Rain, Rain GO AWAY!

We are excited to announce that in about two weeks Kara and I will be moving into Mary Magdalene House as the first residents post “Extreme Makeover: Salvador Edition”. Let’s give you an overview of the house floor by floor…

On top, we have the classroom. We have been plugging away at our classes in art, music, recorder, and Catechism. This week, Katie surprised the kids and did a dance class which they loved. I was able to sneak upstairs and take a quick video which I think you would all find charming. All of our work in the classroom is going to be displayed during the week of December 18^th, the feast of our Lady of Hope – the patroness of the community. For the beginning of Advent, Edouard is going to do a Nativity theater piece with the kids and they are learning “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”

The middle floor is going to be our apartment. We have a guest bedroom, so we can now have company in Alto! We are in need of some things before we move in, but we are hoping to acquire them soon so we can get there. Our Portuguese is coming along. See the picture below - Gabriela has been teaching classes here in the mornings and Kara and I have been taking courses at a language school here. Nothing like immersion, though. We will have to figure it out once we live away from the comfort of the convent.

Our Classroom 

The bottom floor is a tutoring center. We lost our tutor because she got called back to work, but we are waiting on God for this. Please join us in praying for someone to come help the kids one-on-one… at least until Kara can speak Portuguese well enough. We would love to open this floor for socials on Sundays after Mass at Alto as well as on holidays. We are looking for some folding tables and plastic chairs to have so we can accomodate company.

It was Kara's Birthday on Saturday!

We have dinner as a community every Thursday and this past week we spiced things up with a camp fire. We sang “Don’t Worry Be Happy” and made some delicious banana/chocolate roasted things over the fire. We ate chocolate again when we had cake for Kara’s birthday! Kara and I got to go to a friend’s house and celebrate with an authentic Brazilian barbeque. The BBQ season is officially kicked off here in Salvador, so hopefully that can happen more often. However, there won’t be any barbecues if it keeps raining. It has been raining like crazy here. Nonstop for about four days. We want it to stop in time for the St. John festival that will take place here over the weekend. Also, it would be nice for our laundry to dry J… Besides the rain, things are pretty “normal” here. Which, we all know is not really possible.

Bonus Photo: Monkeys hanging out near Barra