Me, Simon, Carine and Sabine having a great time...

Friday was Sabines birthday so we had a small but very cozy little party over at her place. It was a lot of fun and we stayed until late that night. We all were pretty tired the day after but Simon and I still had to clean the house, cook and have lunch, Aurea wanted to come over for German lessons and at night we had Youth Group scheduled. But thank God Aurea had to prospone the lessons for next Saturday and our pastor from church called and invited Sabine, Carine, Simon and I over for a little snack at his house. So the day turned out pretty great. Still this week started out quite hectic and by now (Wednesday) most of us are ready for the weekend again.

Thank God for the awesome time we have every morning, worshipping God and hearing his word. Every morning we can charge our batteries just enough to make it through the day. I’m really exited for when the kids come back and am looking forward to see those smiling little faces again. Until then, God bless you all and take care!

Dominik

Friday and Monday we just chilled our in the hammocks next to the Hostels pool…cheap and very efficient relaxing strategy.

Here goes a short but very illustrated report about our vacation in Bonito. Simon and I were really, really exhausted because of the difference between German school life (6h a day with “unattended classes” every now and then) and Brazilian work life (8h a day without holidays of ay kind). So we asked for a couple of days off and our boss gave us half of Thursday, Friday and Monday off so we could take the bus to Bonito (which means: beautiful), the second most expensive (but for sure a wonderfully beautiful) town in Brazil.

Saturday we took the bike for a 4 mile tour to the Balneário Municipal (community natural pool…or something like that) where we just laid in the burning sun all day long.

Our plan was: no plans, just relax! We did our best and just chilled out, laying in the hammock, jumping in the pool every now and then (for example at 11pm…). A couple of times we took the bikes for a more or less long ride through the jungle to two of the natural river pools in the area to relax there. So now we’re back, fully motivated, relaxed and stress-free to take care of the kids who are getting more and more anxious every day towards the Christmas break.

At the Balneário Municipal we just “met” this really beautiful Ara…Just like that!

Most of them know for sure that they already passed the year so they just don’t go to school anymore. And where do they go, when they don’t have school: Right, they come to our day care center (CCF)
But last week we had a tremendous success…the second edition of our newspaper – which from now on will be called Criação – went into printing. But, next time more about that because its not even published yet! I can only tell you so much: huge success…
Well, thanks for stopping by, God bless you all a lot, have a great week!

Sunday after lunch (around 2 pm) we took the bikes for another, longer trip to the Balneário do Sol. Around 8 miles up- and downhill, on muddy paths, through herd of cattle and passing by a bunch of parrots.At around 100 F we just loved to have a beautiful, crystal clear and cool river to jump in

Simon, Kids and I

this week the weather was really crazy and I was kind of in a bad mood…I didnt want to do anything, just wanted to sit around at home…but thank God the weather got better and the sun came out for a while (which helped my motivation a lot!) As said before, rain always messes up our whole day. All the kids are excited because they don’t have to go to school and we have to entertain all the kids (150ish) the whole livelong day. But luckily they are very easily entertained. We set up a pingpong table, some movies and gave them some pebbles. The kids love to play a little game called „cinco Marias“ – five Marias.

The Jornalzinho group bought a digicam and are now taking pictures of everything, everybody and in every weird pose. So the small ones are going nuts for being on a picture.

Just five pebbles one of which they throw in the air, trying to complete some tasks with the rest of the pebbles while catching the first stone again. Another fun game here is trash-can-basketball…:-)

This guy is a really intelligent kid from my PC course. He is also the one who took the pictures of the other kids for the Jornalzinho.

This weekend Simon, Carine, Sabine and I were invited over for a farewell dinner at the mission area. It was the farewell dinner for a German couple (the Schrecks) that stayed in Brazil for 4 months, helping out at all the stations of the ETB. It was too bad, though, that it rained all day Sunday and we had to take the car…which is easier to say than to do in these days… I got soaked wet just running to the car! Imagine how fun it was to drive on the (unpaved!), dirty and slippy road up to the mission! It was kind of like driving on ice!

Well I hope for better weather and hopefully you are all doing well…in the rainy/snowy states…

See you then, Dominik

Its really easy to get a group of kids around you here You just ahave to play with your digital camera for a while and they start appearing out of nowhere, wanting to take pictures, touch the camera and see themselves in the display...;-)

So last week Ana Claudia, our small group leader, came to visit the CCF. She just wanted to look around the crèche and is thinking about starting to work here. When I was showing her around she was just fascinated by the crèche. I really had to agree… the work environment is just great, the kids are funny and really cute and the work itself is very colorful…

Hundreds of parrots got here on Friday and are flying around our house in the morning and in the evening, when it is quiet around here..

At the end of the party all the kids got a little present...What a day!

