversary of the Ministry in Brazil so Gary is coming down to be apart of the celebration. He is also bring some things down for us, which will help a lot. The current internet here is really bad with only 15kps download speeds which is about 3x faster than dial up. Then there is usually about 5 or so people online at one time which makes the internet nearly impossible to navigate. So after talking with Tele we are hopefully getting better internet this week. It should be going to about 60kps download speeds and then Gary will be bringing down a Bandwidth control router with him. Basically it will be able to set programs on a priority list and gives more speed to the things higher on the list. So I will be putting things like Skype on super high priority and downloads as a low priority. This should solve most of our internet problems.

When Little Kids paint.

2008-04-16T10:54:00.001-05:00

Lindsay has her hands full sometimes with these young artists.

We are doing well here and it has been a big blessing to have Emily Taylor here now. Lindsay and Emily are becoming friends fast, as for me I am happy to have another Settlers of Catan player. The school schedule is changing a lot because of Rachel Winzeler leaving at the end of the month. Emily has taken over David's classes and David is taking over Rachel's classes. It all is a bit weird, but the transition seems to be going well.

We will be going back to Lagoa de Itaenga this Saturday to teach an English class and help with the youth group. This time I will bring the camera! Pray for this time, that God will bless it.

Sickness & Work

2008-04-08T08:03:00.002-05:00

So, it seems that some type of stomach virus has been going around and has made people like Tele not eat for a long time. The funny thing is, neither Lindsay or I have gotten the stomach virus. But, Lindsay did get sick. It is more of a bad cold. This is partially why I haven't updated this blog for a while. Too many sick people making me feel down also.

I have been working on the Brazil website and it is pretty much done for now with the content part. I just need to get the outreach section complete which is actually going to be called Church Planting Strategy... section. This last Saturday Lindsay, Emily Taylor, and I went with Ricardo to Lagoa de Itaenga (The town which has one of the newest church plants in it) and we had an English class for the youth there. We also helped with the youth group later on that night. It was awesome to finally be able to use my Nintendo Wii for the ministry again. We really tried to get the youth group going with the Acacias church here at the Alcance but only one kid ever showed up. Anyway, the weekend went really well and the kids loved both the English class and youth group. We had one kid that was new who was very interested in the Wii and then came the next day to help out with a street market sale the Church was participating in. He also showed up to Church that evening.

It was good to see the Church raising money to make it a more Church like building. Right now the Church is a house that they are renting and it is pretty small. The Church sold about R$85 worth of clothes and items at the Street market, which is a huge deal for them because most of the Church members are not employed and they only give about R$6 a month in tithe.

Easter is coming

2008-03-17T08:39:00.002-05:00

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

2008-03-11T09:22:00.002-05:00

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

2008-03-06T11:18:00.018-06:00

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.

2008-03-03T08:01:00.007-06:00

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.

Culture prevails

2008-02-18T10:25:00.007-06:00

We are starting to settle in a bit now. Lindsay and I took some time to unpack and make our room a little more livable. We still need to purchase some things like another cabinet thing for our clothes and books, but Lindsay is very creative and has used our luggage crates as books shelves and a desk.The crates are in the same corner together because we were making room for the guy who will install our air conditioner. Ahh yes the air conditioner which was suppose to be installed today but isn't getting installed until Wednesday now. Actually, I am pretty impressed that this whole thing isn't taking much time at all. It did remind me about the Brazilian culture of putting things off and always showing up late. I guess I am putting that a little negatively, but in all actuality it is nice to live in a culture that is more laid back and not rushed. It does have its frustrations that I am sure I will be encountering and sharing on future posts, but for now I have adjusted rather well with this cultural habit.
Here is our huge hole in our room that is ready for an air conditioner. The funny thing about this is that the type of air conditioner that we are getting installed won't actually use this hole. We bought an expensive air conditioner that is super energy efficient and silent. I am all about saving money for the ministry even if that means we spend a nice sum up front. One of the Alcance's biggest expenses is the electricity bill, mainly due to old air conditioners in the classrooms. Currently there are two other energy efficient air conditioners in the two learning center classrooms. I think there are at least 4 maybe 5 other classrooms with normal electricty hog air conditioners. The ultimate plan is to replace them all.

