What does this have to do with missions or anything that has been written about before on here?  It doesn’t really.  Except that our son will certainly be part of our journey!

We found out we were expecting in December, just before Christmas.  We were really excited, and, of course, the question came up “Where is the baby going to be born?”

We looked into private insurance in the US, but the plans available don’t cover births.  And I already had insurance in Brazil that has a prenatal/birth rider so that it would be covered.  Anyhow, we live in Brazil, and that’s where our lives are, so that’s where our child will be born.

The first doctor we got is a competent, but very medical doctor.  What do I mean by that?  ”Very medical”.  Great description.  Well, I’ve been for 5 ultrasounds already, and have had the complete battery of bloodwork tests done twice now.  I haven’t had any sort of problems- no bleeding, no high blood pressure, no nothing- yet ended up on restriction/semi-bedrest for 5 days because my hips were not taking pregnancy well and were hurting, and the doctor thought it might be something with the baby.

Pregnancy is treated like a disease here.  But it isn’t!  Its perfectly natural, and normal.  It isn’t something to be treated like a medical condition.  Unfortunately, the medical world here treats it like a medical condition.

I might just be fed up with having to go to the doctor so often, but, maybe there is something to my being fed-up with it.

Today I went to have routine bloodwork done, and get checked for gestational diabetes, which is routine, wherever you are.  I didn’t really even look at the paper of what I was being tested for, but then the nurse who collected those 7 vials of blood, gave me a waiver saying that I understood I was being tested for HIV- after she took the blood.  I was just tested for HIV in February!!  Seriously!  I am monogamously married, and have zero risk factors.  I don’t need to be tested for HIV again!

Same goes for Hepatitis B or syphilis!  I was just tested for them!  How many times do you need to be tested for these things throughout pregnancy?  My understanding was that it was just once, near the beginning.

I also have a doctor’s order (two, actually) to have a tetanus shot.  My tetanus (and ALL other vaccines, because I traveled) is up to date.  And will still be up to date when our baby is born.  I am refusing to get it.

And so it goes…

Slowly, a green leaf appeared on one of the stems. A new stem, growing from an old one. What appeared to be hopelessly dead, now showed slight signs of life again. I planted the roots and stem, and have been watering them, watching the new shoots grow daily in the sun of the beginning of dry season.

A renewal. A re-birth. What appeared to be dead and hopeless, now has new life.

A Valentine’s Day bouquet, the good that happened before the hospital. On the evening of Valentine’s Day, my Mother-In-Law had a hemorrhagic stroke. It happened in the ER of a hospital, so she had prompt care, but she lost all movement, feeling, vision, and hearing on the left side of her body. She spent a few weeks in the hospital, a few long weeks for us, endless for her. Her recovery has been slow, but in a situation that appeared to be hopeless, we now have hope.

My mother-in-law has been steadily regaining movement, now she is able to walk with help, and even take a few wobbly steps unaided. She has learned how to use her right hand to do simple tasks, she was left-handed before the stroke. Renewal. Re-birth. Hope from a hopeless situation.

The daisies are constant reminder of the renewal of life from Valentine’s Day to the present, a reminder to never give up hope, to keep believing that new life will grow out of what seems to be dead.

As the days pass by, my heart gets more and more distant from my life. My mind gets more and more content with where we are right now, but something is growing inside me that cannot just be shut up anymore. If God is in this, then we must do it. If God is in this, we must move. We must start branching out and taking steps to jump into His kingdom, into His ways, and serve Him with everything we have.

Some people might say its particularly bad timing. We have a little baby boy on the way, and he’s due in August. We’ll be raising support for all three of us, and, of course, kids are always an added expense and concern.

But it must be done. The mediocre life is coming to an end. We’re figuring out what it is that God wants us to do.

He has been telling us to step out on the water, to look in his face, not at the waves, and trust Him. Trust Him that he is going to provide what we need for a major move, a birth, and a new baby. Trust Him that we will have what we need- nothing more, nothing less.

Trust is hard, but its the only way we will start moving again.

Sickening.

I know I’ve found sickening websites for sex tourist detailing the bars and locales you can find child prostitutes at, but that was years ago. Hadn’t found anything like that since college, when I was diving headfirst into research for projects about child prostitution.

It caught me off guard that there would be someone so sick in the head as to write an entire book detailing about his life as a sex tourist around the world, with much of his travels being in, of course, Brazil.

I feel like writing a complaint to Amazon about it, but I don’t know how. When there are so many people working to stop such an ugly thing as child prostitution and sex tourism, how can there be people who write about it, glorifying it?

Makes me sick.

Next post will be more upbeat, i promise.

Moving- We moved in July, just from one side of the city to the other. We went from having drug dealers as next-door neighbors, to a diplomat. Yep. Our old neighbors would smoke pot all the time, and we actually saw them dealing crack one night, in front of our door. And now our next-door neighbor is a diplomat from a spanish-speaking country. His car has diplomat plates and all.

