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Blogging just takes too much time. That is, if you want to do it right. My perfectionism gets in the way more often than not, and I can't bring myself to write a post when I know it's going to be sloppy.

Enter the mini-blog. There are a growing number of sites with offerings in this category: twitter, tumblr and Pownce, for example. They all offer a different subset of features, but the main idea is short and sweet entries — kind of like souped-up Facebook updates. Certainly a lot easier to keep up with, and less intimidating to a time-strapped perfectionist, than a regular blog. Plus, most of the mini-blogs offer some sort of social networking, meaning you can follow others and perhaps carry on conversations, as well.

So I decided to go with tumblr and have put up my own mini-blog for anyone to follow. There's even an RSS feed. Let me know if you sign up for an account there, so I can follow you, too.

Time passes — and Favre does no more

I saw it coming a month ago, as I stayed up to watch the NFC Championship game being played on the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field. The miserable cold revealed both the players’ breath and the mental exhaustion of the most famous player on the field. Brett Favre just didn’t have it in him anymore. He played half-heartedly (from my point of view, thousands of miles away through a satellite feed) the whole game. But the telling moment was when the Giants’ kicker missed a gimme field goal which would have won the game for them near the end of regulation time. In years past, Favre would have been halfway onto the field the second the ball passed wide of the uprights, waving his hands in the air, whooping for joy and spurring his teammates on to victory. But that night, when the camera shot to Brett, I swear I could see him shake his head as he resignedly prepared to go (not again?!) out onto the frozen field.

I feel I grew up and got old with Brett Favre. He’s less than a year younger than I am. Our careers started at roughly the same time. Rookie mistakes began to be replaced by experienced decisions, on both our parts — although we both have continued to make our fair share of poor plays. Now Favre’s retiring. And I’ve got a long ways to go. But the fact that I’ve now witnessed the entire professional career of one of the best NFL players ever, just makes me feel old.

Yellow Fever 2 - Vaccine’s Revenge

Can you believe the main reason I haven’t updated this blog since the last entry was because I had a major adverse reaction to the Yellow Fever shot I took? Here we went out of our way to make sure we didn’t get sick, and I end up almost 10 days in bed with a high-grade fever.  Go figure.

What’s worse is that I was barely recovered from that when I had a major gallbladder attack and had to visit the emergency room.  Now I’m scheduling a surgery to have the offending organ removed.  I’ve never gone “under the knife” before, but if it means that I never have to have one of those attacks again, I’m sure it will be worth it.

Yellow fever

At the beginning of February, we are planning to hold a convention of the national church, the Igreja Luterana Brasileira, in the city of Dourados. Unfortunately, there have been a number of cases of Yellow Fever reported in that general region of Brazil — nine deaths reported so far in the last month. Although none of them have occured in Dourados — or any big city nearby, for that matter — we heard that the police may be stopping travellers and demanding to see vaccination cards.  We also heard that all doses of the vaccine in our state had been used up. Apparently everyone ran to get their free vaccines before heading off to the beach last weekend — despite the fact that there haven’t been any cases reported there.  There could be more doses available next week, but it takes 10 days for the vaccine to take effect, and we’re due to travel next week Thursday.

Fortunately, we found out that there was still a stash at the airport — apparently not advertized to the general public so that those in the upper classes of society would still have access, if they wanted. The problem was they only gave out 300 doses per day, starting at 8:30 in the morning. So yesterday, six of us (two missionaries, three seminary students, and one national pastor) went to the last known location in all of Porto Alegre that still had Yellow Fever vaccines left. We arrived at the spot at 8:00am, waited an hour to be handed a number (I got #167 out of a total of 300 that could be handed out that day), and then waited another four hours (on foot) for our turn to be stuck with needles.

I guess we’ll never know for sure if it was worth it, but at least it gives us peace of mind for our trip next week.

Happy New Year!

Just another New Years day poolside with temps in the 90s.

Our Kombi broke down again, so we’re stuck at home this week. We missed a birthday party at the beach on Sunday, and we had to walk to church this morning. But at least our family is together for a while. Dave goes back to school already on Saturday. And to think: this is the year that Holly goes off to school, too! All the more important to make the most of the time we have together. (So then, why are we wasting time watching Pirates of the Carribean 3 tonight? What a long, confusing, pointless movie!)