More Pictures of our humble abode

I am pretty happy about our living situation and am very thankful for a wife that does amazing things with very little.

So, in the middle of writing this post our network went down and I spent about an hour fixing it. I feel like I haven't gotten much done today because of all the little things that keep happening. Maybe I shouldn't always be in the grafica (graphic design shop) because so much happens here. This way I also get to practice my Portuguese.
Well, I should conclude now and maybe in a few days I can get Lindsay to tell you about teaching at the school and how the school is going.

Post By Jeff Turner

In Brasil now

2008-02-13T12:42:00.002-06:00

Lindsay and I have arrived safely to Brasil with our entire luggage. Thank you for all the prayers. Going through customs was easy because all they did was take our "nothing to declare" paperwork and waved us on.
It has been a bit overwhelming being here and seeing the ministry again, because it has grown so much this past year. It is a huge difference going from 15 students at the International school to 57. That also means that the Alcance (where we live) seems so much busier. The ministry has a whole has grown because of the money that the school is bringing in, but it is still difficult to pay for the upkeep of the Alcance. They still make sure they are supporting other parts of the ministry though.
Well, I really feel good about being here and I have had assurance from God that this is truly where He wants us to be. Please pray for Lindsay right now, she is sick with some stomach problems. I think she got it before she came, but the transition hasn't helped. She has begun to feel better this afternoon. I have been doing fairly well, but I know I internalize things. I had some problems with stomachaches and acid reflux on the airplane. They only real time I almost lost it and cried my eyes out was when I gave Nathan (my brother in-law) a hug goodbye. Nathan and his wife, Joanna, have been amazing and have let us live with them at their house these last 6 months or so. We only had one vehicle and so did they, so we were really able to help each other out a lot with rides. I am so thankful for them.

The Christmas update we never posted.

2008-01-30T12:52:00.000-06:00

This past year was so very different than what we expected. We thought we would be back in Brazil before March. It feels like we spent a year waiting in anticipation for our return to that country! It’s not until we’ve sat down and really looked at what God has done this past year that we have seen a purpose for us being in the US. God has given us innumerable blessings through unusual and trying circumstances. We can’t give ourselves any credit at all for how He has provided. We want to give Him the glory by sharing a glimpse of what He has done for us with you, our friends and family.

• November/December ’06 – We returned from Brazil and stayed with Jeff’s parents for the month of November while we shared our experiences at various Community Church mission conferences. We then began living with Lindsay’s parents while we applied for a visa through Lindsay’s credentials. A good friend recommended Lindsay for a seasonal job working part time at Go Fish (a missions based clothing and jewelry store).

• January/February - Lindsay’s work permit (a precursor to the visa) was denied. Jeff was offered a job by an another good friend to work at Roche Diagnostics in their IT department. Lindsay started working full time at Go Fish as the assistant store manager.

• March/April/May- We decided to apply for a visa through Jeff’s credentials. Jeff studied for the A+ test (which was paid for by Roche). Roche began donating laptop and desktop computers to World Renewal. Jeff had a rough bout with the flu that landed him in the emergency room and added to his stomach problems for the following months.

• June –After Jeff took the A+ test in May we began to apply for a visa on our own with Jeff’s credentials. We moved in with Lindsay’s brother & his wife. Lindsay quit her job at Go Fish – in anticipation of returning to Brazil shortly.

• July/August – After having no success getting visas on our own we hired a Brazilian lawyer to help us with the process. The lawyer told us it would take 30 days to produce a visa. When Jeff was hired at Roche it was as a temp; his contract was up so we headed to California for a vacation to visit Jeff’s grandparents.

• September/October/November/December – September rolled around and still no word from the lawyer on the visa. Jeff was offered another position at Roche and Lindsay was offered an administrative assistant job at Hugabug Family Entertainment (a friend’s entertainment business) in November. Jeff went to the doctor after continued problems with an upset stomach and was diagnosed with acid reflux. His insurance at Roche paid for medication to treat it.

We can’t thank God enough for all He has done for us. We have been able to encourage some of our friends through some rough times this past year and they’ve helped us immeasurably through this confusing time as well. We continue to pray about our return to Brazil and we do have confidence in this:

“… I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” – Jeremiah 29:11

Back to Brazil

2007-12-27T12:59:00.000-06:00

Yup. Really. No joke. We're going back February 11. After 13 long months we're going, but our situation is complicated.