My job- A year ago I wasn’t working, and I was at home and driving myself cra-zy. I started working at the International School in February, and it is a huge blessing. I am around many Americans, yet I speak lots of Portuguese, and its really helped me learn more of the language. Its also good because the teachers are American and are really a sort of support system for me. The kids at the school are from all over the world– we have kids from Pakistan, Japan, Syria, Namibia, China, Tanzania, etc. I love seeing all of them mix together and have fun and learn together.

Paulo’s company- Even though sometimes its tough, Paulo’s company has made it past the 1-yr mark! Thats big for a small upstart company! We’re both grateful that he’s been able to get new clients in to keep the company working. He’s learned alot, faster than he would at a regular job.

Family- my in-laws have really helped us alot this year. I’ve gotten sick a few times, and my mother in law has always come over or had me over to take care of me. We usually have lunch at their house on Saturday, and when they are traveling, it seems odd to break that routine and not spend Saturdays with them! And I get to see my family in a month for Christmas! Now that’s really something huge to be thankful for!

This is the sketch of what my heart burns for..

I dream of night and day constant everlasting prayer and worship that will affect people, that will change hearts. Not a mega-maniac concept that sees the big and imagines nations changed, that will be a realistic outcome of our intimate prayer life, of hearts being touched by a passion that burns stronger by the day that it stays in the presence of the Holy.

I want to rescue kids from prostitution and the streets, I want to grow old with them and walk and watch as Holy Spirit transforms their lives. I want to rescue teenagers away from drugs and teach them what I know, teach them what I have in my hand. Teach them how to translate their life story into design.

I have a dream of forming a design agency made up of young adults rescued from the streets. We will serve the church and help NGO’s and institutions to create relevant and high quality design so that they can bring out their message and in partnership they’ll help us to train and develop more “life designers”, to rescue others from destitution. I want to design for life, to give them a future, to teach them that each line they draw, each typography they work on can mean a chain being broken, how it can mean a message of Hope being brought to the world.

I want this agency to spread bringing future and proving that Design and Creation can truly announce our essence: that we were created to create, we were designed by God to design, to design life, to design hope, to create the Kingdom of Jesus in this world. Design as a lifestyle, as a fruit of constant worship. This is my dream, this is what I long for; serve the Church and strengthen our Message of Love and Hope by in return giving Hope to those who apparently have no future.

This is what I’m walking towards, this is what I will look like when I go into full time ministry. I will design for hope, I will write code for the Body so that I can free others to code with me, so that through my art, through my sketches I can show others a way out of the streets, i can give them jobs, show them that they’re life story can be relevant to others around the globe, all they have to do is be willing to pick up a pencil and draw that first line, express who they are, simply design.

Design for Life
Pray for Change
Live for Love

-Paulo

If this doesn’t make you shed some tears, I don’t know what will. My opinion is that Christians who are living in the developed world, and who are able, should adopt. If you have an empty room in the house for “guests” why not make it for a permanent guest? Adopt!

I just showed my husband, and we are both crying… we’ll adopt soon enough. We’re just not quite old enough… well, we sort of are, I guess we could adopt a baby. But its not the babies that need to be adopted the most– its the older kids, over age 5 or 6. Or the ones with special needs. Anyhow, thank you to Third Day for making a beautiful, tear-jerking video about adoption. We loved it and we’re going to adopt.

I received 2 emails this evening upon arriving home from hearing Dwayne Roberts (of Ihop, live, and in person in Brasilia!!) speak. Which to say the least, we were excited about hearing him speak and I got to meet him, since my husband has talked about him and his heart for Brazil since they met in April.

And I saw these emails and I was even more thrilled!! I’m copying and pasting them. This is the final word, the closure on an emotionally intense story that wreaked havoc on our emotions for a couple weeks. We love Brazil, I’ve loved Brazil for as long as I can remember, and anything that hurts My Nation hurts me too. So I cannot begin to describe what a RELIEF this is to read. Follow along. This was send from C & D who originally told the story at Bethel, and who maintained that it was true and their source was reliable. I want to thank C & D for their honesty, at long last. (we love you, and pray for your healing over all this too!). Read their email:

Friends and loved ones,

—————————–
May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you His favor and give you His peace. – Numbers 6:24-26

My boss actually apologized to me because I had to work today. He said normally he’d let the Americans take the day off, but he needed me there, and I was the only American working today.

I got to see an amazing fireworks show on Friday night with old friends. It was great! Apparently the towns that normally put it on ran out of money to do fireworks, so private companies and individual donors paid for it. I say “Yay!” for privatization because the fireworks show was wonderful! We were all commenting on how good it was in comparison to other years when it is ho-hum.

I also finally went to the Statue of Liberty! I didn’t get to climb it, but I went and of course took the obligatory photos of me in front of Lady Liberty. It was actually quite emotional for me to think about immigrating and being an immigrant, because I actually am an immigrant. Isn’t that a funny concept?

Celebrate your freedom today!