The Humans are winning!!?? Part 1

A week after the last post a series of severe electrical storms went through every afternoon for a week. Because of power problems when storms go through, all most all our electric appliances are plugged into stabelizers and the computers, TV and a few others go off when it storms. One storm knocked out power to half our house for several days. ( The elecric in our house is on more than one phase. It is split to get power to the house. The electric company lost a phase.) Fortunatly it was not the half with the refrigerator, washing machine and well pump.

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On to the first installment in the saga of the Rat Wars.

It started innocently enough - the previous occupants of our house warned us that there were rats living in it. At first they didn’t seen to bother us and we didn’t bother them because we saw no signs of them. Then late one night one snuck in and helped himself to our breakfast bread. Not content to take as much as he wanted from one piece, he sampled a bite or two from each one. The kids wondered what was for breakfast. And the rat wars were on.

So we asked the age-old question of missionaries in Brazil - what would a Brazilian do?

“This one kills em dead and dries em up really fast”, replied Ceaser as he recommended a certain poison.

Over the next few days our poisoned bread was sampled several times but remained mostly untouched until that fatal night. One day a week later a stench arose from the attic above the office.

“Yes”, we cried, “got one”.

But the rat had the last laugh, he died where we couldn’t reach him and didn’t dry up any to fast for us.

The next week we noticed the same smell in the kitchen. Another one! Wayne worked all day to rip out the floor of the kitchen cabinets to extradite him from his tomb. It was a good thing that in a few months a work crew would be here to install new cabinets. Over the next few weeks our poisoned bread remained untouched. Were the mornings of last minute plans for breakfast over? Did we dare celebrate?

From 23 C to 23 F and Back Again

I was recently in the states for a short time to tend to some legal matters. The coldest it ever gets here is about 23 degrees Celsius or 73 Fahrenheit – and the warmest it ever got one day while I was back in the states was about 23 degrees Fahrenheit! Was I cold? You bet! During the day I looked over dressed in winter clothes, long underwear and coats, gloves and scarf at 40 degrees. At night I slept in my flannel nightgown and bathrobe with 4 blankets, a bedspread and a quilt over me and still woke up cold at 4 am. We get chilly here and sleep with a blanket at 75 degrees. Today it is a balmy 93.

While there I made a list of some of the things that we don’t have in my area of Brazil enjoyed while in the states.

Paths to walk through the woods
Autumn leaves and skies without clouds
Snow, snowmen and winter coats (that is my snowman)
Sundogs and certain types of clouds
Gas less than $4.50 a gallon and roads without potholes
Lima beans, pumpkins, cranberries, grapefruit, V-8 Juice, chili powder
Strawberry-rhubarb pie …
Used bookstores and stores with lots of books (my downfall)
Goodwill, Wal-Mart and all the inexpensive manufactured goods
Ester Price Chocolates
Good rat traps (see entry entitled – The Humans are Winning to be posted Dec 3 for more.)
The scent of a pine wreath from Oregon (I used to live there beside a tree farm)
Central heating and air in homes
Jet trails across the sky (ever wonder where they are all going and why?)
Squirrels foxes and deer
Cardinals, juncos, blue jays, tufted titmice, gold finches…
Lack of security guards and openness of houses and stores.

Well you get the idea. What do they all have in common? They are all temporal. Although I enjoyed them when I was there and sometimes miss them here, they are just part of the things I have left behind to serve the Lord here in Brazil. There are other things I would miss from here if I left.