Heading Home

28 days ago, we left Brazil.  Since then, we’ve been to 9 states + Canada, gone to 3 weddings, taken about 4,000 pictures, slept  on  many different floors, air mattresses, futons and beds, cooked food for a wedding reception and had many adventures with friends and family.  I wish we could do a blog for every day we traveled…  

Tomorrow, after a solid 4 weeks of traveling, we’re flying to Seattle.  We’re looking forward to being home for 3-6 months while working on visa stuff.  For now though, we’re getting set for one more flight…  one more day of travel…  sleeping on one more very nice air mattress which is incredibly welcoming right now.  In fact, I think I can hear it calling my name…

Traveling-ly,

Brian & Jocelyn<><

Back in the US of A

Where in the world are Brian and Jocelyn??

So.  Our flight took off from Brasil at 1:08 last Tuesday morning.  Travel, travel, travel, fly, fly, fly, wait, wait, wait, (20 hours in New York) fly some more, arrive in Ohio (at 5:30pm on Wednesday) lose the bags, get a hotel, drive back to get the bags… you know how it goes :)

Since we’ve returned, we’ve been in New York, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Vermont and New Hampshire.  Some of it was touch-down/drive thru, but now we’re in New Hampshire for a few days, and that’s a first for both of us.

When are we coming home?  We’re looking at being back in the greater Monroe area the third week of July. 

Right now we’re both getting over colds (a byproduct of not enough sleep, and too many “new” germs) and enjoying some downtime hanging out with some friends who are graciously putting us traveling bums up for a couple days.  This weekend we’re attending another wedding, then driving back to PA for a week, then coming back up to N.H. again for a wedding that Brian will photograph and I am organizing/cooking food for the reception.

Here’s a wee bit of what we did last week :)

We were so blessed to be at Brian’s sister Mary and her husband Kyle’s wedding ceremony on Saturday!

Brian, with his sisters Mary & Laura

 

Brian’s parents Barry & Carol visited the Creation Museum in Kentucky with us :)

Our nieces Stephanie (7) and Jennifer (5) also had a great time with us at the Creation Museum.  While we were outside, we petted a wallaby, fed an alpaca, saw zorses and zonkeys and had great fun in the garden and on the bridges. Inside, we were rained on by Noah’s flood, met animatronic Methuselah, walked thru the garden of Eden and were threatened by dinosaurs.  

Pretty much, it’s an awesome place.  So if you’re ever in the Cincinnati area (technically Petersburg, KY) you should stop by there.

In other news…

You know you have “Re-entry culture shock” when you…

• are surprised that people are speaking to you in English.
• have 999 different snack foods to choose from but…
• even with all the options, would just love some simple food, like beans & rice.
• notice that there aren’t any ants anywhere near your bed (or any millipedes for that matter).
• marvel that hot water can come out of sinks and showers.
• have no idea what time of day it is because the sun sets at 9pm here instead of 5:30 pm.
• (almost) want to kiss the floor of a public restroom because it’s clean and functioning!

Congestedly and adjustingly,

Brian & Jocelyn<><

Home again, home again…

Hey, so what happened to the Monday night blog?  Well, we were still out on the film trip, so it didn’t quite happen, though we hope to post a few pictures of it later.  

Right now, we’re all packed and ready to head to the airport in an hour or so.  Going to take one last shower and eat some real food before we drive to the airport 3 hours away to catch our flight tomorrow morning at 2:30 am.  The next place we expect to take a shower, eat a real meal, and sleep in a bed is Ohio on Wednesday night.

We’ve still got some plans to work out—getting a cell phone again and a flight the rest of the way home near the end of July, but we’re excited to spend time with friends and family while traveling over the next month. 

Here’s how you can pray for us

• re-entry culture shock (physically and emotionally)
• visa paperwork
• that we can be a blessing to the people who we are staying with before we get home (and while we’re at home)

Internationally,

Brian & Jocelyn

Filming Trip Tomorrow!

Monday Night is Blog Night.

This Monday Night is also the night before our filming trip.  We’ll be returning to Pedra da Boca (see picture #2 in our previous post) and I (Jocelyn) get to go with Brian this time :)  We’ll probably be out camping 5 days or so while we film.

