Merry Christmas!

Ah 2 days before Christmas and I feel like I should be stressed out over all I have to do, but then i think "What do I actually have to do?"  Normally the week before Christmas I make an excel spreadsheet with all I still have to do, deadlines, presents to buy, etc so that I can organize my week (yes, I know, a bit much).  Well this year I dont have Excel and I dont have a huge list of things to do.  I haven't bought a single gift, mailed a single card (I did make them, but that's as far as I got), or made a single cookie.  I'm not quite sure what to do with myself--it's such a strange feeling.  

On Tuesday I went with a small group to celebrate mass in Salvador.  I led the singing for the mass and sang a solo.  Afterwards the people who attended mass left bags of food for us--mostly rice and beans.  And so that was my payment for singing.  I'm going to make myself a shirt: "WILL SING FOR BEANS"  Everyday I just have to laugh at have different my life is here :)

On Christmas Eve 3 households are going to have dinner together so that our 3 siblings (Rafaela, Mateus, & Diego) can be together.  We are hoping their parents will come too.  So yes, I have 17 people to feed, but I have done a good job of delegating cooking and decorating.  We're also going to put on a little skit of the Christmas story with the kids and celebrate midnight mass.  looking forward to a relatively quiet, peaceful Christmas. 

This Christmas is different for me in so many ways, but still I am filled with joy for Christmas Day!  To celebrate Jesus coming to earth to live among us--Awesome!

Peace, joy, and love to all of you and your families on Christmas and always,

Sunny

See you in heaven Grandma

My Grandma died last Sunday.  She was 93, was on no medication, had been sick for only a month, and wasn’t in much pain.  She was coherent and my uncle was with her holding her hand and talking to her.  Most of us would say, “That’s how I want to go.”  She had a full, exciting life.  In the month preceding her death and the days after, my family was together, laughing, crying, and remembering all the good times with Grams.  I think they were prepared.  I was not.  5,000 miles away in the jungle I broke down as I was hit by the reality that she is no longer on this earth.  I suddenly became again the little girl “playing” the piano while she danced, digging in the mud to find sand dollars and clams, learning the constellations on moonless nights, planting yellow roses.  I thought, “She’s gone and I will have no new memories of her.”I wanted my mom.  I wanted my family—to laugh and remember with my brothers and cousins all the childish things we did with her.  But I couldn’t have that so I tried to hide.  I wanted to be alone.  We offered Mass for her that day and after I stayed in the chapel and then hid behind the altar to be alone with Jesus.  I asked God “Why now?  Why now when for the first time in my life I am away from my family and can’t go back?  Why not last year?  Why not next year?”He didn’t answer me right away, as I prefer, but over the course of the week it came to me slowly: because then I wouldn’t have needed Him so much.  It’s true.  If I was home I would’ve stayed close to my family and wouldn’t have rushed to sit at His feet.  The pain might have seemed less severe, but the healing would have been slower.  The wound might have festered without the healing oil only God can provide.

I came out of my hiding place and my family in Christ was waiting for me.  Because many of them know what I was going through, many of them have been away for years and have sacrificed such moments too.  They sat with me, chatting, drinking tea.  They didn’t ask about her, they were simply present.  It was comforting, but I still felt that I wanted to talk about her.  Erica was gone for the weekend, so I didn’t have my dear “you understand me in English” friend.  But the next morning God provided.

Elizabeth and her husband François were visiting their godson, Renaud (French missionary here with his wife Marie Ines and son Josef).  They are a retired French couple and spent 2 weeks with us.  She speaks English very well and is one of the bubbliest people I have ever met.  After the first few days when she admitted that she couldn’t remember my name (Ninella) I told her she could call me Sunny.  Since she speaks English she understood the significance of the nickname.  She was absolutely thrilled to know that everyone calls me Sunny because all of her family calls her the French word for Sunshine (can't remember what it was, but you get the idea).  And so we became fast friends.Monday morning she came to my house to offer her condolences and gave me the best mom-style hug.  She wasn’t at mass the day before and so hadn’t heard the news about my Grandma.  At dinner that night she asked “What is wrong with Sunny?  Why is she not singing?”  And so someone told her.  She sat with me that morning asking me all about my Grandma.  I told her some of my favorite stories and then once she perceived that I didn’t want to talk anymore she started talking about her family.  It was a little thing, but a time of such unexpected joy.  God had sent me this darling French mother when I couldn’t be with my own. 

I went through the week doing my usual things, but with a heavy heart.  It started feeling like emptiness as the days went on, but here in this life given for Jesus a heart simply can’t stay empty long.  Thursday we celebrated Mary’s Immaculate Conception and the 19^th birthday of the Fazenda.  Even the bishop came!  You know it’s a party when the bishop is here!  Saturday morning I was making dessert for tudo o mundo (all the world) and I started singing.  I hadn’t really thought about the fact that I hadn’t sung all week except for during mass and prayer.  Teté (8-year-old Brazilian girl) was in the schoolhouse with Erica and said “Listen!  Your sister is singing again!”  I guess I wasn’t the only one feeling my sorrow.  Then I thought “you know what would really cheer me up?  A dinner party!”  So 8 of us sat down that night to a table full of good food and good friends and my heart is again full. 

There is no substitute for my family, for my friends back home, for my Grandma.  And there is also no substitute for my family and friends here.  The love of each person is so precious, so different, that I can’t imagine giving up one for another.  Thank God I have so many people to love and who love me.  Thank God for His love that makes all other love possible. My Grandma loved me and I loved her.  Now with her suffering on earth at an end I know I can say, see you in heaven Grandma. 

Love,

Sunny

Cockroaches, driving lessons, caroling and other fun things

I’m going to stop apologizing for the weeks when I don’t post.  It’s inevitable.  I wish I could write every week, but it’s just not realistic.  So anyways, some random bits about what I’ve been up to in the past week…

First off, thank you all for the prayers and emails about my Grandma.  She is not being treated but is a little better and is comfortable at home with someone to care for her.  Please continue for her to be at peace.

I have a new sister: Irma Maria Adela.  I call her “Irma” for short.  Irma Miriam left for her new mission in Peru 2 weeks ago and Irma moved into the room with me.  She is from Argentina and is the most adorable little nun you ever saw.  Small, fair, soft spoken with a beautiful voice—like if Snow White were a nun.  She cooks, cleans, decorates, does everything with so much tenderness!  The other night as I was getting into bed there was a cockroach on the inside of my mosquito net.  Yes, a cockroach, flying around in my bed. (pause for effect)  I was really doing my best to remain calm and try to flick it out of the net.  She sensed my tension and asked what I was doing.  When I told her she watched me for a while, apparently amused at my difficulty, and laughed.  Then in her quiet voice she said “excuse me” and she reached in and grabbed the cockroach WITH HER BARE HAND and threw it out the window!!!  I have never been in such awe.  I’m so happy that she lives with me.  Sweet, a good cook, and she kills bugs.  Wow.