Why so complicated? Well, we aren't sure about how long we'll be there. Honestly, there has been no joyous uproar about returning, because we still haven't gotten our long-term visas. We are working with our lawyer on a visa, but it hasn't happened yet. Five months ago we were told by said lawyer that we would be back in Brazil in a month, but we're still filling out paperwork and trying to get through maze of red tape.

So, what to do? We're praying and instead of just waiting here twiddling our thumbs, we've decided to go back on short-term visas. We'll be staying for six months again, or if our long-term visa gets through 2-4 years.

So everything is up in the air again, or maybe it's still - Everything is still up in the air again. Things are complicated, and to be honest I'm afraid.

Life is great here right now. It's safe. We have our family around. We're happily living with my brother, his wife, and a dear friend. The house always busy with friends. Our Christian friends are loving and supportive of us. We have an awesome new church family. Great jobs. Savings set aside. A soft bed. Fast internet. Health insurance. Taco Bell. Comfort. Ease.
Returning to Brazil stirs mixed feeling inside of me. I feel great joy and excitement about returning to our friends. I have missed so many people so much!I can't wait to teach again. I want to see how things have changed! I want to get back, but but I guess the long wait has stirred up fear.
I'm constantly running through the 'What Ifs.'
What if I feel out of place? What if we don't raise enough support? What if I am really a horrible teacher? What if I never get to finish all the schooling I want? What if we dry up all the savings?

What if we end up back in the US again in 6 months?

Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. - Psalms 37:5
Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you... -Psalms 55:22

As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God! - Psalms 40:17

-Lindsay

Hello October, Goodbye Summer

2007-10-02T11:28:00.000-05:00

Perhaps you’ve noticed that we have been putting off another communication. We had hoped that this message could deliver exciting news about our visas, but now we are fairly certain that we won’t be back in Brazil for a while. We still aren’t sure how long “a while” will be. It may be two months, six months, or two years before we are able to return to Brazil.

Here’s the skinny on where we are with things.

What’s with our visas? We are still trying to obtain work visas with a Brazilian lawyer. We were originally told that it would take 30 days to get our visas; it’s been about two months and we still haven’t gotten them. We have just learned that the Federal Police have had strikes on and off for the past 9 months or so. Any visa other than a tourist visa must first go through the Federal Police so we are left to wait. They are in part striking for structural reform that will help ease the process of issuing visas, but reform takes time. We are still being asked for more information so there has been no denial of our visas yet.

Lindsay with an old pal, former exchange student, Fernanda

What have we been doing? Before visiting Jeff’s grandparents in California we quit our jobs believing that we would leave for Brazil shortly after our return. Since we’re still here we’ve found ways to keep busy. Jeff has worked on various ministry projects and continues to do freelance work fixing computers. We’ve also spent a lot of free time visiting with out of town family and friends.

Jeff helping Lindsay's brother rebuild his deck.

What are we going to do now? Returning to Brazil may not happen immediately so in the interim we are hunting for jobs. While there is still a good chance that we will be going back soon, we want to be prepared for being in the US for a while. If we do have our visas denied, we will need to go back to school. We are hoping to find jobs at universities or jobs that offer tuition reimbursement.

What are we praying for? Please join us in praying: We are praying that God will continue to lead us and open the doors that he chooses to open. We are praying as we search for the jobs that God has planned. We are praying that we will continue to trust God as we wait to hear what will happen. Pray that we will feel at peace with what God is doing in our lives.

Jeff at the Cart Family Farm

In God's Hands

2007-08-17T14:54:00.000-05:00

Well we have done everything we can on our end for the Visa and now the lawyer in Brazil is working on getting our visa for us. We haven't heard much from the lawyer at all so I guess no news is good news. Please continue to pray for the process.
We did just get back from a trip to visit my Grandparents who live in Southern California. It was a really great trip and we were able to spend a lot of time with my Grandparents but we didn't wear them out. We were able to do a lot of really cool things while we were there, including a trip to the San Diego wild animal park and a visit to the Aquarium of the Pacific. Lindsay has some picture up on her Facebook site . Check it out here.