Here’s Brian and Joel checking out the camera and crane gearing up for the trip.  We’ve also aired out the tents, packed the camping stove, bought mosquito repellant, washed laundry and shopped for food.  None of that is quite as interesting as operating a camera crane.  And of course, we’ve still got a few things to do  packing/prep-wise, so this is going to be a shorty.

In other news…

…As of this last week, Light in Action’s first DVD is now available for sale!  Check it out at www.lightinaction.org .  We haven’t even held the finished product in our hands yet as we’re here and all the DVD’s were replicated in the U.S.  Exciting stuff!!!

 

…And we very much enjoyed celebrating our 4th anniversary!  We stayed in a beach house that belongs to some friends of ours and had a wonderful, relaxing time…  Thank you so much J & V for letting us borrow your house!!!

…And we are seeing a LOT of green and yellow!!  World Cup FEVER!!!  It all starts on Friday, but Brazil has been ready for months!!  This by far outranks the Super Bowl in the U.S. 

Alright,

until next time…

Jocelyn<><

Nordeste Scouting Trip

Hi there,

Brian here.  This last week Joel, Arlen and I went on a 5 day long scouting trip in our state in the Nordeste (Northeast) to find some areas to film for the next episode of Tetelestai.  Our goal is to begin filming in the next couple weeks before we have to head back to the US, so we have our work cut out for us.  Anyways, during our trip we found some really interesting places ranging from rolling hills to rounded mountains to Arizona-like cactus covered wilderness.  Looking at the map of Brazil, we only covered a tiny little section of the country, but sometimes it felt like we were travelling forever.

 

 

Here is a grassy field south of where we live in Natal.  It was taken at about 6 am on the morning that we left.

 

 

This rather large rock is called Pedra da Boca (Rock with a mouth).

 

This wonderful little pond was nestled between two valleys on the dry side of a dam.  The climb down was not easy, but it sure was a nice view.

 

We climbed this rock that I took this picture from in less than an hour up and down.  Quite a hike and quite a view!

 

This is the water at the second dam that we found on our trip.  The water was smooth and provided a cool reflection.

 

 

At the third dam we visited, we saw yet again how beautiful the dry side of  the dam is.  This massive rock formation is part of a huge overflow spillway in case the water gets too high.  Notice Joel and Arlen in the top right.

 

This is a night shot of a mountain that we camped next to.  The stars were wonderful and the moon seemed as bright at the sun.

 

 

I got the idea for this picture from Victor.  This is all one exposure and no editing!  I took the flashlight and made the beam between them.

Those are just eight out of 1,482 pictures that I took on our trip.  I am sure that you don’t want to see all of them, but if you want to see more, I am going to post some more of them on facebook.

 

In other news…

Our 4th anniversary is this week!  Jocelyn is super happy that Brian is home from his trip early and that we’re able to celebrate our anniversary TOGETHER!!!

 

 

Thanks for reading,

Brian

Pico do whatever-it’s-called…

…is what I called Pico do Cabugi for weeks.  Pico do Cabugi is an extinct volcano about half way between us and Mossoro (where Ken & Lori Stucky live).  And last Wednesday, for my 26th birthday, Ken, Lori, Ana, Joel, Arlen, Brian & I hiked it :)

To accomplish this feat, we rose at 4:00am, filled our waterbottles, packed our breakfast for the road, and brewed our coffee to go.  You can still see a lot of stars in the sky at 4:00am.  We were on the road a few minutes before 5am, and saw the sun come up—so beautiful!  Wish we had a picture, but it was one of those try-and-see-the-beautiful-view-BEHIND-you-with-three-passengers-squished-in-the-back type of photo opportunities that is difficult to capture.  Here’s a facing-forward photo from the car instead….

6:38 am:  We’re almost there!

7:14 am:  Starting our hike-- Joel, Lori, Ken, Ana, Jocelyn

Jocelyn & Lori

Yes, we are actually on a path in this next picture.  That was actually a bit scary at times…  At the beginning of the hike at the bottom of the hill, it’s just straight forward, walk towards the goal.  As the walk gets steeper and rockier, there’s a Zig, a Zag, and then a final Round encircling the cone to get to the peak of pico do Cabugi.  We did the Zig just fine (probably what we’re on in this picture), but the Zag had been buried/fallen in a rockslide/avalanche, and so we kind of had to just kind of make it up as we went along—hands and feet going almost straight up (more like climbing or possibly bouldering, just on LOOSE rocks!)  Thank you God for protecting us!   

