While most others had enough sense to go find some rest after our long trip to Brasil, I really wanted to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to meet some of my friends from the 1998 trip to Brasil, and so I wandered up to the chapel.
For a while I even helped them cut paper and otherwise decorate the building. It was a wonderful welcome back to Brasil for me, and while much of the group there were not people I knew, some of them were. Our God is so good to us!
It is my feeling that the youth camp of the Igreja Missionària Central was a great benefit to those participating in the English camps. Even for someone who participated in the first English camp, the concept of trying to work with a bunch of people, many of whom may not know much English, is a bit intimidating. The wonderful group of people at this church helped us get adjusted to the idea of working in an environment where love, kindness, and attitude go much farther than whatever words we say. Love, kindness, and attitude can usually be understood no matter what the language. Also, it helped everyone get used to the idea of talking in slow, understandable sentences. Therefore, in many ways this camp was a benefit to the English camps later on.
Again, I must say, Our God is so good to us!
This is a message sent after arrival and before the various camps:
It has been cold here. This morning about 20 deg. F. This is the coldest it has been since about 1975, when it actually snowed here. The snow line was about 200 km south of here this morning. By early this afternoon it has now warmed up to about 70 deg. F or so, now that the sun is out. This is extremely hard on the people here, as almost no buildings have any sort of heating, and certainly not those of the poorer people, who don't even have that solid of walls in their homes.
We are concerned that, along with the other problems, this may cause some havoc with the English camp, as there are probably not that many people who are going to want to do much with it getting so cold in the evenings.
Although she is feeling much better, Jan, the person in charge of the English program at the seminary here, had gotten very sick. She is up and about now, but since she is in charge of this camp program next week, she is vital to our plans.
The Central Missionary Church will have their youth ( here, youth is any single adult over about 16 - there is not the problem of mixing ages as there is in the churches in the USA ) here for a camp starting this evening. We will be participating in their camp, and after they leave the English camp will start. Unlike last year, we will have a separate camp program for adolscents ( under 16 ), which there has been apparently a significant demand for.
After the camps are over with, I will apparently be moving in with one of the missionary families in town. Therefore, the phone number and e-mail address I gave everyone will change, though the people here at the camp have close enough contact with the people in town that relaying of messges should not be a problem.
As an aside, the temperatures will probably cause some significant problems with the coffee plantation, and I am not certain that there will be much coffee available when I return in September.
-Glenn
( Once again a reminder: if anyone replies to this message, please put "for glenn" or something along those lines in the subject line so that they know which one of us the message is for. Thanks!)