Starting normal life

We´re now living in our wooden house next to the "real" house and have started our normal daily life. I´m still getting used to the gas stove (tend to burn garlic and the like as the stove is so quick) and cleaning the house over here. There´s no hoover and there is loads of dust and sand everywhere. We bought the ultimate luxury washing machine that spins the laundry (as opposed to hand washing everything) and I´m loving it.

The kids are doing ok. Lucas has hardly reacted to the change but Luana has difficult days. Her spoken Portuguese is already very good (she did understand everything to start with) and she´s not a shy child so she gets along with everyone and she´s really enjoying the attention she gets from all of her "new" relatives. But she clearly needs loads of attention from us as well and she makes that very clear on a daily basis. She seems to be calming down now though (or maybe I´m just getting used to all the screaming and the tantrums...).

We painted the wooden house and fixed the floors as well as some of the walls and it´s getting cosier all the time. We don´t have that much furniture yet but we´re getting there. The main focus is now on the "real" house next door. We´ll start (or someone who knows what he´s doing will start) working on the interior next week. We however have no idea how far our money will last and when we´ll be able to move in...

Church is good. Luana loves Sunday School and we just love being able to sit down and listen to the teaching (as opposed to having responsabilities during the church service). We take it in turns to attend on Tuesdays and on Thursdays without the kids and then go all together on Sundays. There are two services on Sunday; a more teaching focused service at 8.30 and then a worship service at 19.30.

Hoping to hear from you who read this blog!

In Brazil!

After a long and exhausting journey (Helsinki-London-Sao Paulo-Manaus-Porto Velho-Jaru almost 50 hours) we finally arrived on Sunday morning local time. There were no bigger problems during the trip, it was just generally tiring with the kids. We've now somewhat recovered and started doing things over here. We did have little angels along the way though like the unknown lady who held Luana at the airport when she was really tired and we had to get our luggage or the wonderful family of a Brazilian friend in Finland that received us for an afternoon in Manaus between our flights.

On Sunday we got to see our houses. It was amazing to see the new house that we had only ever seen in photos. We were able to get inside the house and see it all for ourselves. Some rooms were bigger and some smaller than what we had imagined and the amount of work ahead of us is almost intimidating but it was still great. I couldn´t be happier with the construction! The wooden house where we´ll live temporarily isn´t in a very good condition but we´ll fix it so that we can live in it and later on rent it.

The reception over here was wonderful. The whole Sunday the house was full of people. We only got to church on Tuesday and it was great to be back. Everaldo was especially reminded of a promise he received from God more than ten years ago. God said He was going to take Everaldo to the nations but He was also going to bring him back to Brazil (see Psalm 126). That promise is now fulfilled and Everaldo can hold his head high for having believed that which seemed impossible to start with.

What we really need to get used to is the climate. It´s just HOT all the time and the days go by without doing much as one gets so tired with just a little walking around. We can´t complain however as we´ve complained about Finnish winters for several years :)

All in all everything is good. There´s a lot of work ahead but we´re really excited about the new opportunities and the possibility to build our house. I´ll keep you updated whenever I get to use the internet.