8:48 am:  Arlen, Ken, Ana, Lori, us, Joel—safely at the top! 

Talk about a shadow….

Every year for my birthday, Brian gives me music and a memory.  Climbing a volcano?  Yes, I would call that memorable.  Yellow shirt, orange shorts, and a rainbow of “LOVE”?  Man, even the pictures are unforgettable! I wonder what we’ll do (haha—or wear!) for my 27th birthday…?  :) 

In other news…

I (Brian) am going away on a film location scouting trip, leaving tomorrow or Wednesday.  Along with Arlen and Joel, we will be travelling around the State looking for areas to film our next episode.  The main goal is to find areas for the next episode, but if possible we will take time to gather information for other future episodes also.  We should be gone for about a week, but possibly up to 10 days.  We will camp at night and make our own food as much as possible to save money.  After the trip, we will prepare to begin filming!

*sniff sniff*  7 to 10 days is a long time (this is Jocelyn again :) 

And that’s what we’re up to in our corner of the world…Thanks for praying for us—we need it!

Adventurously,

Brian & Jocelyn<><

Kids Club

Wow.  Where do we start with this one??  Welcome to our hood :) 

On Saturday mornings, our co-workers Arlen & Cynthia (with their kids Nina & Dorian) drive over to the little community center less than a mile away.  Arlen then goes bussing around the greater neighborhood with the van picking up a couple loads of kids while Cynthia stays at the community center and plays games with the kids until Arlen comes back with the last load.  

      How many kids fit in a 7-passenger van??  Well….

 

    Cynthia singing a song with the kids.

 

      Arlen dramatically re-telling about the giants in Canaan that Joshua and Caleb saw (10 were bad and 2 were good!)

 

    Playing a game….  Believe it or not, this game is very close to Duck-Duck-Goose.  It’s called Pinga-Pinga-???? (I think it’s “drip-drip-drop” in English.)  Haha.  So…  Same idea right, but with a 2 liter bottle with a small hole in the bottom and no lid on the top.  “Duck” = “Drip”.  “Goose”= “two-liter-bottled-dumped-on-head,”  and then run!!!

 

     Julia, Jocelyn, Valeria, Bia, Everton!  Eating Pipoca (popcorn)! 

 

     Most of the Saturday morning crowd :)

Our level of involvement is pretty minimal.  Passing out snacks, telling kids “shhhh” during the Bible story, going along to pick kids up, playing games, learning names and ages, getting to know them with our limited Portuguese...and praying for them.  I don’t know if one of these kids comes from a Christian family.  And so many of their families have a dad in prison or a mom who’s a prostitute or a house made out a tarp stretched over some sticks.  The odds are not in our favor.  But!!!  The Word of God is living and active….  Pray for these kids with us!

  

In other news…

Here’s a Top 10 (random) list for you :)

1. Mango season is over.  Sad.
2. Avocado season has started!!!  And we’ve got them falling off our tree almost faster than Jocelyn can eat them!  (Brian is missing out!)  
3. Jocelyn’s birthday is on Wednesday.
4. We have a mirror in our house now :)  And the trim all around the windows—no more millipedes coming in that way!
5. There’s a new voice for Mr. Whitaker on Adventures in Odyssey this season.  Yes, we still listen.
6. If one hears a random crash out in the bushes (especially at night), it’s good to just assume it’s a coconut or branch that has fallen off a tree.
7. But, if you wake up in the morning and 20 chickens are gone, it probably still was the coconut or branch that made the noise falling off the tree.  Chicken thieves are very stealthy.
8. Next week will finish out one year of “community” living for us.  Thanks to everyone who’s welcomed us into their home for a few nights or even a few months…
9. Brian can whistle in Portuguese :)
10. We’re enjoying Season 5 of the Cosby show.

F.A.Q. #29. How’s the DVD coming?

Hi!

So I think that everybody knows that we came over here to help our team work on a DVD project (a.k.a. the Tetelestai series). 

