A view of the city of Rio de Janeiro

Our new room.

FEBRUARY 1, 2006
ACCENTS 
I find it interesting how Brasilians speak English with a variety of accents. People from France, Russia or Mexico each speak English in their own distinct way, and it's easy for Americans to identify their accents. But there is no such thing as a Brasilian accent in English. There are a variety of them. Everyone on our team who speaks English — Beatriz, Ana Claudia, Maria, Marcelo—all speak English differently from one another.

I had lunch today with Marcelo and Roberto. Roberto also speaks a different kind of English. He sounds Amish, actually. I finally asked him where he's from and where he learned English. He's from the south of Brasil, grew up in a German speaking community (they're not uncommon there) and learned to speak English at school. No wonder his accent sounds a little "Amish". His English was excellent, by the way.

FEBRUARY 2, 2006
PHOTOGRAPHS AND MEMORIES
We have some new photos up at the Project Brasil site. You can view them by clicking here-- but I've been told the first photo in the series is scary. You've been warned.

We had a great worship service last night (as you can see in the photographs); there were 29 there. Attendance has been good lately, and typically it drops a bit in the summer time (at the risk of repeating myself, I will say again that it is summer time here and the kids are out of school). The church's official designation will soon change from "mission" to "congregation."

FEBRUARY 3, 2006
GIVING GOOGLE CREDIT
I've often wondered if other visiting Americans have the same trouble with credit cards and debit cards as I do. I never know if my card is going to work in a store or ATM. I think I now have an idea how slot machine players feel when they hit the jackpot, because I feel the same way when an ATM decides to dispense some of my money. More than once I have tried to make a purchase only to have my card refused — when I knew I had sufficient balance to cover the transaction.

Turns out I'm not alone. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, are visiting Brazil this week, staying just a few kilometers from my apartment. Last night they went to a local eatery, ordering an extravagant meal of salad, pasta, melon juice and manga ice cream, running up a tab of slightly more than $50 (fifty) US dollars. Here's the funny part. When they went to pay for their meal, the billionaires' credit card was declined. No kidding. They were asked to provide another card, which they did, and this one went through.

I doubt this will make it any less annoying next time I have to fish for a card that will work, but at least I know I'm not the only victim of our whimsical international banking system.

Here's the link to the story: http://oglobo.globo.com/jornal/colunas/ancelmo.asp

FEBRUARY 5, 2006
CORN ICE CREAM
Nice worship service this morning. It's Communion Sunday (First Sunday) and I was glad to be there. Attendance was down a little bit due to people traveling still. School starts this week, so things will be back to normal soon.

Had lunch with friends at IAIA's (ya-ya's). Good, as always. And inexpensive. Today I had corn ice cream for dessert. I had never heard of it, and curiosity got the best of me. It tasted sweet, maybe a little like that candy corn that gets passed around at Halloween.

Spent yesterday in Niteroi visiting my friend Arli. Niteroi is a city across the bay from Rio; you get there via ferry. That's the picture you see.

I'm going to worship service tonight in Morro Azul, and debating watching the Super Bowl somewhere. Marcelo said I could watch it at his house, but it begins at 10:00 here — no point in putting our friendship to such a test this early on. Maybe I'll just "watch" it online and let Jonathan give me the play-by-play on Messenger.

FEBRUARY 7, 2006
SCHOOL DAZE
Several months ago I mentioned that there is an apartment above the school building that I wanted to rent. The owner quoted an outrageous price and I had to say no. This weekend he came down on the offer to a very reasonable $80 USD per month. (Reasonably reasonable, I should say. I'm still paying a gringo rate, I think.) Regardless, I told him we would take it. We really need it.

It's two rooms. During church the children can use one of the rooms for children's church. As it is now, they have to have kids church on the street. Also, we can use the room for the English class. We have room for desks (which I'm buying this month thanks to a generous donation).

Speaking of generous donations. One friend told me earlier this week that he could maybe donate $100, which he rather apologetically said "is only a drop in the bucket." First, $100 is not a drop, it's a splash. Secondly, (here's a cliché) any gift of any size is important to this ministry. Take a minute to read the Q&A and our financial policy; this is a ministry where your gift gets something done.

Final note. The picture is the Project Brasil staff. School started yesterday and Beatriz and Bruno have already filled up all the classes. Maria's English classes also began today. So we're off and running.

FEBRUARY 10, 2006
LET IT RAIN
I neglected to mention that we had a great service Sunday night. We served communion and then 4 people joined the church, two by baptism. As you can see in the photograph, baptism here is by "pouring" — Ricardo poured water on Irene's head three times (for Father, Son and Holy Ghost.) Afterwards we sang Shall We Gather At The River? in Portuguese, of course, and a few others, including Faz Chover (Let It Rain). Looks like that prayer will be answered this weekend. After a week of it hovering at 100 around the clock, tonight the clouds began to gather, the temperature dropped, and there's a breeze. Let it rain.

