Saturday, we went on our first hike in Brazil! We’ve been posting “hikecasts” of our hikes for a couple years now, but this is our first from the Southern Hemisphere.

You can also check out photos from our hike, if you like.

One of the perks of being a science teacher is that I get to burn things when the mood strikes me. A student took video of the rapid, exothermic oxidation of propane.

Ahh, education

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.

Even though we live just a few minute’s walk, Lorraine and I didn’t go to the beach much for the first couple months we were here. It didn’t seem like there was much to do there. Brazilians generally go to the beach just to hang out with friends and talk and so forth–they don’t appear to need something to “do”, exactly. So we did other things.

Then, a couple weeks ago, we discovered something. The ocean here is way more fun to play in than the ocean at home. For one, it’s not the frigid North Pacific. For two, the waves are just violent enough to make things interesting, but not quite so violent as to knock you senseless and drag out out to sea. So for the last two weekends, we’ve made time to play in the surf down at Barra Beach.

(Also of note: on our way to and from the beach, we ride across the lagoa on a little “balsa” aka boat. On our return trip on Saturday, we saw four ginormous capybaras swimming across the water. Man, those suckers are some big rodents.)

It’s nearing fall here. That means the sunset is gradually working its way northward, which means we’re getting better and better sunsets as the days go by. Tonight’s was particularly spectacular.

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