Last week I finally started driving regularly.  I drive te kids to school on Mondays, for the next month at least, until summer break.  7 kids, 5 different schools, in a 1982 VW van.  This car…oh this car!  I don’t even have words to describe how impossible it is to drive!  The clutch is stiffer than a double scotch on the rocks and the gear stick is the shiftiest thing I ever saw.  1^st gear is in a different place every time and it is still a mystery to me where exactly reverse is located.  The middle seat doesn’t have seatbelts and is in a constant reclining position.  There is no power steering, no AC, no heater, no radio, and no vanity mirror! ;)  Only by the grace of God was I even capable of driving it.  Once we got home I had the kids check me for gray hair.  I was thinking to myself as I was stuck in the middle of a once-paved road trying to find reverse, “If I can do this I can do anything!”  And then I thought about how many times I’ve said that since I’ve been here.  Nearly every day I’m presented with a new challenge and I have to pray for the strength to face it.  Often I have to ask for help, (which is whole other challenge for me!), often I have to trust the voice inside me that is filled with the Spirit, but mostly I just have to pray and then try, believing that God has not, will not abandon me.  I really can’t do any of this, and yet I do by His grace.  Maybe one day He’ll even grant me the strength to kill bugs with my bare hands…

Last week I also got to spend a few days in Salvador setting up a photo exhibit.  Just to be in the city was thrilling, but to be in the city and surrounded by art was sheer bliss!  One way we in Heart’s Home spread compassion is through art, and many of the HHs around the world have cultural events to help bring awareness to the suffering and illuminate the joy that exists in all human life.  The show in Salvador has  30 photos by Pierre Verger, a French photographer who spent time in Bahia in the 50’s and 60’s.  The photos are all of poor children, mostly on the streets in Salvador and the surrounding area.  The opening night was a huge success and the show will stay up for 2 months.  You can see the photos at http://www.pierreverger.org/fpv/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=449&Itemid=559

So it’s Advent, but I’m having a hard time believing Christmas is only a few weeks away.  I’m not baking (well, not more than I usually do), we don’t have any decorations, and I’m not going to go shopping.  Oh, but I have been caroling J  Mostly just around the Fazenda, singing Christmas carols until everyone is sick of them, but one day last week a small group of us went to a school in Salvador to sing.  We sang carols in Portuguese, French, Spanish, English, and Latin with Daniel (7 years old, Brazilian, has lived in the Fazenda since he was a baby) accompanying us on the conga drum.  That helped me get into the spirit a bit.  Also I’m talking about making a gingerbread house with the kids and putting on a little Christmas play and I’ll probably put some lights in my coconut tree.  Still it doesn’t feel like Christmas.  I guess because it’s so different than usual.  Maybe without all the baking, decorating, shopping, etc it will actually be more like Christmas should be.  I won’t be so distracted with all I have to do and can focus on rejoicing in the birth of Jesus.  I can focus on the mystery that is Christmas—that God sent His only Son to redeem the world.  That Jesus left Heaven to live in poverty and to be killed, all for our Father’s love for us.  I can’t even wrap my brain around that it’s so baffling, and yet, it’s true.  

I hope the truth of Christmas rings in your hearts!  Please send me your prayer requests or other news at sunnywallsings@gmail.com  It may take me awhile to respond, but I would love to hear from you!

Love,

Sunny

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and so naturally I am missing home more than usual.  Erica and I are going to try to make something resembling Thanksgiving dinner, but we dont have turkey :)  Chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, hopefully something like stuffing, and a spice cake.  Thats about as close as we can get and I'm sure it will be fabulous because it will be made with much love.  Everyone here loves the idea that Americans have a holiday just to give thanks.  It doesn't seem to exist in other cultures.

Erica's family came to visit the Fazenda last week.  How wonderful to have them here for a couple days!  It was a little piece of home :)  Just knowing that they saw my parents just a couple weeks before and will see them again soon filled me with such joy.  You know how often we say "Give him a hug for me!"  or "Put a kiss on her for me!"  but never before have I actually tried to hug someone so that she could pass it along.  Well I did when they left.  I think I nearly crushed Erica's mom with the hug meant for my mom and I'm sure Erica's dad won't be too shy to hug my dad for me. 

So I'm thankful for my family.  I'm thankful that I have years and years of precious Thanksgiving memories.  I'm thankful that I live with another American who can truly share this holiday with me and that we can share it with our community.  I'm thankful for all of my friends and sponsors who made it possible for me to be on this mission.  I'm thankful for all of the prayers and support I receive everyday.  I'm thankful that I am here, away from my family, because that brings the most suffering.....you're probably thinking that perhaps I've been in the jungle too long, but truly, of all the struggles here, what is the hardest for me?  Being away from my family.  I can sing in a cold shower, I can sleep on a wooden cot, I can kill huge bugs, I can pick lice out of a friend's hair, I can walk miles and miles in the midday sun, I can never flush toilet paper, I can clean bat poop off the table.  I can manage all of the physical discomforts but only the suffering that comes from missing my family draws me closer to the suffering all around me.  I think of my little Rafaela whose parents can't take care of her.  And so I am a little bit thankful that I'm away from my parents right now so that I can share at least a bit of her suffering.  It will never compare to her broken heart, but still, it's a little thing that draws us closer together.  There is joy in that communion. 

May you all be bursting with thanks!  Thankful for the people around you, even if they aren't family.  Thankful for your homes, your food, your modern conveniences, your precious lives.  And if you feel that you are really suffering, be thankful that you are not alone in that.

with much love and thanks,
Sunny

PS.  Someone please eat some pumpkin pie with mounds of whipped cream for me!  Oh, and send me a picture of it! :) 

GRANDMA!

Please please please pray for my Grandma.  I just found out that she is in the hospital with fluid and a mass in her lungs.  I dont have much more info at this point, but they are looking into hospice.  She just celebrated her 93rd birthday last week. 

please pray for her and my family, from which I am so very far right now.

