Brasil 2008 with Licia's family

After leaving Curitiba on Jan. 31, we travelled with Forrest and Licia to Bahia, Brasil to spend time with members of her family. Her Mom had 17 children so her family is large. We flew to Salvador via San Paulo and stayed one night with Licia's sister Tati, husband Dinho, daughter Camila and son Caio. They have a beautiful home in Salvador. We rented a Fiat that used natural gas, gasoline and alcohol as fuels. Part of Licia's family meet each Carnival season at their beach house in Palame. Although the river was just across the street from the beach house, we were told not to swim there to avoid getting worms.

People would bathe, swim, wash clothes and dishes and ride horses in the river. Her family really enjoys swimming in the inlet where that river meets the ocean. Across the street from the beach house were these colorful houses. Gail and I really enjoyed our time in the ocean boogie boarding. The rocks where we were here were not bad but most of the beach had dangerous rocks. Although Gail was sick with diarrhea many days, whenever she was well as you can see, she really enjoyed the beach. Licia's sisters Tati (with husband Dinho) and Dilma are shown at the inlet with us. We spent Carnival in Palame so we only saw a few scary dressed people. We saw this interesting mode of transporting goods there. In the center of this small town is this enclosed soccer court. This is the main restaurant in town. I had to get this picture of Licia's sweet Christian mom reading her well used Bible. We rode (in the back of a packed pickup truck) to Licia's brother, Dario's, farm for a day of jumping off the stick bridge and swimming in the very clear river.

After returning to Salvador for a day, we rode 2 hours to Licia's mom's home and where most of her children were raised in Alagoinhas, where we stayed about 4 days.

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This is Licia's brother, Paulo and his 2 girls that Licia and Forrest were trying to adopt last year. Their living conditions were not good. We ate Sunday dinner at Licia's sister, Leleia's home. Gail was really not feeling good here.

We returned to Salvador on Sun afternoon and remained there until our Fri. flight home. Salvador is a very beautiful city for it's beaches, lakes and small streets in the upper city. The harbor is strikingly beautiful for a 450 year old city.

Valentine's Day produced another challenge for me to get flowers for Gail, but as you can see...I came through once again. Gail had been sick for 3 or more days in Salvador so missed much of the sightseeing in the old city, but did enjoy our last day at the beach. She especially enjoyed sitting in the shade of the restaurant and ordering coconut water with her Pepsi. Not a bad view of the Atlantic Ocean.
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This guy had just caught this fish and asked me to put his picture on the internet, so here he is.

We had a good-bye dinner with Tati's family at one of their favorite restaurants. We had a great 2 weeks after English school in Brasil with Licia's family.

Brasil 2008 CTM

Gail and Jim again visited Brasil in Jan. 2008 as we had last year. We again taught English at the CTM (Christian Training Mission) about 26 km outside Curitiba, Parana, Brasil. We are pictured in front of the Jardin Botantical Gardens in Curitiba. The weather was very different from last year with it being very rainy and cold this trip. It was quite hot last year. Our students were fewer this year and on the average younger also. God was invited to only bring who He wanted to this retreat so we had perfect confidance that He did just that. The teachers stayed in this house which was even nicer than last year's accomodations. My aids in the Intermediate class were Carol and Julia. God was very faithful, as always to annoint the Purpose Driven Life classes. There were many full time Christian workers or children of the same. A fresh annointing of our lives was what we prayed for and God did just that. It was great to see some of our last year's students, like Millene and Marcelo with their very new baby. They are missionaries to the Bolivian indians in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. This is the why we teach English here, so that missionaries can go into all the world sharing the love of Jesus Christ.
A very close friend from last year, Marle visited us at the base. We have kept close internet contact since last year. We met many new wonderful people this year that we can do likewise with from now on, like these three. I have been receiving several e-mails already from some of them. They shared many things to pray for them. Evelyn's great smile and always bubblying personality and Karina's solid love for God and searching for His devine path for her life. Bekah's love of prasing God especially with Hillsong. What wonderful things God wants to do with these fine people. Deivid's loving the people through his tireless service to them. My friend Alessandra's running of the CTM base and learning English this year a well. There is also the young lady who claimed me as her "Grandfather", the one and only Baby Black. It was great to renew friendship with Giliarde, who was a beginner last year and pushed himself while we were gone to learn more English. He was one of this year's best Advanced class students. The bond between him and Faye is almost at the mother-son level.


Our only field trip this year was to Curitiba where we visited the: First Baptist Church' English service, Opera House, Jardin Botanical Gardens, and Tangua Park.

On Sunday's Dayne and Adelia preached and Gail shared a word.

The Intermediate class and Advanced class pictures.