Jake Hosier

Today, Saturday, was the team’s last day in Jaragua. We visited from 9-12PM, arriving really early. I just woke up from a long nap after a wonderful lunch with Pastor Lelo. Tonight we’ll go to a youth service at church and then to a nice Churrascaria for dinner. I’m sitting with Tim Oldenkamp looking at some of the pictures and videos we’ve taken over the last few days and laughing like crazy. I really hope you are enjoying the photos I am uploading. I’ll try to figure out how to post some videos soon too so that you can enjoy them as well.

What a crazy few days we’ve had. Like the rest of the team I was completely exhausted by today. Our schedule here is crazy…we wake up, have a great breakfast in the hotel, meet and pray for a while, and then head into Jaragua after shopping for the day’s food. We generally skip lunch, play with kids and make food and try to love well until the sun goes down, and then head back for a shower and dinner. Its draining but wonderful. I love watching the team keep going and going, never complaining. This group has been amazing. I’ve never known people who can just keep loving and loving; I enjoying working alongside others whose daily prayer is “God, let Your love pass through me. I can’t do this, but Your Spirit living in me can. Use me today Jesus, I am Yours.”

The locals have also been outstanding. Our dreams and prayers are really coming true. We have a solid group of women who are dedicated to helping, working hard with us every day. A young man has also stepped up to help. Today one of the ladies said to me, “As long as I am alive I am here to help you. This is my heart’s work.” I came very close to tears. We still face challenges, there are many hurdles and obstacles to overcome, but I have faith to believe that the promises of God will come to pass. This community center will come into reality.

A few quotes and scriptures have guided our work here so far and I thought I would share them again. The first verse, our foundation, is Psalm 101:1 “I will sing of mercy and justice. To You, O Lord, I will sing praises.” Each day, despite the sadness and the pain that surrounds us, we have sung. We have sung praises to God, thanking Him for His work and demonstrating our trust in Him for the future. I believe the day will come when mercy and justice will be restored to this neighborhood, and so we sing, we sing until our voices are gone.

Albert Camus once said this: “We must stitch up what has been torn apart, render justice imaginable in the world which is so obviously unjust, make happiness meaningful for nations poisoned by the misery of this century.” The most important part of this quote is the first word “We”. We must each do what it is in us to do to ease the pain that surrounds us. For some of us that means going, for some it means praying, for some it means giving, for others it means sending clothes, making pasta, or donating some food. I have been astounded to see the amount of giving that takes place in this community. These people are truly helping each other, despite their limited means. From the littlest child choosing to pick up some trash to an older woman giving her entire day to make bread and pasta with us, from a person in the city donating meals for the whole center to an American giving to enable to a person to come here, each gift, each act of service, makes a difference. I have complete faith in future; this community will be restored, it will have justice, and the people will know true happiness.

Deus te abencoe

According to all the kids yesterday, Wednesday, was the best day ever. The other days have all been great they said, but yesterday, oh man, it was good! A local Brazilian woman donated 250 meals of meat, beans, and rice to us! The food completely filled up one of the cars and all of us had to pile into the other one. Our poor van almost ran out of steam after driving 9 people across town, but it made it!

Figuring out how to distribute all these meals in an orderly way was a nightmare, but thank God we had the help of some local ladies. They had us bring everything inside and then kicked the whole community out of the building into the street. Check out some pictures to see them in action, bossing everyone around! It was so great. Without help like this we wouldn’t be able to do anything at all.

Once everyone was outside we brought all the mothers with children into the courtyard and started distributing food. It actually worked out so well! After the one group had finished we moved them outside and brought in the rest of the people. We were able to save lots of food for the kids who hadn’t come home from school yet and the ladies distributed it for us after we left.

Overall the day was complete chaos, but also completely fun and full of energy. The team arrived back to the hotel exhausted but happy. After a some sandwiches we returned to my room and prepped some more yarn for tomorrow. All of the kids here love to finger-knit, so we bring a ton of yarn from the states and they make little bracelets and hair bands and stuff. It is pretty cool. I spent the evening with Tad working on portuguese, making sure I could correctly conjugate the verb “to hit” so that i could say “Don’t hit him”, “Stop hitting her”, “Why did you hit him?” and “Apologize for hitting her”!! Like I said, its kind of chaotic here!

Anyway, that’s it for today. Check out the photos to see everyone in action…

Deus te abencoe

I slept wonderfully last night, completely content after a perfect day. The day began with a great breakfast and a really good team meeting. This group of people amazes me; they love to sing and they don’t really need instruments to do it. We sang several songs together and then prayed for each other. It was really beautiful.