Just another day

It rained for three days straight last week.  Straight.  Day and night, didn't stop (well, ok, it stopped for about 20 minutes one afternoon, but I was in the chapel and didn't see it).  Padre Arnaud (French, speaks a little English and so is always wanting to practice with me, very funny padre) asked me in his British accent where I had hidden the sun.  I wish I knew!  One day Rafaela was grounded and it was the best sort of day to be grounded because no one wanted to go outside.  We all wanted to be grounded so that we didn't have to go outside!  The road to the Fazenda was impassable on Friday and so no one could leave, which meant the kids couldn't go to school.  We spent the whole day cleaning and studying.  When the sun came out Saturday morning it was a shiny new world.  And with the sun came Luis Antonio, our friend from the Passagem.  He arrived late Saturday morning singing his felicidade song and brought us a kitchen sponge.  

Oh, a funny thing I forgot to tell you about Rafaela's birthday dinner: I set the table with a tablecloth, embroidered cloth napkins and napkin rings (VERY fancy!).  The kids asked what the napkins were.  When I told them they were napkins they didn't believe me because they've only ever seen paper napkins, and even those are not an everyday item.  They couldn't believe that people would use something so fancy to wipe their hands and mouths.  And then I told them that I was going to wash them after we used them and to them that sounded like way too much work. (I have to agree!)  They were really impressed when I folded one into a little crown.  Diego was so excited he put it on his head and exclaimed, "look at me!  I'm a bishop!!"  LOL!    Oh and the napkin rings were even more baffling!  They never did fully understand the purpose of those, but they were fun to play with during dinner.  I don't think I've ever had so much fun with napkins :)  (Thanks Mom & Dad for sending them!!)  

So I told you before that I am doing some of the "men's work" in the Fazenda.  Well, some days I feel like I have to re-invent the wheel.  The suffrage wheel that is.  Maybe it's because I'm American or maybe because I'm used to taking care of myself, but I don't understand why people doubt that I know how to use a screwdriver.  I don't want to have to prove myself; I just want to fix things when they are broken.  And oh how I miss Ace Hardware!  Last week our kitchen drain pipe broke in pieces.  It's just PVC and had rotted out.  So I disconnected it and thought, "no big deal.  I can have this fixed in 7 minutes or less."...three days later we were finally able to use our kitchen sink again.  We didn't have the right parts here, and then one guy stopped at the hardware store but wasn't sure exactly what I needed, and then it started to rain and no one could leave, etc.  Every time I need to fix something I have to go to at least 3 different locations in the Fazenda to find the tools or hardware.  I think the guys are getting sick of me borrowing their screwdrivers because a couple of them asked Padre to buy me some tools to keep in my house.  Fabulous idea!  Now our kitchen faucet is broken.  I know what the problem is and how to fix it but of course we don't have the right parts and I can't just run to Ace.  Plus trying to explain the problem in Portuguese to someone who is driving into the city and could pick up the parts isn't easy.    (At least it's helping me improve my vocabulary!)  So we are now on day five of a broken kitchen faucet that I could have fixed in 2 minutes!  God is trying to teach me patience, I know.  I just wish it wasn't so frustrating!  And I hope all of you American Standard folks (current or ex) appreciate the irony that I am here fixing faucets!  

Yesterday Erica, Adriano, Irma Maria Adela, and I went to Passagem for our apostolate.  Erica and I went to visit a family who lives outside of the village at the end of the train tracks.  I was really tired and didn’t feel like walking that far, but it had been a few weeks since we had visited them.  It's amazing how just a 10 minute walk from the center of the village it seems like a completely different world.  Everything is clean and lush green there.  We met the family through one of their daughters (Manuela) who is in the catechism class led by Irma Miriam.  One day when we were in Passagem we saw her and she was on her way home so we asked if we could go with her and meet her family. So now we’ve gone to visit them several times and yesterday when we arrived no one was home.  A young girl saw us and motioned to us to “come ‘on back!”  Reluctantly we made our way up the hill and further into the jungle.  There were 2 more houses behind the one we know, made of mud and sticks.  (Still not sure how they make that work, but it’s a typical house here.)  Then we arrived at a concrete house and were greeted by 7 small children with ash crosses on their foreheads!  We had to laugh out loud because here we had been a little scared to search out this house and yet we find it to be quite the holy place!  They were playing baptism because their sister/cousin is getting baptized on Sunday.  The house turned out to be the home of Manuela’s grandparents, so we got to meet them, her aunt and cousins, and her mom and siblings were there too.  All of the children were playing so well together and we laughed, sang, and danced for about an hour.  It’s really beautiful the way they have preserved their family.  I don’t think that is an easy task in this poverty and culture.  They sent us home with 3 bunches of bananas and two long stalks of sugar cane, and a renewed energy.  Sometimes we bring life and laughter to the people we visit, and others they are the ones who feed us with the love we need <3

Sunday I'm going to stay in the Heart's Home in Simoes Filho for 2 weeks.  I'm excited to go and experience a traditional Heart's Home.  Irma Miriam came home Monday.  She had been gone for over 2 weeks.  Soooo happy to have her back.  Also Monday Irma Maria Adela moved into our house.   So now there are five ladies sharing one bathroom!  I really want to make a showering schedule and post it on the bathroom door, but I know that's taking things too far.  Plus Caroline will be gone for 6 days, I'll be gone for 2 weeks, and then in 3 weeks Irma Miriam moves to Peru, so it's all going to change over the next month. 

love,

Sunny

Rafaela

I have taken on the role of kinda-mom, which I wasn't ready for.  Who is ready for motherhood, right?  Yes, but most women don't give birth to a 10-year old with a depressing past.  Oh my darling Rafaela...

She is the baby girl with 5 older brothers, and they all have the same parents, which is a rare beauty in the favelas.  But her parents aren't capable of taking care of their children: her dad is an alcoholic and her mom is...well, not right in the head, but I don't know exactly why.  I don't know what went on in her life before she came here, but I know that none of the children ever went to school and it was an abusive household.  Three years ago she and three of her brothers (Rafael, Mateus, and Diego) were brought to the Fazenda.  Rafael is 19 and has since moved into the city where he has a decent job considering his lack of education.  He comes to the Fazenda about once a month to spend the weekend, help out, and check on his younger siblings. Mateus (14) and Diego (12) are both good kids and are very protective of their little princess sister. 