And we haven’t really blogged much about it.  Honestly, it’s because (so far) ants and housing and bus trips have made for much more interesting pictures than us sitting for hours at our computers.  Eventually, when we’re past the editing/producing part and start filming again, things will look much more glamorous very quickly, and you’ll all wish we would quit with the pictures already!  Brian (not pictured with his computer) has put in many hours working on new website for the Tetelestai series and getting stuff figured out for incorporating some 3D effects into the next episode.  I (also not pictured with my cute little red netbook) have spent a lot of time corresponding with translators and proofreaders and researching what we need to get these DVDs distributed once we have them replicated.   

Nevertheless, we shall compromise.  Here is a picture of Joel sitting behind his computer working on the cover (oooh—is that a boat and a pyramid on it???)  Does anybody know what Tetelestai means? 

Okay.  Great.  So now what?  Well…..

“In the Beginning” (LIA’s first DVD) is being replicated!!!

Crazy!!!  They should be done with all that replicating stuff in 2-ish weeks.  All these hours that we’ve spent (and many more by many others) are soon to materialize in a product other people can see on their screens and hold in their hands and give to their friends—no longer just an ominous project on our computer screen.  FINALLY!  More than that though, this is not just something we’re doing to be fun and entertaining…  This is a resource to be used along side the Word of God to teach, evangelize and disciple.  And with subtitles in 13 languages!  Oh my, and this is just the first episode….

Yes, we’re starting to gear up to film the next episode--scouting possible filming locations, editing the script, double-checking facts, casting actors, while at the same time researching shipping options and getting the cover and menus and everything on our first DVD switched over to Portuguese so we can release it in Brazil in the not-too-distant-future. 

 

In other news….

The Rock House has a floor!!! 

 

Yes, that’s a puddle, and yes, it was supposed to be there.  Cement is like… an antibiotic.  To properly cure it, you are supposed to "water the floor twice a day for a week”.  Cool reflection thingy, eh?  Haha--this is why Brian takes the pictures and I write the blogs. 

 

This is me hanging out with the kids in the morning.  Notice the monkey on the deck rail looking on :)   

I gave each kid a glass of water and they got to stir food coloring into their respective glasses.  Sarina had yellow, Dorian had blue and Nina had red.  I had the empty mixing glass and helped them take turns mixing their colors together to see what would come out :)  Everybody wanted to taste every color we made.  Super fun seeing not only the instant change of colors, but also the surprise on their faces!  Later, while telling their parents about what we did that morning, they informed their parents that “Auntie Jocelyn” gave them “paint-water” to drink! 

This is Sarina, Dorian & Nina (dressed as sheep) reciting Psalm 23.

All the way from “The Lord is my shepherd” thru “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” we were entertained by these little sheepies enthusiastically punctuating the words they were sing-saying with choreography that gives interpretive dancing a whole new meaning!  Such a delight!

Anywayz.…that’s just a wee bit of where we’re at and what we’re up to.

Love, peace and prayers,

Jocelyn & Brian<><

F.A.Q. #23 “How’s your Visa situation?”

Hey.  So we just took these pictures 15 minutes ago so you could all have a visual to go with what we’re talking about.  And because pictures are more interesting that words a lot of the time.  But the best is when there’s some of both (pictures brought to you by Brian, and words by Jocelyn :)

And the topic of tonight is:  Paperwork, or more specifically, Visas.  Glorified Paperwork.  Woohoo, right?   

We both worked out at the rock house today, and are pretty wiped.  I’m going to sleep well tonight and be sore tomorrow!  But that doesn’t have anything to do with Visas.  Just thought I’d include an explanation as to why we look so wiped out in the pictures. 

Back to the Visa business.

To make a long story short (or at least to put it in a bullet-point list) we spent many hours

• researching different possibilities
• praying
• meeting with a lawyer
• going to a government office
• standing in line at the airport
• phone calls
• etc…

And, on Monday, we were able to renew our Visas!!!  They are valid thru July 19th!  All that list of work was actually not so much for the renewal, but thinking ahead for the next step when they expire in 3 months.

So what was the outcome of all that work?  What’s the next step in 3 months when our visas expire again?  Well… 

We are going to have to go back to the U.S. to re-apply for a new Visa from home.

Bitter.  We’ve been here just 3 months now, and we’ll be coming home in 2 months (it only cost $200 to change our plane tickets to a date in June instead of $1000 + to come home in July, so we definitely picked June).  We’re just getting started, and we have to go home soon?!  