The team left for Jaragua and Sandreia and I went shopping for supplies. A quick run downtown turned into an hour long adventure. We arrived at this small shop on the street, uma loja na rua, which is basically a few square feet of spaced stuffed with as much stuff as possible, including everything from pressure cookers to popcorn to hardware to toilet seats! We were looking for popcorn, one of the kids’ favorite treats, but this store didn’t have enough. A few phone calls later and the clerk let us know that her manager would bring us the popcorn from the other store. I figured this must be normal practice, so I just wandered around the store trying to kill a few minutes. After about 15 minutes I was pretty tired and wishing we could just drive to the store and pickup the popcorn ourselves, but Sandreia explained that that would be extremely rude. After 30 minutes the manager arrived with a boy carrying 20 bags of pipoca and we could finally move on!

A quick trip to Wal-Mart(yes, it is everywhere!) resulted in two full shopping carts of food, enough to last about 1/2 of a week. We bought tons of pasta, chocolate milk, juice, and miscellaneous other supplies. San and I finally arrived in Jaragua in the late afternoon and rapidly organized the kids to bring all the supplies into the building we are using as a base. It was so beautiful to watch even the littlest ones crying out “I want to help, give me something!!”

A quick meal of bread and butter and chocolate milk was whipped up by the team and several local helpers. My friend Luiz arrived and we left together for a walk around, trying to locate his new enamorada, or girlfriend. Pipico, one of my favorites over the last few years, insisted on going with us. He walked most of the way and then got really tired and so I carried him. After visiting with Luiz’s future mother-in-law we discovered that Rosemary (pronouced Hoze-mary) was down the street. A short walk found us at another house and I was introduced to a beautiful young girl. She was not exactly happy with Luiz however, because she was having a pedicure done as we walked in and turned bright red!! After kissing her and her pedicurist, as well as everyone else in the house, we proceeded to talk a little bit. It turns out she knew me already as the guy with blue eyes(everyone here is in love with my blue eyes, and when I tell them that everyone in my family has blue eyes they freak out and scream Que Loco Jheiki!). Pipico, who was still with us, clung tightly to my chest as I held him and tried to convince everyone that I was his dad. I laughed and tried to explain that I wasn’t actually his dad, but then became pretty overwhelmed and couldn’t really talk. I was so honored to think that this kid would want me as a dad, that he would chose me, that I couldn’t really talk about it anymore. As Luiz and I left we chatted about how we were not in a real hurry to have kids ourselves, since we had so many here already!!

I stopped by the local igreja(church) and spoke with Luiz’s mom for a while. Thelma is a wonderful lady who has helped us in the past. The babies in the family are growing rapidly, it was crazy to see that the newborn I met the two years ago is now a talkative two year old! We all walked up to the other road and chatted with the rest of the team. Luiz, Sandreia, Joao, and I will have a meeting next Saturday to begin discussing the logistics of constructing a community center.

After a shower and a great meal we all went to church in the city with Pastor Lelo, an old friend who has received our teams the last few years. The team was asked to sing a song, which they did beautifully, and then I shared a small message out of Isaiah 61, asking the congregation to remember that God’s Spirit enables us to do the things we think we cannot do, to love more, to sacrifice more, and to help more. It was a great experience. I was asked to help serve communion, which was a great honor. After communion the team was asked to sing another song, which happened to be one with a portuguese translation. We all sang together in English and Portuguese, it was beautiful.

After church I was introduced to several different people, all of whom were very excited to receive me into the church and were anxious to help. The leader of the youth group told me that they really want to work, that they want to come with us to Jaragua and work hard. I couldn’t have been more thrilled! Several others said the same thing, and after accepting several lunch invitations and kissing almost everyone in the building, we decided to come back to this church on Saturday evening for the youth service.

We stopped for some coffee and dessert on the way home and had a wonderful time. The girls embarrassed the young waiter by insisting on some pictures with him, and our loud laughs drew lots of stares, but it was wonderful. I tried some new juice and it was quite interesting, almost like a banana taste mixed with alcohol and them something really grainy, like a protein powder, but with a bad aftertaste! I don’t think I’ll get that one again!

Anyway, this has gone on for way too long. I am just so excited to see things begin to come together. I was so grateful to God for such a perfect day. Thank you all for praying and supporting me, it makes a huge difference!!

Deus te abencoe

So today is a Saturday, which means that all of the kids are home from school and super excited to see us. We had almost 150 kids today, ranging from newborns (the youngest at 2 months) to really old Grandmas out playing with us! After shopping around for some supplies we drove to Jaragua (about a 15 minute drive from the city), parked, and proceeded to be swamped with kids. My favorite family, affectionately known as the Dirt Family(the young boys all like to play in the dirt), showed up. The boys had grown so much! I was glad to hear that they are all doing well. One of the younger boys (6 boys and 1 girl) has an brain aneurysm that has really slowed his growth. He has so much energy you would never really be able to tell though..I had a good laugh with him after showing him the holes he had bit in my shirt last year!