Every night in vespers Rafaela prays for her family, and when she is sad that she doesn't live with her parents we try to focus on the positive and remind her that her brothers are here with her.  But no matter how much we take care of her and show her that we love her, she suffers deeply.  I can't even begin to imagine how it feels to know that your mom doesn't want you.  Still, she laughs easily, loves to sing and dance and play jokes.  I can see the constant struggle in her between the joy and sorrow in her heart.  Joy for people who love her and the beauty around her, but sorrow for the mother she will always lack.  She can turn from giggling to crying in the blink of an eye and if you try to talk to her, to reason with her, she closes all doors.

Oh, one strange thing is that she has high cholesterol.  Crazy high, her LDL is 142 and her HDL is only 50.  How does a seemingly healthy 10-year old, who's very active and not overweight have high cholesterol?  It's quite the chore trying to get her to eat healthy and telling her she can't have any cake.  She doesn't understand and so sneaks and eats fatty foods at school or other people's houses when she can.  I can't say that I blame her.  Even as an adult I would have a hard time accepting it if I couldn't eat butter and sausage.

She turned 11 on Sunday.  She is more innocent than most 11-year olds I've met, which is a gift to us since she's not interested in boys or make-up (except nail polish, of course).  In the barrios some of the girls, as young as 8, dress and act so provocatively it makes me want to drag them all to a convent.  Probably not the best answer, but truly they are so shocking you just want to lock them away from the world.  So I am very grateful that somehow Rafa has so far escaped that curse of the culture.  For her birthday she spent the weekend at a friend's house in Passagem; they stayed up until 1am!  Silly girls!!  Sunday she went to the beach with all the people in the Fazenda who have a birthday in October and had a fabulous time.  Sunday night we had dinner with her brothers, Caroline, and Irma Maria Adela (Argentinean, arrived in the Fazenda last week, will live with us after Irma Miriam leaves next month).  I went to great pains to make a delicious low-fat, low-cholesterol dinner for her.  Ok, it wasn't painful, but it is nearly impossible for me to cook without cream and butter.  Well on Sunday she got to have her cake and eat it too because it was a low-fat chocolate cake with non-fat meringue frosting.  We invited more people over for cake, she got a few presents, including a beautiful rosary (thank you Michelle!) and earrings.  (We're taking her to get her ears pierced on Saturday.)  That night there was a true happiness inside her that I don't see very often.  We prayed a decade of the rosary before she went to bed smiling.

We sing and dance together a lot.  I love it when she sings Sound of Music in the shower trying to copy me J  I help her with her math homework and she helps me with my Portuguese.  She says she wants to learn to cook, but of course she never wants to actually stay in the kitchen working for an hour.  Pray for me to always be patient with her.  I pray that we are helping her draw closer to Mary, the Mother of us all.  No one else can fill the hole in her heart.  

love,

Sunny

Not soft, but definitely tender

How did I get so busy?  I thought this life would be more on the contemplative side, but I don't even have time to type my blog once a week!  sheesh!!  I didn't post last week and this week's blog was lame--I was distracted and didn't have much time.  Although my brother told me that he likes it when their short because then it doesn't take as long to read it!  HA!  I guess everyone's busy...

Anyways, I'm on a rest day and I just woke up from 9 hours of soft, pillowy, blissful sleep!  I didn't even move in my sleep which tells you how exhausted I was.  My life before seems like a vacation compared to now.  Literally every hour is scheduled and then other things always come up.  Cook, clean, mow the grass, paint something, fix something, cook, play with the kids, clean, help with homework, cook, visit the neighbors,  wash clothes, wash clothes, wash clothes.    And pray.  I try to pray and find I am so preoccupied with what I have to do next that the silence is filled with endless chatter.  Sometimes even prayer seems like a chore, or just a chance to sit down.  Plus, in the Fazenda we don't have anything soft.  We sit on wooden benches or plastic chairs at wooden tables to eat.  We sit on wooden benches and kneel on a stone floor in the chapel.  In my house we have a "sofa" which is a wooden frame with a 1" thick old cushion on it.  I am convinced that if I cut open the vinyl cover on my mattress I'd find only plywood.  There is no carpet anywhere.  My feet ache after cooking for hours, my knees give out when I stand up after adoration, and I am sore to the bone in the mornings.  This life is hard, on so many levels.

...and then someone smiles, another laughs. Someone leaves flowers on my windowsill, draws me a picture,  a child says "Ti amo"  (I love you).  Jesus gets through to me despite all the racket in my head.  A friend sees that I am exhausted and invites me to sit for a bit drinking coffee and asks how I am.  Because the laundry can wait.  We are here to spread compassion, to exemplify tenderness.  Sometimes I am so busy that I feel far from my mission, but maybe I can't see the forest for all the trees.  Isn't all of this a reflection of "real life"?  Won't there always be dirty clothes, hungry bellies, and energetic children?  Won't there will always be lonliness, anger, anxiety, and the deep need for tenderness?  True, my life isn't soft, but it is definitely tender.  I am learning better not only how to love others, but to let them love me.

Friday I went on an apostolate to Lar Vida.  It's a home for people with all sorts of disabilities.  About 100 children and adults live there, some with Down Syndrome, some with cerebal palsy, some with physical deformities, and some that I just can't explain.  It's become a regular apostolate for me and I go every other Friday now.  I must admit the first time I went I was thinking "I can't do this, it's going to freak me out, I'm not going to feel comfortable," and then I ended up so bursting with love and smiles that my face hurt.  They are always so happy to see us when we arrive, showing us their new shoes or games or flowers.  We run around tickling each other, kicking a soccer ball, drawing, laughing.  In one room there are those who can't get out of bed and most of them at first glance seem like they wouldn't respond at all.  But then I talk to them--in Portuguese or English, they don't mind--and I touch their faces and hold their hands and you wouldn't believe the smiles.  That's the only way some of them can communicate is to smile.  Erica went with us a couple weeks ago and it was the first time she had been there.  She told me that when I'm there I light up like she's never seen me in the Fazenda.  I was surprised to hear that because there are lots of times that I absolutely love being in the Fazenda and I do like living there better than I would like living at Lar Vida.  Why would it seem that I am happier at Lar Vida?  I think it's because I know that I don't have to hide anything there.  As much as I have opened up to my community, still there are times, maybe subconsciously, when I guard my emotions.  (It's a hard habit to break.)  But there in Lar Vida no one knows me from Eve, and because of their disabilities and seclusion from the world they have a sort of innocence that's not easy to find elsewhere.  They are the easiest people in the world to love.