FEBRUARY 12, 2006
RAIN RAIN ON MY FACE
As predicted, the rain came down pretty hard over the weekend. The streets by my apartment flooded again. What a stench. Last time this happened I was stuck downtown in a taxi; this time I had the good sense to stay home, though obviously I did get out long enough to snap a few photos. Click on this one for a better view.

Great worship service again Sunday night. Attendance is consistently around 25-30 each week. A few months ago we had 7 show up one evening, so the church is making good, steady progress. Another improvement that the worship time is getting better; we're beginning to make a stronger worship connection when we sing. Part of this has to do with our getting more familiar with the music, part of it has to do with critical mass.

FEBRUARY 13, 2006
COMPUTER CLASSES

After several months of work and more than a few contract revisions, today we were able (at last) to begin the computer classes. We have students of all ages signed up. I attended the first class this morning; Beatriz is beginning with the basics: this is a keyboard, this is a mouse. We will have classes coming and going all day every day. On Fridays people in the community will be able to use the computers like an Internet Cafe. We're working now on getting the computers connected to the internet, but it is still a week or two away. In the photo above Bruno is helping students during the first class.

FEBRUARY 14, 2006
BLACKLISTED
Since last week I have been unable to access my website. I originally thought it was a routing issue, then I discovered my IP address has been blacklisted here. No one in South America (and some other parts of the world) can view it.

My first thought was that the man found my message of hope, equality, justice, and salvation in Christ to be too politically dangerous for these perilous times, and so I was censored. Instead, it turns out that my web site is a block of 172,000 websites hosted by Network Solutions that are having problems down here, and the "black list" label is inadvertent. Of course, when I contacted Network Solutions about it, they did their best Vinnie Barbarino impersonation: "What? Where? Who are you talking about? Us? We host websites?" I imagine the problem will be solved sometime in the next couple of years. Meantime, I'm changing hosts.

Fortunately, the problem doesn't affect  the US and Europe, just us south of border. 

FEBRUARY 15, 2006
WEDNESDAY NIGHT MEETING
We had a great worship service tonight. The number of kids coming creates a pretty high level of energy in the room (bordering on chaos), but the singing is spirited. It's good to see growth taking place here; more and more people are coming each week. I really teased Ricardo when he bought the microphone and amplifier. The room is so small I couldn't imagine us needing them. With 10 or 12 people, we didn't. With 30 people (some of them children), and with the fans full blast, and with the poor acoustics of the room, and with the general noise of neighborhood (it's louder here in the summer time) — the microphone has been helpful.

I preached tonight on Colossians 2 — What Drives You? i.e. What's the motivating force in your life? Paul said "My purpose is..." to encourage others and promote unity by reflecting the light of Jesus Christ. That's what I talked about.

Pictured is Natane reading Psalm 118 during the service.

FEBRUARY 16, 2006
NEW ROOM
It's official now: we're renting the room above our current room beginning March 1, 2006. There are tenants there now, but they will be moving this week. We have some minor repairs to make, some painting to do, and then we'll begin using the rooms for English classes (the smaller room will be a much better learning atmosphere), and for children's church on Wednesday and Sunday night. We'll also use one of the rooms as an office for the school. The rooms are not in bad shape; there are bullet holes in the window and ceiling, but that's life in Rio. We'll fix those when we get moved in. We also need some furniture. We received a donation that will enable us to buy desks, but we'll also need a couple of tables and shelves and other odds and ends. My goal is to begin having class and kids church by the beginning of April.

FEBRUARY 18, 2006
BIRTHDAY LUNCH
Yesterday was Dr. Felix's birthday, so the CEMASI honored him at their monthly lunch. Dr. Felix treats patients 2 days a week in Morro Azul and often has to pull strings and call in favors to get people admitted to the hospital or to receive the medication they need. Project Brasil supplies medicine to the clinic—medicine that has been donated to us, plus what we purchase. This is a relatively small monthly expense, but it is a real boost for the clinic.

We are still planning to build the Pediatric/OBGYN office as soon as we have raised the necessary funding. $3500 will put a children's clinic in Morro Azul; we have physicians ready to donate their time. (By the way, doctors here do not enjoy the same affluence as their American counterparts. For them to donate one or two mornings a week is a significant gift.)

