After many trials, which included unpacking our three bags on the floor of Sea-Tac International Airport, rearranging our stuff, and repacking it into four bags, we are here, safe and sound. The same cannot be said of my guitar case, which is now minus one hinge, one latch, and a fair amount of its structural integrity, but the guitar came through unscathed, so I am not complaining one bit.

All of our luggage made it through, we got our taxi at the airport, and we even met another teacher there who came on our flight, unbeknown to us. Our first staff meeting this morning went well, and we are pleased to be back in Rio. School starts Monday, so we are frantically preparing.

Thanks for all your prayers.

Well, we’re flying out tomorrow morning at 8 AM for Atlanta, then at 8 PM from Atlanta to Rio. Because of this, I feel I am allowed to add Georgia to the list of states I’ve visited, since we will be there for five hours on a layover.

We’ll be flying Delta this time, instead of United, because of a hitch in the travel agenting. But we do have tickets, we do have visas, and we have luggage that weighs more than both of us combined.

So please pray that the skies will be clear, the security check-points obliging, and the customs agents benign. We should be at the school by about 9 AM on Friday, Rio time.

The Brazilian Feast last night was a success, I’m happy to report, even if an exhausting success. About 35 people came, all told, to feast on feijoada, farofa, palmito, maracuja and other tasty Brazilian foods. We are deeply grateful for the generosity of everyone who came.

We had a great time cooking and serving Brazilian food, and sharing a bit of our lives in Brazil–and apparently most everyone who came enjoyed themselves, too. Hopefully we’ll put some pictures up in a day or two.

Things are coming together pretty well for our Brazilian Feast this Friday. This weekend we put together the video, hashed out the menu and the rest of the entertainment, and we’ve gotten a good chunk of RSVPs–but we want more! if you’re in the Seattle area, you should definitely come–this Friday at 7 PM. If you’re not anywhere near Seattle, you probably know someone who is. RSVP to tim /at/ timothygoddard.com or in the comments here.

The Feast will be at Haller Lake Baptist Church, which is located pretty conveniently, just off of both 99 and I-5 in North Seattle. Click ‘read the rest’ for a map. Hope to see you there!
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We’re having a great time in the US so far. We went camping last week, and today we had the opportunity to share our experiences with the folks at Haller Lake Baptist Church.

We’d like to have the chance to share our experiences–and some fabulous Brazilian food–with everyone else, too. So, we’re having a Brazilian Feast in a couple weeks. It will be at at Haller Lake Baptist Church at 14054 Wallingford Avenue N in Seattle—Google Map available here—at 7 PM on July 25. If you’re in the Seattle area, we would really love to have you come, and feel free to bring a friend or two. One of the purposes of this dinner is to help raise money for our plane tickets back to Brazil, so we’re suggesting donations of $8 per person and $5 per child under 12, up to $25 per family. Did I mention that Brazilian food is fantastic? Because it is.

If you’d like to come, please drop me an RSVP at tim /at/ timothygoddard.com so we have some idea of how much food to bring. Hope to see you there!

Our flights (from Rio to Sao Paulo to Washington DC to Seattle) all went smoothly, and we, plus our luggage, came through safely. Thanks for all the prayers & well wishes.

If you could keep those going, we’re actually already thinking about our flight back to Brazil. We’re on a wait list for tickets to leave on August 3, which we really need. So, if you could pray that those tickets come through, we’d appreciate it.

One of the things we’ve been stressing about has been raising enough support to return here in August. One of the other things we’ve been stressing about was raising enough support to get from Seattle to Memphis for an “pre-field orientation” thingy for NICS. That was going to tack on another $500 at least to our total need, and probably much more. Additionally, it was going to take away from time with family (and time with the mountains).

But we are happy to report that NICS has released us from our requirement to go to PFO, due to the crazy situation we dealt with this year, and the damage it did to our financial situation. In some ways, this is like someone handing us a check for $500. It’s better than that, though, because it gives us back two weeks in the Pacific Northwest summer, which are worth a lot more than that.

As we enter our fourth month here in Rio, there are two things we would like you to pray for in particular.

• The city of Rio de Janeiro is in the midst of an epidemic of Dengue Fever. It may have killed over 100 people so far, and nearly 60,000 have been infected. Our school has only seen two cases, praise God, but it’s still a major concern. Dengue is a virus spread by mosquito–there is no vaccine for it, and antiviral medication is barely into the experimental stage. Please pray for safety & health for us, and everyone at the school, and for healing and protection for the city of Rio as a whole.
• We return to the states for a time in less than three months. Once we’re there, we’re supposed to go to a “pre-field orientation” in Mississippi, though it’s obviously going to be more of a “mid-field orientation” for us. Then we have about a month in Washington, and we return to Brazil in early August. The catch is that we don’t have plane tickets to get us either to the orientation, or back here to Rio. I had been hoping to have most of this money raised by the end of last semester, but since we spent the entirety of last semester waiting for our visas, that obviously didn’t work. Please be in prayer that we would get the support we need to return here next year–and if you would also like to help answer that prayer, details are here.

Thanks in advance for remembering us in your prayers.

Finally, actually, we’re in Brazil. Our flight went plenty safely, as did immigration and customs. It kind of took me off guard, actually. We’ve been here for about 5 hours, and things are going swimmingly. It’s really, really hot, but that’s to be expected. We’ll update you more once we’ve got our own Internet access up and running. Thanks for all your prayers–they’re finally paying dividends.

I’m not posting from Brazil. Instead, I’m posting from Dulles International Airport.

Things have gone remarkably smoothly for us thus far, for which we’re both thankful. We’re both a little stiff and sore, too, something that’s not going to get any better with the 10 or so hour flight we have coming up in about an hour and a half. But that’s nothing to cry about, and we’re generally feeling pretty good.

Thanks for all your prayers, and please keep praying that the next portion of our journey goes as smoothly as the first. I hope everyone has a safe and spectacular New Year’s Eve.