The team performed wonderfully today. We made over 200 rolls with butter, working side by side with some of the women of the community. A bunch of the younger women helped us; it is so exciting to see how they are willing to come together and work hard if just given the chance. Courtney on our team must have run with kids up and down the street for at least an hour. They are not really after complicated games really–they are well satisfied by running up and down the street or dancing the Macarena! We also gave out vitamins today, a dangerous thing to do in this area. Over the next few days these kids, already completely excited and running at full speed, will gain new energy and stamina; i’m not sure if we will be able to handle them!

I spoke with Luiz for a long time today. Luiz is about my age and he really wants to see change in his community. We have become like brothers over the last few years and I am really looking forward to working with him. It was wonderful to speak with someone who shares my vision for a community center, a place where everyone could be fed, clothed, and in general find hope. He is working in another city full time right now, only returning on the weekends, but he will be in Bauru for the entire month of August. I think we will have a busy month!

I’m picking up Portuguese fairly well, but not completely. For those of you who knew my Japanese friends Miyoko and Tomoko, i feel so much like them lately. I know what i want to say, but my vocabulary is so limited and i can’t conjugate anything! Well, at least it builds empathy for people who have a hard time with English!

By the way, two girls asked me if I was single today. They are both eager to marry an American. I had to fight one off (she was already pregnant!) and I told the other she was too young (because she is, she is 12 years old!) Then I learned how to say “I have a beautiful girlfriend at home” and that put an end to most of the offers!!

Random fact: Brazilian food is amazing. They have the best meat, the best fruit, the best everything here. Except for salad–they have no idea how to make a decent salad. And also the Diet Coke tastes really strange.

Deus te abencoe,

Jake

Wow, that was a rough night! We made it to Bauru at 1:40AM after several hours of driving from Sao Paulo. Awake until 3AM trying to sort through some business stuff for the team(for those who don’t know, I’m leading a team of 3 guys and 7 girls right now, some of whom have never traveled abroad before), but eventually just fell asleep.

I woke up this morning at 9:30 feeling tired and cranky, so I decided to grab some breakfast before we started the day. I’m at breakfast, working on my third cup of tea, vainly hoping that some more caffeine might save me. I’m listening to Phil Wickham and reading out of 2 Corinthians, which says “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not us. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair…” I am struck by how much I need to remember this verse, how even though I’m feeling overwhelmed and truly perplexed about some issues, things will work out. And then I take another bite of melon, and suddenly I’m completely lost. The flavor is amazing, it’s that perfect stage of ripe, the texture is fantastic, everything about this melon is absolutely perfect. Suddenly I’m ok – I realize that all is well and that all will be well. After praying for some melon like this in the U.S, I kept on reading…

Second Corinthians chapter 4 ends thus: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even thou our outward man is perishing, the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

I just can not get over how amusing it is that a single bight of melon was able to restore my perspective and rekindle my belief in those words!

I am in Brazil! I can’t begin to describe how happy I am to finally say that. The last few days have been a flurry of activity. Flights were great (exits row seats both flights, praise God!). Arrival was fine, no lost baggage or anything. The team has already had some great times together. The food is better than I remembered, the beach at Guaraja was fantastic (make sure to check out the photos) and overall everything is going well.

We leave tomorrow evening for Bauru, the town in which we will be ministering for over a week. I am really looking forward to seeing the kids again! I’ll write more when I get a chance. For now I should catch some sleep! Tchau…

In preparing for the trip I’ve been focusing a lot on Mother Teresa’s life and work. She has been so inspirational to me, and this quote served me well last year as well..it could become one of my themes for life…

“Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our brothers and sisters scattered throughout the entire world, who live and die in poverty and hunger. Through the service of our hands, give them their daily bread; and by our understanding love, give them peace and joy. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen”

My amazing roommate Jason just finished showing me how to use this blog. I hope it works well and keeps everyone updated with what is going on. I’m also hopeful that it will help me organize my sometimes incoherent thoughts and turn them into something that inspires and motivates others to live every day to the full.

Our team is all set and ready to go. For the record a team of 11 people will be departing on Monday June 18th at 6:30am from Sacramento, heading to Sao Paulo, Brazil, with a layover in Atlanta along the way. With any luck the flights will go well and we won’t run into any problems.

I am starting to become really excited. I can’t wait to see Joao and Sandreia, the couple we will be working with who have become two of my best friends. They are amazing Brazilians who desire to love the poor in their country, despite the huge social and cultural barriers that exist in this type of work. For those who don’t know, the gap between the poor and everyone else in Brazil is almost unbridgeable–sort of like the caste system in India. Joao and Sandreia have gone to great lengths to serve and I can’t wait to continue my partnership with them.

My next post should be from Brazil!! Until then, beijos e abracos, e Deus te abencoe…