This past Friday in particular was a ton of fun because another group of visitors was there with a trampoline, bouncy house and DJ.  To see the children who are usually in wheelchair squealing with delight on the trampoline was especially touching.  I got up and danced with some of them, which was especially entertaining.  I'm not the greatest dancer and I was trying to learn how to dance like a Brazilian.  The teenagers from the Fazenda who were with me were at first horrified with embarrassment for me (I wasn't embarrassed at all, mind you) and then were laughing so hard they were crying.  So in that 10 minutes I made a whole bunch of people smile, including myself.  A special friend of mine is Marta.  She's probably between 18-25 and in a wheelchair.  Her body is perfectly formed from the hips up (her arms and  back would make Madonna jealous) and then about mid-thigh her legs get smaller and smaller and below the knee are just 2 dangling appendages that are smaller than her forearms.  But Friday she was out of her wheelchair and playing soccer.  She would hold her body up by her arms and then swing her body so that her little foot could make contact with the ball.  There's no strength in her foot or leg though so all the force was coming from her arms.  It was incredible!  I wish I had pictures to show you.    

Ok, I'm going to hug this scrumptious pillow some more and enjoy my soft rest day.  Today is Rafaela's birthday.  She spent  the weekend with a friend and today is at the beach with the other 9 people in the Fazenda who have birthdays in October. When I get home (home, aka the Fazenda, yes, it feels like home) I'm going to cook dinner and frost the cake I made for Friday night.  Her brothers are coming over for dinner along with Irma Maria Adela, the nun who arrived last week to live here.  I'm looking forward to seeing Rafa's sweet face and hearing all about her weekend.

in all tenderness,
Sunny

Kids' Day

Today is a big festival day in Brazil.  It seems like they have 2 or 3 holidays a month!  It's the day to celebrate Nossa Senhora Aparecida and O Dia das Crianças (Children's Day).  I remember one year when I was little around the time of Mother's Day and Father's Day I asked my mom "when is Kids' Day?"  she said, "Every other day is Kids' Day!"  Well here they actually have a day for the kids.  We brought in a bus full of 30 kids from Passagem, plus our 10 made for an exciting day.  It was like herding cats, but overall a success.  Erica organized the entire thing, and even found sponsors for the day, which was really amazing. We had mass, ate lunch, then someone "kidnapped" Nossa Senhora Aparecida.  So the kids had to go all around the Fazenda playing games and completing tasks to win pieces of a puzzle map that would tell them where the kidnapper had hidden her....anyways, I have tons of pictures (big surprise!) and will post those with more details in a blog this weekend.

Other happenings here in the Fazenda lately: 

Erica had a birthday last week and so we spent a few days celebrating.  It was touching to experience with her being away from family for her birthday.  She expressed how it was hard to be away from home for her birthday but how happy she was to have so many caring friends here to celebrate with her.  I know what she means--my birthday, and Christmas, will be hard, but at least those times are hard for all of us, so we share in the sorrow and the joy together.

A friend of ours from Salvador teaches Spanish dance and came to the Fazenda last Saturday.  We thought she was just going to teach the teenagers some suave dance moves, but she showed up with all kinds of percussion instruments.  It was amazing how she held everyone's attention for hours teaching us how to make music out of just about anything.  Who knew you could play a pinecone?  Oh and I am going to be an expert at playing the spoons before this mission in over!  Of course, now all the kids are banging together anything they can find:  spoons, pans, garden tools, rocks. 

Aldo left on Sunday.  He's Peruvian and had spent 14 months on mission in Ecuador and then 6 months here.  I already miss his joy and laughter.  He had the loudest laugh in the whole Fazenda, so now it's a tie between Tata (20-year-old Brazilian woman who is living here for 6 months) and me.  I know I'm going to do a lot of saying good-byes over the next year and so I remember what one of my French friends said, "See you in Heaven." :) 

I went swimming in the lagoon for the first time.  It wasn't as dirty as I thought it would be...or my idea of "dirty" has changed in the past few months.  It's warming up and some days are already hot, so I'm sure I will appreciate the lagoon even more once summer comes and we are roasting. 

Hope all of you in North America are enjoying cool autumn weather!

love,

Sunny

Happiness

Last weekend we had a retreat with Padre Guillerhme and I was stressed that I wouldn't be able to understand the seminars and wouldn't get much out of the retreat (he's going to use big Portuguese words!  Arghhhh!!).  So before the first talk I was in adoration praying for the Holy Spirit to open my ears and help me understand the language better when God spoke.  I know when it's Him talking rather than my own voice because He always says something I've never thought of, but once I hear it, it seems like I've always known it to be true.  He also usually tells me things I don't have the courage to tell myself.  He didn't address my immediate concern about the seminar in Portuguese but instead told me, "You are exactly where I want you to be.  I have given you everything you need to succeed, but success is not what you think.  Happiness is not what you think.  It is not a husband and children, living close to you family, a singing career, enough money, or being healthy.  These things will never make you happy.  Only knowing in the center of your heart--knowing without doubt, without the need to explain--that you are living my will.  That is happiness.  You will always be searching for something more until you give up all else and want only that certainty in your heart."  Not that this is a new message.  It’s repeated over and over in the Bible, Saints have preached it, contemporary theologians have written it, but until I heard it from the inside, with my heart I didn’t understand it.

I went to the seminar with this profound message still ringing in my ears and was concentrating very hard on every word Padre Guillerhme said.  It gave me a vicious headache. He spoke about lots of things and towards the end he brought up the subject of happiness.  He asked if anyone knew what happiness really is.  I wanted to shoot my hand in the air and shout "I do!  I do!  God just told me!!" Instead I let him continue and...well, he was spot on.  And I smiled in my heart because God had translated beforehand what I really needed to get out of the weekend. 

  

So I couldn't talk to you about happiness without telling you about my friend Luis Antonio. He is a special friend of the Fazenda.  He lives in the Passagem and walks here a few days a week, rain or shine, to pass the time.  He knows that if he spends the morning working we will feed him lunch which may be the only meal he gets in a day.  My sense of smell usually perceives his arrival.  I couldn't tell you how old he is; I would guess somewhere between 22 and 54.  He has one front tooth remaining but manages to whistle, and he is usually singing.  Various songs I can't understand, but one song he sings is about "felicidade"--Happiness.  He always comes to see Irma Miriam first and if she's not here he talks to me about presumably the same things he would say to her.  Our conversations usually go something like this:

Luis Antonio: "Chegavetassdesds hios fidfes bushfa desfidsbru."

Me: "O que?"  ("What?")

Luis Antonio: "Chegavetassdesds hios fidfes bushfa desfidsbru."

Me: "O que?"  ("What?")

