OK. It’s about 7:00pm and it’s pitch black outside already. The rain has stopped momentarily (finally, it’s been raining for a week straight) and everything is pretty quiet. Maryssa is cooking noodles on our miniature gas stove, I’m sitting at the kitchen table writing and MJ is standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes (the picture is the window/sink she is standing at). Everything is pretty quiet and peaceful. Then MJ decides to slide open the window in front of the sink so that she can yell out the window for the boys to go ahead and get in the shower and then it happened... as soon as she slid the window open a HUGE rhino beetle (the big ugly one on the flyswatter) determinedly buzzed in through the window straight for me! It was just like he was waiting for the window to open so that it could dive bomb me. As soon as he came in MJ dove into the cupboard and Maryssa screamed as she ran backwards. Then as the rhino beetle flew toward me (it sounded like one of those small R/C planes we used to build in the 70’s, seriously) I ducked and swatted all in the same motion. I barley tipped it and it shot across the kitchen and then it crashed landed on top of our little gas stove and landed directly in the fire! Haha! What are the chances of that?
So, the girls were screaming and all I could do is stand there in total amazement that this huge beetle was dancing around on top of our stove literally on fire! It was amazing. This thing flew in trying to inflict damage on me and now it was on fire, gasping for it’s last breath! And then it gave up the ghost... gone forever. That’ll teach em : ) lol! But it did stink up the house something fierce...
I can’t believe all the weird bug stuff we’ve encountered here. We’ve got so many bug bites all over our bodies it’s not even funny. And the sad thing is that it’s not even Summer yet (we’re coming out of Winter and going into Spring right now). Maryssa woke up the other morning with about 20 major bites all over the backs of her legs (that’s her in the picture). MJ and I have been spraying bug spray all over our bodies before we got to sleep each night because every morning we were waking up looking like we had chicken pocks or something... pretty sad, huh? I was standing on the front porch, minding my own business the other day, and a spider jumped off the roof right onto the back of my neck! Unprovoked! What’s up with that? MJ was fixing lunch yesterday and when she started tossing the salad she noticed a big worm and a little snail just chillin, side-by side, right on a piece of lettuce in the bowl of salad we were about to eat (you can see the lovely couple in the pic). I guess I need to talk to the guy with the fruit and vegetable truck and tell him to bump up the amount of pesticides he uses on our produce (just like back home in the U.S., haha). The other day Diogo yelled and said, “there’s a big spider on our front porch!” So I went out and sure enough... there was. But it wasn’t just a spider, it was several bugs all together. Look at the pictures! One picture is of our front porch and the close-up (with several bugs together) is a 1sq ft area to the left of the front door. It’s like all the bugs are “working together” to attack us. Is that normal? Are bugs supposed to co-exist and work in unison to torture a family like this? This is obviously a well organized assault. It’s like back home in the States, we have the ARMY, Navy, Air Force and Marines (and the Coast Guard)- here it’s the spiders, ants, giant mysterious winged things and beetles! All hand-in-hand (or leg-in-leg) planning and carrying out carefully strategized assaults against our family. I believe we’re under attack... for real!
OK, I know you don’t understand and you think I’m blowing this way-out of proportion but I’m not, I promise. I will say this though, “we really have felt under attack.” Not by insects (although they are coming at us from everywhere) but by our real enemy, the devil. We’ve been thrust into an environment that is totally unfamiliar to us. We’re in the middle of the jungle with no transportation, no phone, no internet, it’s been raining for almost a week now and we’ve all been stuck indoors (we need some sunshine before I hurt somebody!). We’re here with nothing but our family and a call from God to reach the people of Brazil with the Gospel. It’s lonely and we often find ourselves wondering “what the heck are we doing here?” And there have been blatant blows thrown at us (can’t be real specific, sorry) trying to tear us down emotionally and spiritually but we’re not going to relent. We’re not going to back down or slow down the advancing of the Gospel here. We really covet your prayers. Seriously. We desperately need you to pray for us because, honestly, it’s hard. You don’t realize how important church & community are until you don’t have them. We miss you all and even though we’re thousands of miles (or kilometers, see? I’m converting, haha) away we still think about you often. Our door is always open to you (literally and figuratively, that could explain the bugs) if you want to visit, so just let us know. We’ll provide the bug spray: )
Love Ya!
Jim
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