And Sweet.  We’ll totally enjoy being home and seeing family and friends and going to WEDDINGS (Kyle & Mary, Shrift & Danielle!!!) and sharing about our ministry here…     

But….  Grrrr.  We don’t WANT to come home just yet.  Especially for something as exciting as filing a bunch of paperwork.  NOT exactly what we were planning on…  it’s always been in the “possibility” category of Visa business, but one of those possibilities we hoped wouldn’t materialize as fact.

Back to Proverbs 16:9, a very familiar verse for us  “A man plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps.”  And 2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you….”  Encouraging stuff man….

We’re thankful for the amazing deal changing our plane tickets…. but a little sad that we’ll be using them.

But, also excited to see you again, maybe this summer sometime!?!!

So anyway.  That’s what we know for now.  We don’t know how long re-applying will take, or when we can come back to Brasil, or how much this Visa application will cost, or if we’ll get part-time jobs while waiting.  All good stuff to pray about.  One day at a time.  And today is almost over for us.  And it’s time for some sleep…

Trustingly,

Jocelyn (& Brian) <>< 

Our Team

Hi :)

So we have a little back-log of blogs that are either partially done or have yet to get out of our heads and into your inbox.  Here’s the first of those!

This is our whole team on top of the Rock House roof 3 weeks ago…

Notice our color coding so you can easily tell who’s in what family :)  This is not so much about who does what on the team, but just to give you an idea of who all these people are that keep showing up on our blogs and who we live with.

Steve & Sonia Armour

Patriarch & Matriarch of LIA (and a decent fraction of the team.)  Steve is growing out his beard as he’s been cast in the role of Noah in one of the upcoming episodes.  Sonia enjoys teaching English and Bible on Tuesday nights to people in our neighborhood.  Steve & Sonia are the parents of Cynthia and Stefanie (and Richie who lives in the U.S.)

 

Joel & Stefanie Craig-- Sarina 2, Caleb 2 weeks (now, almost 5 weeks!)

Brian and Joel were MK’s together in Ivory Coast, West Africa, and these are the Rock House people!  They’ve been super busy with a new baby, potty-training Sarina, and getting closer every day to getting their house ready to move into (besides all the “normal” LIA DVD work!)

 

Arlen & Cynthia Isaak-- Nina 3, Dorian 2

…are almost finished with writing the script for episode #5!  Cynthia is tri-lingual as she knows Portuguese, English and also communicated with us in sign-language that we all learned in the 2 days she wasn’t supposed to talk after recently having wisdom teeth out.  Arlen is Canadian-American and Cynthia is Brazilian-American, which means that their kids have 3 passports each!

Danny & Bianca Templeton—Lissa 22 months

…are nearing the end of their month-long visit here.  Their home and ministry is in Southern Brasil, but they were able to dub an entire episode of LIA into Portuguese while they were here and will continue dubbing episodes after they are home again.  We’ve so enjoyed having them here—even as this has been a super tough month for them—Danny suffered with kidney stones and Bianca had a miscarriage 2 weeks ago.  Honestly though, they are our heroes and we pray that we will walk thru hard times in our lives like they are right now—so close to Jesus!     

 

Ana Cassia Fornari

…is appropriately wearing yellow as she is the sunshine of our group!  Ana is also from Southen Brasil and we miss her a lot right now as she’s on a trip visiting family, friends, churches and representing LIA.  May 11th can not come soon enough! 

 

Us :)

Wow, this was a hard blog to write as I was trying to keep the “captions” short, sweet and somewhat consistent….  Oh well :)  As always, there’s so much we’d like to tell you about everyone on our team…  like

• how last week three year old Sarina killed a tarantula BY HERSELF with her flip-flop
• the conversation that Ana and I had when I was talking about TWITTER and she was talking about TWISTERS and it went on for several minutes before we realized we were talking about different things (haha!!)
• hearing stories from Joel about him and Brian growing up in Africa
• that the tuxes Stefanie picked out for their wedding were also used for Arlen & Cynthia’s and our wedding!
• Arlen, Cynthia, Joel, Stefanie, Danny, Brian & I and all our NTBI memories together
• and so many other things…

And this is just the core part of our team!  We haven’t even started yet on our Church, Translators, Friends, Family and Supporters!!!

We.  Are.  So.  Blessed.

Thankfully,

Jocelyn<><