Luis Antonio: "Chegavetassdesds hios fidfes bushfa desfidsbru."

Me: "Desculpe Luis Antonio, no entendu."  ("Sorry Luis Antonio, I don't understand.")

Luis Antonio: "Chegavetassdesds hios fidfes bushfa desfidsbru."

Me: "Desculpe Luis Antonio, no entendu."  ("Sorry Luis Antonio, I don't understand.")

Luis Antonio: "Chegavetassdesds hios fidfes bushfa desfidsbru."

Me: "Oohhh, ta bom!"  ("Oohhh, Ok!")

And then he walks away singing and I hope that he hasn't just told me that someone's house is on fire or the chemical composition of the cure for cancer.  He has the patience of a saint and I am finally starting to understand him a little more. 

A couple weeks ago he saw that I brought home a coconut from one of my friends.  (I accepted it graciously and didn't tell them that I have a coconut tree right outside my front door.)  He seemed to be very concerned about the coconut and for three days asked me something about it.  I had no idea what he wanted only that he kept gesturing to the coconut.  I told him he could have it but he wouldn't take it.  Finally the fourth day I realized that he was concerned that it was going to go to waste.  (Honestly?  We have a whole forest full of them!)  He wanted me to eat it.  Well, I told him that I didn't know how to open it.  So he asked if he could borrow our machete (which I understood only by the word for "knife") then he opened it for me all the while presumably telling me the best way to open a coconut.  And he stood there to make sure that I drank all the coco water and scooped out all the meat.  He didn't want any of it, he just wanted to make sure that I ate it all.

He's always leaving little presents for us if we're not home when he comes by.  One day it's a handful of tamarind (picked from our neighbor's tree, mind you), another day it's 2 oranges.  Yesterday he came by after lunch carrying a 15 foot long young bamboo shoot.  He wanted me to have it.  I asked him "what for?"  "For when you go fishing."  "I wish!" I thought.  I would like to know if he knows any good places to go fishing in the area and how exactly do I catch a fish with a stick, but those questions will have to wait until my vocabulary improves.

I await the day when I can actually sit down and have a conversation with him.  I'd like to know his story and why he always sings about felicidade.  I've seen where he lives--in a tiny shack that is actually his brother's house.  I've heard that his brother's wife doesn't want him to live there.  He has no job, no family who loves him, and I think he's not in the best health if he's already lost most of his teeth.  So why is he so happy?  Is it some great mystery or is it only because he wakes up every morning?  Or does he simply believe that he is exactly where he is supposed to be and living God's will for him? 

praying for your happiness,

Sunny    

Coconuts, tea, and a new friend

Today is the first day of spring, but it has not arrived.  I'm sitting here wearing sweats with the shutters open so that I can see the lush jungle hills and thick grey clouds.  It's trippy to think that it's September and it's spring. Having Christmas in the middle of summer is going to be even crazier. 

We had a couple of outings over the weekend and the weather was not obliging.  On Saturday we made a pilgrimage through Salvador from...oh dangit, I can't remember the names, but it was a big new church to a little old chapel. (that really narrows it down!  LOL)  We carried Our Lady of Compassion before us and prayed the rosary along the way (I'll post photos someday).  Part of the walk was along the seafront and from the wind, rain, and surf, we all ended up drenched.  I guess it wouldn't have been a proper pilgrimage if we hadn't suffered a little.  Sunday we went to the beach--all 40 of us, and had a blast.  The rain drove us out around 3:00, but at least no one got sunburned.  I can't even tell you how fabulous it was to have these outings.  We so seldom leave the Fazenda (I only leave once or twice a week) and we rarely all go anywhere together.  It was a total crack up to see all the little girls getting gussied-up.  "Honestly Rafaela, you painted your fingernails to go on a pilgrimage?"  Hey, she doesn't get out much.  They go to school everyday, but that's it, so this was a big weekend for the children especially.

I have to admit, I get cabin fever regularly.  I suppose anytime you take a girl out of the city and place her in the jungle with limited transportation and practically no communication with the outside world that's going to happen.  I'm supposed to have a day of rest every 2 weeks.  Usually I leave Saturday morning and come back Sunday night, but with the activities of the past few weeks I've been thrown off schedule (that's normal here, schedules are mere suggestions).  So I was scheduled to go for a day of rest today until tomorrow night, but yesterday I got sick.  My first case of Montezuma's Revenge (actually, I don't think Montezuma made it to South America, but probably one of his descendents did).  I stayed in bed or in the bathroom all day yesterday (TMI, I know).  Joselita (Brazilian woman who has lived here with her children for 10 years, makes the most amazing peanut ice cream) heard I was having tummy trouble and sent her 9 year old son, João Lucas, to help me. He arrived with his machete (everyone has one) and cut a fresh green coconut for me, then opened it so I could drink the coco water.  Apparently this is very good for any digestive problems.  Today I am having a mini-rest day in the Fazenda.  I'm staying in one of our guest rooms and I don't have to do anything.  I get to read, write, sleep, and pray all day to recuperate.  If only we had wi-fi up here I'd be all set.

So I was enjoying the solitude when Lúcia came to visit.  Ok, I'm ashamed to admit it, but I'll tell you anyways because it makes for a better story...I was annoyed when I heard her call out for me and thought "doesn't she know I'm sick and on a rest day?  She shouldn't be bothering me."  Well, she brought me a freshly cut green coconut to drink.  Along with a nice big dose of humilty!!  I gulped both down and thanked her profusely.  10 minutes later she arrived with 2 more coconuts and told me not to eat anything except coco water and coco meat all day and that she would bring more this afternoon.  A day of only coconuts--fine by me!  Then she came back later with a thermos full of delicious tea made from some herb growing here in the Fazenda that is also good for tummy troubles.  And she also brought me a flower.  Her thoughtfulness, generosity, and tenderness is better medicine than a whole jungle full of coconuts and herbs.  Her presence is even more profound because I can't say that Lúcia and I have become very close.  Now if Erica had come to care for me I would have also appreciated it but would've just thought that she was being my darling friend that she is.  It's a totally different thing with Lúcia.  She's been one of the more difficult ones to befriend.  She's from the Passagem;  I've met her mother and some of her siblings who still live there and their conditions are heart-breaking.  She is 32 and has lived in the Fazenda for 10 years with her 19 year old daughter, Bel (do the math).  She also has Bea, who's 3 1/2 in her care.  Bea was abdoned by her mother when she was 6 months old, and as her mother was friends with Lúcia, Lúcia felt a great love for the child.  I don't really know how to help Lúcia.  I don't know her whole story, but knowing where she grew up and that she had a child at 13 tells me that she has pain inside her that I cannot imagine.  She's grown-up, so I can't really play with her like the kids, but often more immature than her 19 year old daughter.  She's not physically ill so I can't help take care of her that way and when I have tried to just sit and chat with her she talks about pretty embarassing or unpleasant things.  One day in mass she sat next to me and I held out the hymnal for her to sing along.  Then I remembered that she can't read...I'm such an ass.  Of all the people in the Fazenda she is the one with whom I have the least mental or spiritual connection.  But then it's she who brings me coconuts, tea, and flowers when I am sick.  That completely blows my mind!  God could not have offered me a better cure for my sickness.  Maybe what she needs is to feel needed and appreciated.  I couldn't offer her that without being weak and needy myself.  Maybe the best way to help her is to let her help me. 