FEBRUARY 19, 2006
I KNOW IT'S ONLY ROCK AND ROLL

The Stones were in Rio last night so I, along with 1.2 million of my closest friends, went to the show. I figured I should go since this might be the last time to see them live. (Of course, I thought that during their Tattoo You tour in 1981.) However, I'm not sure I can actually say that I saw the Rolling Stones. I heard them, certainly, and I could see at one point some specks on the stage that possibly could have been the Rolling Stones, and I saw their images on the jumbo trons — but in an audience of 1,200,000 not every seat is a good one.

Getting home took some negotiation skills. I took only minimal cash with me and no credit cards (for obvious reasons), and when the night was over and I was ready to head home I walked several blocks, waved down a taxi, jumped in and gave him my address. "Cinquenta reais," he said: he wanted R$50 for a ride that typically costs R$10. Believing as I do in capitalism and a free market economy, I couldn't fault the guy for making the most of this opportunity. But neither did I give him the money. I got out, considered my options for a while, signaled another taxi and negotiated a R$30 rate. It worked.

My pictures didn't turn out very good. It's not a real good idea to go around snapping photos at an event like this since I have "gringo tourist" written all over me. But I did get a few shots that I will post at the PB website when the routing issues mentioned earlier this week have been resolved. I think it's safe to say, though, that I'll never have to deal with the distraction of fielding photo journalism offers from Rolling Stone Magazine.

FEBRUARY 21, 2006
SALES RANK
I noticed at Amazon.com my book The Story File jumped in sales rank today from #354,000 to #105,000. I wonder how many books do you have to sell in a day to jump that high in ratings? 100? 50? 1? Regardless, that's a pretty impressive jump. I bet Lucado has never jumped 200,000 spots in one day. Of course, when your book debuts in the top 100, it's hard to move up 200,000. Still.

FEBRUARY 22, 2006
MORE MEDICINE
We dropped off another supply of medicine to the medical clinic in Morro Azul this morning, courtesy of a gift to Indecom that was forwarded to us. This is a great boost; many times Dr. Felix has to call in favors to help patients get the medication they need. Today's supply will give him enough to treat most general practice problems. There were syringes and penicillin and cold medicine and birth control pills and cotton swabs and aspirin and dozens of types of medication that I didn't recognize. By the way, we have an extremely secure storage facility—necessary for this kind of work.

FEBRUARY 23, 2006
BREAKFAST WITH THE POLS
Thursday morning I had breakfast with some local political leaders and activists. The breakfast was held at the Morro Azul associational office. One of the men in attendance is a city councilman, he's young, his grandfather was once governor of Rio de Janeiro state. He spoke a while, and then there was lively discussion and debate, none of which I understood. I don't know much about the nuances of the political system here, but this group, I believe, leans heavily in the direction of socialism. Their work doesn't involve mine, or mine theirs, but it was good for us to meet one another and for them to know we both have interests in improving the life of this community.

FEBRUARY 24, 2006
LONG EYE FOR THE SHORT I

I have noticed one of the greatest difficulties my English speaking Brasilian friends have is knowing when to differentiate between long I and short I.  Portuguese pronunciation is remarkably consistent: vowels always sound the same. In English, pronunciation changes from syllable to syllable. A few days ago one of our workers said something about "Cry-minals" — and I explained how to correctly pronounce "criminals". She went on to say that they had committed many "cree-mees" — and I explained that the word is pronounced "crimes." She asked why "i" is pronounced differently in such related words. I couldn't answer. Continuing her story, she referred to a situation being a "crih-sis". I said, "crisis". She (perhaps accurately) accused the English language of being completely arbitrary and incomprehensible.

FEBRUARY 25, 2006
CARNAVAL

It's that time of year again in Rio when the streets are packed with party-goers. Tourism is especially high here this year; I've heard there's not a hotel room to be had in the city. Everyone at PB is taking a few days off (the country basically shuts down during Carnaval), and I'm traveling back home this weekend. We have made good progress this month: the computer center is open, students are learning to use computers, we donated a large supply of medicine to the clinic, we obtained a new room above the school building, we've begun a new season of English classes, and we are reaching more people through the church. Some days I feel like the work here is all uphill, and we have so far to go, but when I stop for a minute and take a look back, I see that we've come a long way.

FEBRUARY 27, 2006
BACK IN THE USA
I arrived home safely and in one piece. It's good to be back. I had thought I might have the plane to myself, thinking that not many would be inclined to leave Rio the week of Carnaval. I was wrong. The plane was packed, but I had a bit of luck. There are 160 seats on the plane, and there were 159 passengers. One empty seat, and it was next to me. I was able to sleep a bit on the way, which was good, because I had more than a little work waiting for me when I arrived.

People here (in the US) are already asking when I'm going back to Brasil, which makes me feel welcome, but I think they mean well. I'm not sure when I'll need to return. Right now, here, I need to focus on some details related to my publishing business, as well as focus on raising some financial support for the work in Rio.