Imagine

Does it ever happen that you end a year exactly where you imagined you’d be when it began?

I guess this year came close.  Technically, we fulfilled many of our written goals: We had one seminarian graduate, receive a call and be installed in the local congregation.  We not only purchased land for a church building, we have nearly completed its construction in record time and have already begun using it regularly for worship.  And yet, even though they were goals written down at the beginning of the year, they seemed so far away that it was almost impossible to envision what life would actually be like when they were realized.  Add to that the fact that, over the years here on the mission field, we’ve run into so many unexpected obstacles that we almost don’t expect to meet any of our goals, no matter how SMART they are.  It’s still hard to believe that so many of our plans actually worked out this year.  (Of course, there were still many that didn’t.)

So where do I imagine we’ll be a year from now?  Our plans for 2008 include researching a location and devising a strategy for a new church plant to be started at the beginning of 2009, after graduating our second pastoral candidate.  So a year from now, we should be packing up for a move (to who knows where?).   However, we’re also thinking of taking our first ever Christmas-time furlough, so we could be up in the States for the first days of 2009, wishing we were back in our swimming pool in Brazil.

At any rate, we know whose hands we’ll be in, whose blessing we will require, whose love will wrap around us, whose Spirit will lift us up, whose promises will calm our hearts.  That part is easy to imagine.

games as gifts

Anyone who has been to our house knows that I’ve amassed a fairly large collection of boardgames (over 300 at last count).  There are games for every type of occasion: party games, 2-player games, children’s games, strategy games, war games, card games, etc.  Different games call for different skills: negotiation, auctioning, dice-rolling, card-collecting, planning, dexterity, or just plain luck. Most of our games fall into the general category that I would call “family strategy games”.  That is, games that are fun for everyone in the family (not just kids and not just adults), but are more than a test of who can roll the most sixes.

Anyway, sometimes people who know me ask if I have a recommendation for game which would make a good gift.  These days, I don’t even think about it — I just send them over to Defective Yeti’s yearly collection of Good Gift Games .  This year the Yeti has also made a list of his all-time favorites.  I highly recommend the latter list for just about everybody, as our family owns and enjoys every game on it.  But this year’s collection looks like it contains some interesting games, as well.

Whatever you do, just don’t buy another one of those themed versions of Monopoly.  They give boardgames a bad name!

Installation blessings

Last Sunday (Nov 1 I installed a new pastor — the first Brazilian pastor in our church — in the congregation I had pastored for the last 12 years until that day. It was a bitter-sweet moment for me. For the first time in a long time, I am no longer the pastor here. I’m not the pastor anywhere. And yet, there are many reasons to thank God for this blessing. Here are seven of them….

1. The congregation doesn’t have to put up with my gringo accent anymore.
2. This is a significant step towards our goal of establishing an independent church body.
3. I can dedicate my time to teaching in the seminary.
4. A Brazilian pastor understands the culture better than I do.
5. I can sit and listen to sermons every Sunday.
6. A Brazilian pastor can inspire others to dedicate themselves to the ministry.
7. The Lord may use the new pastor to reach those I was unable to.

May God bless Pastor Elcy and the Jesus Salvador congregation!

Update: I’ve added a few pictures of the ordination to my Flickr account.

Forgiveness

November 15 is a national holiday in Brazil: “Proclamation of the Republic Day” — not to be confused with the Brazilian Independence Day, which is September 07. For most Brazilians the day has little or nothing to do with patriotism. In many cases it’s just an opportunity to do some spring cleaning, or get the beach house ready for summer vacation.

This year the ladies of the congregation in Gravataí decided to take advantage of the holiday to have a one-day retreat. The theme of the day was “Forgiveness: A Way of Life”, and they asked me to prepare a Bible study for the occasion. In addition, I would be responsible for a devotion and an ice-breaker. They would prepare the food. What a deal!

Reformation Polka

I had heard this song at Summer Quarter a while back, but now there’s a cartoon version.