love,

Sunshine  

PS.  Here I was feeling better from all the coconuts, tea, and love, but now I have a fever.  Back to bed I go!  Please pray for me and send me your prayer requests: sunnywallsings@gmail.com

That's Life!

I've been living here for 2 months today.  Perhaps "living" isn't the best word--I've been sleeping, eating, breathing here, but my heart wasn't really in it.  One of the main reasons I came here was to take myself out of the center of my life and put Jesus there, put other people before me.  Well it turns out that I have been doing just the opposite.  "I don't want to do this thing or that.  I'd rather do what she is doing.  Why does she get to do all the fun stuff?  Why does he get to go to all the fun places?  I can't do that--I don't know how.  This isn't what I signed up for.  I'm tired.  I don't feel good.  I miss my peeps."  wah, wah, wah, what a baby!  For a few weeks as all the negative, selfish thoughts were brewing in my head I became more and more sad and withdrawn and yet I was trying to act happy with a smile on my face because I didn't want to try to explain it to my community.  I didn't want them to think that I wasn't happy here.  Then last week a dear friend reminded me that this is not a vacation, IT'S A SACRIFICE!  This is reality!  DUH!  And it would be a waste of time for everyone if I didn't open up to the experience.  Well that was exactly what I needed to hear and so I took off my wretched smiling mask.  Turns out I was not fooling anyone.  Everyone here knew I was miserable and knew what I was going through (and here I thought I was such a good actress!)  They knew that it was part of my walk and I would have to go through it like the rest of them.  They were all praying for me and waiting for me to open up and bear my weaknesses so that they could help.  So that they could become my friends.   It's amazing how much I've changed in just a week--just a week of actually living here. 

And so I'll share some happenings of living here over the past week.  Nothing really extraordinary, just normal life in the Fazenda.  Considering that normal life here includes cleaning up bat poop and catching chameleons, maybe it's not so normal...

Last Wednesday was Brazil's Independence Day so everyone was off.  I went with Padre Cristiano (French priest, a good tenor), Hugo (Peruvian missionary, recently arrived here), Ingrid (Peruvian missionary, just finished a 14-month in Argentina and is staying here for 3 months), and the Brazilian teenagers: Diego (12), Mateus (14) (they're brothers), Jaianie (16), Bel (19), and Tata (20) to the beach.  It was funny when Padre asked me if I wanted to go: "I'd like to take the teenagers to the beach.  Do you want to go?"  I reminded him that I am not a teenager :)  and yes, I ALWAYS want to go to the beach!  It rained all morning, someone stole Padre's backpack, and I got a sunburn, but other than that we had a fabulous time!  No, really, we did have a great time and I was really happy to get to know the teenagers here better.  I'll tell you more about that adventure when I can upload photos. 

So the weekend was wonderfully non-eventful.  Saturday morning I finally did my laundry (it had been nearly 3 weeks!).  It took most of the morning and the next day my arms were sore.  I was sore from doing laundry!  HA!  love it :)  I tried making my famous sugar cookies.  My parents sent me some special ingredients, but I think I didn't remember the recipe correctly because they didn't turn out right.  So instead I dumped the batter into a cake pan and decided to make bar cookies, which turned out more like a crumbly cake.  Then to try to salvage it I tried making caramel.  I used to make caramel and caramel sauce frequently at home, but something here hinders my previous success.  I have tried making caramel 6 times here and only once has it turned out right.  So Saturday after I failed again I had to laugh at my frustration.  Here I am in the middle of the jungle trying desperately to make the perfect caramel sauce and I don't even have a whisk!  And yet giving up hasn't crossed my mind.  Instead, I walked away and went to work with the horses.  Rafael (Brazilian, 20, used to live here and is the brother of Diego, Mateus, & Rafaela) came out for the weekend and he's really good with horses. Oh, and they aren't wild horses as I previously thought, it's just that no one has done anything with them in a couple years.  They spend all their time grazing.  Sunday I returned to my caramel catastrophe, reheated the sugar that was still in the saucepan, and I have no idea how, but it turned out perfectly!  ALLELUIA!  And just in time for lunch.  I spread the caramel over the cakey-cookie and it turned into absolute deliciousness :)

I've received a couple packages (you know who you are and THANK YOU!!!) and it is a riot to see how excited everyone gets whenever anyone gets a package.  The first question is always "Is there chocolate?"  Any food we get is gone in a day because we share the love.  The toys a friend sent were greatly appreciated and the light-up key chain was a huge hit!  (lots of oooohhhs and ahhhhhs over that gadget)  Living with less really makes you realize what is actually important.  I have maybe 10% of the things I used to have and then I see in the Passagem how much more we have than most of them.  It also makes you so much more appreciative for what used to be little things.  Like how I was thrilled to receive ziplocs.  Ziplocs.  Honestly, how many ziplocs have I purchased, used once, and then thrown away in my life?  Now they're some special commodity and I think twice about using them and I always wash them and re-use them.

My Portuguese is coming along, although it's more "Portunol" since so many people here speak Espanol.  I'm getting good at figuring out different ways to say things when I don't know the words I really want to use.  For example,  I wanted to ask a friend "Can you please check me for lice?" but I didn't know all the words, so I asked "Can you please look in my hair for bugs?" which worked perfectly.  (Not sure yet on the outcome of that question since we need a special comb to check thoroughly.)  Then one day on the bus the man sitting next to me was trying to talk to me.  I literally couldn't understand one word except "viu?" which means basically "ya see?" and he'd say at the end of every sentence.  I kept trying to tell him that I didn't understand and then he'd repeat exactly the same thing louder.  It was cracking me up.  I am communicating fairly well in the Fazenda and am engaging in more conversations with people in the Passagem (the neighboring barrio) but it's still hard to understand the slang. 