Legalized

2007-07-18T20:15:00.000-05:00

After having to take another trip to the Brazilian Consulate in Chicago, we finally have all of our documents "legalized" by the Brazilian government. Basically meaning we can give all the documents to the lawyer and we should have our visa within a month.

Praise God

2007-06-14T10:14:00.000-05:00

Things have gotten rather complicated with the Ministry of Labor and they are giving Tele the run around. The good news is that through researching the requirements for the Visa, Tele ran across a lawyer that knows the process and can get us our Visa.
So we have hired the lawyer and now all we need to do is go to the embassy in Chicago and get our credentials certified. The Brazil government does trust documents that haven't been certified by a Brazilian.
We will take a trip to Chicago on Tuesday June 19th. Please pray that is process goes smooth.

Good News

2007-05-19T18:51:00.000-05:00

Tele went to the Ministry of Labor and they like my credentials!! So now Tele has to write a employee contract and get it approved by the Ministry of Labor. More news soon.

So much time

2007-05-06T20:06:00.000-05:00

Sorry we haven't posted in forever. It has been a weird but wonderful time here in the US. Yep thats right we have been in the US since November 06 because we have had trouble getting our work visa to go back to Brazil. The Brazil government pretty much said that we didn't have enough schooling to be qualified to teach at the International school. So, I (Jeff) have been studying for the Comptia A+ computer certification exams because the Brazil Government has said if I have a computer certification they will give us the work permit. In the course of starting to study for these exams a good friend of mine offered me a job in the computer field that would also pay for my exams (they are about$158 each). So the last couple of months I have worked for Roche Diagnostics in there IT department and have been studying like crazy for the Comptia A+ exams.
Well, the LORD is faithful and I have passed the exams!! Which means I am official a Comptia A+ professional, translation= I know a lot about computers and could work as a general computer repair guy. So, as I write this I have been getting my resume updated and I will be getting my college transcripts and sending them all to Brazil in hopes of getting a work permit so we can apply for the work visa!!
Keep us in your Prayers

Another way to get a Visa

2007-02-15T21:11:00.000-06:00

A+

Well the newest way that we are trying to get our work visa is now through Jeff. Tele has been in communication with the ministry of labor and they didn't approve our visa through Lindsay.They did say that if Jeff had a computer certification that they would give him a Visa to teach computers at the International school.
So, this means that Jeff has started to study a ton in order to take the Microsoft A+ certificate test. It is two tests one hardware and one software. Please be praying for Jeff as he is studying for these tests and will take it in a couple weeks once he feels secure that he can pass.

2007-01-26T14:11:00.000-06:00

So Lindsay and I have been living with her parents in a two bedroom apartement for the past 2 months. We have really enjoyed living with her parents and like the apartement also but sometimes wierd things happen there.

Like the other night it started raining inside the aparetment.
So it turned out that the new neighbors upstairs didn't have toilet paper and one of the girls thought it would be a good idea to use paper towels. Yes that is right it was raining toilet water down upon us. Luckily it was only in the two bathrooms that it happened.

Still in Indiana

2007-01-22T13:38:00.000-06:00

Yes we are still here but things are looking good for getting the work Visa and heading back down to Brazil.
The International School now has the government number from the IRS of Brazil that will make it possible for us to get a work visa. We are praying that everything will be processed fast and that we will be in Brazil in March!

Keep Praying for us!

Merry Christmas

2006-12-19T14:42:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas from Jeff and Lindsay Turner!

It was exciting to start off the year by adding a new member to our family. No, we haven’t had a baby – someone had a wedding. Lindsay’s brother Nathan married Joanna (Krasnichan) on St. Patrick’s Day. Lindsay was the Matron of Honor and Jeff was a groomsman.

This year was also good for us personally as we reached goals that we set when we first got married. We were finally able to move down to Brazil, South America and begin serving in ministry with World Renewal Brazil. Jeff works at a ministry print shop/ graphic design center and Lindsay teaches children English.

You can get all the Brazil updates you can handle by reviewing our posts for the past six months at our weblog (www.jlbrasil.blogspot.com). It reflects on how blessed and honored we feel to be serving God at such young ages.