I love visiting the Passagem.  I only go on Tuesday afternoons and we try to visit different people each time.  I've been going long enough now that I'm getting to know people there and learn some of their stories.  Dona Virginia is a fav.  She's 90 if she's a day and lives a little outside of town, across the stream.  We have to walk on the train tracks to get to her house.  (We pray the rosary while walking on the tracks, so don't worry Mom, it's safe.)  It's amazing how her home looks so much different than the others.  Even her grass is different.  It's like the lushest carpet you can imagine and her garden is a fairy wonderland.  I don't remember how many children she has.  One of her sons and his wife live in a small house on her property, but I haven't met them.  It seems like she is mostly alone.  We always find her sitting on her front porch on a concrete bench sewing quilts from scraps.  She sews by hand in poor light and it comes out perfectly.  And she talks to us while sewing!  Amazing!  I can barely walk and talk at the same time.  She told us that she built her house herself, from the concrete benches to the seashell porch floor.  She took us on a tour of her gardens one day and sent us home with like 20 different cuttings to plant.  (Erica planted them outside her house with the agreement that once they bloom I am welcome to pick the flowers to put in the church.)  There was a leafless plant outside her backdoor that had eggshell halves stuck on all the dead branches.  I thought maybe it was some ancient Amazonian secret to resurrect the plant, so I asked her why she had done that.  "Because I think it's pretty," she said with a shrug and a smile.  I think she is adorable.  

Padre Guillerhme is a French priest and the head honcho of Heart's Home.  (Head Honcho is not his proper title, but I can't think of the right word in English.)  Anyways, he arrived Monday and is staying for 2 weeks.  I'm looking forward to getting to know him and spend some time in spiritual formation with him.  This Saturday we are making a pilgrimage to celebrate Our Lady of Compassion.  Padre Guillerhme is giving a lecture and then we're walking--I don't know how far, but the kids are going too, so I doubt it's very far.  Sunday we are all going to the beach, which should be quite an adventure to load up all 40 of us.  Details next week...

Please send me your prayer requests!  sunnywallsings@gmail.com

Oh, and I am waaaaaaay behind on my photo albums and videos, but that's life!  I'll update them when I have hours and hours to spend on the internet.

love,

Sunny

Road Trip

I think I haven't been a very good blog-keeper.  I was reading through some of the other missionaries blogs and they tell their peeps everything about their lives.  So far I've only told you about my cooking sorrows and random thoughts.  You poor followers know practically nothing about the people I live with or the daily life.  I promise to amend my ways...

With that said, I won't try to go back in time too far and bombard you with nearly 2 months of experiences (WHOA!  2 months?!?  Has it been nearly 2 months?  No wonder I'm aching for home) but instead I'll start with the most recent past and tell you about a little road trip I took on Sunday.

Irmã Miriam (Brazilian nun, my roommate, has lots of shoes) has lived here in the Fazenda for 3 years.  She went on her first Heart's Home mission 17 years ago and decided this was her calling.  With HH she's lived in Argentina, El Salvador, France, and now Brazil.  In November she is moving to Peru and I know already I will be a wreck when she leaves.  I think she is fabulous.  I am very fortunate to have her for a roommate for several reasons: I think I get some sort of extra spiritual protection sleeping in the same room as a nun, she is the only educated Brazilian we have in the Fazenda and so is our Portuguese expert, and she's a really good cook.  Plus we get along very well.  She grew up a couple hours from the Fazenda in the interior of the state of Bahia.  She went to visit her parents who still live there (along with most of her 11 siblings) for a little vacation and invited some of us to spend last Sunday in their home.  

Very early on Sunday 6 of us: Irmã Josette (Lebanese nun, funniest nun I have ever met), Carolina (French permanent missionary, lives in my house, plays the violin beautifully), Adriano (Argentinian, speaks English and so gets all of my jokes), Aldo (Peruvian, laughs louder than I do), João (French, I don't know how else to explain him except that he is very French), and I loaded into the car for a 2 hour trip.  Adriano won the prize for "most prepared" when he whipped out the mate and cookies.  In case you're wondering what mate is, well it's a slightly caffeinated herbal beverage that is popular in South America.  You put the mate leaves in the gourd (the gourd is a cup or little pot and also called mate, which is confusing) along with a funky metal straw (called a bomba), and then fill it with hot water.  You pass it around and everyone drinks from the same mate and the same bomba, but this is the least of my sanitation worries here in the Fazenda.

Passing mate while driving--this is legal in Brazil



We talked, laughed, and played silly word games the whole way there.  We also stopped to ask for directions 8 times.  Eight.  I'm not even kidding.  Apparently South American men don't have the same issue with asking for directions as do the North-American-United-States variety. 

Just 2 examples of the friendly Brazilians who helped us



Along the way we passed through the town of São Felix which looked something like The Sound of Music meets Fantasy Island.

Adriano, Aldo, João 

Can you guess which one is Irmã Josette?

Anyways, we FINALLY arrived and everything was so beautiful: the landscape with lush rolling hills, the simple ranch house, the loving family.

We went to mass at the teeny tiniest chapel I have ever seen which was conveniently located just down the dirt road.  The chapel held 20-25 people and there were about 100 of us there.  No worries--we grabbed some cerveja chairs from the teeny tiniest tavern and extended the chapel seating onto the lawn. 

After mass, back at the ranch, we had lunch and relaxed a bit.  Irmã Miriam took us for a little hiking tour of the property and we saw the house where she grew up and the fields where she used to play.

Irmã Josette, Aldo, João, Irmã Miriam, Adriano, Carolina

After that the music began.  You name the Brazilian song and I think we heard it that afternoon.  When they ran out of Brazilian songs we started singing in Spanish, English, and French.  One of the guitarists was a singers dream: I'd just start singing a song and he'd fill in the chords. 

I smiled and laughed so much my cheeks hurt and being in the midst of that darling family made me miss mine all the more. 

We were reluctant to leave, but ended up singing the whole way home, which was shorter because we only had to stop to ask for directions twice. 

I was very grateful to have the opportunity to spend the day with some of my brothers and sisters of community.  We are all so busy in the Fazenda that we don't have much time to just relax and enjoy each other's company.  I feel like it's been hard for me to make friends (other than Erica, again Graças a Deus I have her!) since I'm just learning the language and can't communicate well.  At least they all like my cooking and my singing.