Our hearts are in Brazil, but Christmas and Thanksgiving with our families has really been wonderful. We returned to the States on November 2^nd to participate in missions conferences. We had hoped get new visas quickly, but it is not moving smoothly. Lindsay’s tourist visa expired in November, so returning to the US has been all about trying to get two-year work visas. The process is time consuming and difficult.

Pursuing visas does not take up all of our time, so we have both sought ways to bring in some money. Jeff has kept busy by helping people fix their computers and Lindsay got a seasonal job at a Christian store called Go Fish in the Greenwood Park Mall. God has really blessed us with some interesting connections through Lindsay’s work. We are praying that these relationships will benefit the ministry in Brazil.

The when and how of getting back to the country seems to be up in the air for the time being, but we still serve the ministry as much as possible from long distance. We try to stay on top of the news from Brazil and update the World Renewal Brazil blog (www.wrbrazil.blogspot.com).

Please continue to pray for us as we trust in God for the plans that He has for us.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)

2006-11-28T12:02:00.000-06:00

Lindsay has taken a part-time job at a store in the Greenwood Park mall called Go Fish. If you are in the area please stop by.

We are still working on getting a work Visa to stay in Brazil for 2 years. Please pray that the process will go smooth.

2006-11-16T13:55:00.000-06:00

Tele is only here for one more week and we have been all over to the different community Churches. Thanks so much for all the churches that have let us speak and be apart of their mission conferences! After things settle down and while Lindsay and I are trying to get our new visa, we might be taking part-time jobs. We also still need to raise some more support before we go back to Brazil.

Please be praying that we will get our visa in a timely manner and that we will be able to raise more personal support.

2006-11-06T10:44:00.000-06:00

We made it safely to Indiana!

We will be going around with Tele visiting different Community Churches and talking with people about the Brazil ministry. We are very excited to see people and look forward to the big group that will be at the Reunion next Saturday.

If anybody would like to get together with Lindsay and I our Cell phone # right now is
317-508-1960

2006-10-31T07:45:00.000-06:00

We leave tomorrow at 6am. It doesn't quite feel possible that the time as come already for us to return to the States. Things feel a little uncertain. We don't know for sure about our visas. We don't know how long we'll be in the States. We don't know so much. I guess it just gives us a great chance to trust in the Lord. God has been so good to us and provided for us this far - we know he will continue to do so.

Please pray for a safe trip for Jeff & I and for Tele.
See you all very soon!

Lindsay

By the way - today is Jeff's Birthday!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEFF!

2006-10-25T14:26:00.000-05:00

Lindsay and I are starting to pack our things and figure out what stays and what goes. It is a very emotional time and if we had a choice we would stay.

On the bright side of things! We got a lot done for the Ministry like the Short-term Missions Brochure and a General Ministries Brochure that describes all the various parts of the World Renewal Brazil Ministry. ( all the links will lead you to PDF versions of the Brochures that you can download)

We also have finally finished the Brazil Broadcast for the fall session. ( This is also a PDF version of the Broadcast that you can download.)

2006-10-13T13:43:00.000-05:00

Jeff and I can hardly believe that only a couple of weeks remain until we leave for the States. Where did the time go? This past month has been a busy one. We've been working on wrapping up a dozen projects, as well as trying to keep up with our normal routines. Life is rich and full.

Things are busy at the International School. I've been working on teaching the Kindergartener's how to read in English with the help of a really great Phonics Book called Systematic Sequential Phonics. They are picking it up fast, often having to learn the meaning of a word as they are learning to read it. We also had a huge event on Wednesday for Children's Day. If you want to know to know more about that, I'm afraid you're going to have to pick up a copy of the latest Brazil Broadcast... it will be out in about 3 weeks. :)

ok here's a couple of pictures from big bash at least - to tide you over for the Broadcast

Jeff's main focus has been on projects we need to finish for Mission Conferences in November. Like we've said before, it is less expensive to print things here. So, we have stacks of brochures and the Brazil Broadcast Fall 2006 to finish laying out, collating, and printing!

Please pray for us as we try to finish these tasks and as we continue to work out long-term visas. Right now Tele is working on registering the International School with the Brazilian government. After he does that we can get a volunteer Visa through the school.

Anyway it's all taking more time that we'd like it to and we could use the prayers for patience and for the process.

post by Lindsay