Sorry, but our internet connection in the internet café was really slow last week so I didn’t get to update the blog…

Wednesday Dorothea (the wife of Klaus, the leader of the mission’s team of the ETB) and I went to the Kalong-ZIGEUNER who had just arrived at Dourados. It was a really cool experience. We were welcomed with arms wide opened and the story (about Bartholomew) that Dorothea always tells the kids even touched the adults. The Kids there looked really abandoned, with hair like Albert Einstein and quite dirty…but they were all so cute and so easily entertained! When it was time for us to go home the grandma of the group told us that we are always welcome in their camp!

The middle group guys all got a remote control car

The rest of the week was one big preparation for the kid’s party on Friday. We threw a huge party for the kids, with balloons, cake, games, theatre and everything a party can’t be missing. It was really exhausting, but the kids looooved it! In the end everyone got a little present and it was awesome to see how a little gift like that can make a kid feel so happy! All the presents were from Paraguay and therefore the quality was really not the best…but the kids didn’t even care!!!

Who is childish now!?

Thursday this week the teachers of the public school didn’t want to teach anymore so they took the rest of the week off and we had a full house! We couldn’t offer the courses, because who would take care of the extra 50 kids around the crèche? So we started the soap-soccer…It’s just a huge plastic mat we extendet on our soccer field, put some washing powder and water on it and the kids could start running (and sliding)! It was a lot of fun for the kids as well as for the adults! Towards the end some of us were bathed in the huge mud puddle on the side…but luckily Simon and I were already on our way to our very last Portuguese lesson by that time!

More next week…stay tuned,
Dominik

One of the unwanted guests in our bathroom...just joking!

So a few weeks ago I told you about our little newspaper here on the crèche, right? Last week there was an article in the youth section of the normal newspaper of Dourados, the Progresso, about our “Jornalzinho”! And not only a normal article, but the lead article of the youth section was about us! We were all really excited because they had put a huge picture of two of our kids on the front page and a great article about the CCF in the middle. Now all the kids want to join the newspaper group here on the crèche!

I just have to take a picture whenever it occurs to Simon to get some work done!

This and last week Simon and I tried to focus a little more on our housekeeping chores because Edmilson had passed us the list of chores to do during the next few months. So we washed the cars, started to clean up in the Barracão and made doors for a REGAL in our kitchen…
Also this week we were out of electricity buts strangely only at some households of the neighbourhood. When finally electricity came back in the evening (without which we don’t have warm water!!) we found out that our water pump was broken, too…That meant that we could still shower and everything, but that the tank would not we filled again.

all right, I did help washing this more than antique VW Kombi bus

So Wednesday we had to teach the kids: no water to shower, to wash the hands and no water to drink! It was a really funny time because some Kids asked: “Please uncle, please! Turn back on the water! I promise I’ll behave!” He thought that it was a punishment! Thursday the pump was fixed and we had water again…These are the day to day troubles here, but without stuff like that life would not be half as exciting, right!?

This week we’re celebrating week of the child and have planned this awesome program for the kids. I hope all goes well as planned and that the kids love it. Next week I’ll know more.

Have a blessed week and take care!

Dominik

The computer classes are calm as usual...now most of them learned how to type, how to change Font, Size, color and alignment!

Last weekend the Jesus march started, with a concert of Nívea Soares.

Everyday life:
Here in Dourados you just have to get used to the fact that…

This is Simon and my „office”. Our task is clear: clean up!

…on Sunday mornings at around 5:30am the first politician-car (a small Fiat with a huge speaker box on top from which the politicians slogan is echoed all day long in an enormous volume) drives around the streets with the volume maxed out!
…our telephone only works whenever we don’t need it!
…we can’t throw toilet paper in the toilet and to flush the toilet you have to push the cord dangling above your head!
…at the slightest sight of rain everything, everything is cancelled (school is no exception of this rule)
…you have to share your home with numerous unwanted roommates (ants, spiders, geckos…)
…horses and coaches are common road users!
… (Last but not least:) bikers don’t have to stop at a red light!!!

PS-if one of you knows something about Rottweiler, please mail me!
Thanks for stopping by,
Dominik

Very often seen in daily traffic…the coach!

A view into our neighborhood…don’t worry; we live at one of the rare concrete streets of our “Bairro”.

In two rows (boys and girls) we marched to the horses

Monday Roberta, Cirineu and I took around 30 kids to the “Exercito” – the Brazilian army. All the kids were really psyched to go and of course the boys imagined how it would be to try out a gun or even a bazooka! We were really sorry that that didn’t happen…the soldier that toured us around the (huge!) area only showed us their horses and the Big Band they have. Everybody really loved the music, and boys and girls came out of the Band room dreaming of being an MUSIKER themselves! After a snack of cookies and juice we all got back on the bus and drove back home. Even though it was nothing of a big event all the kids loved it and said they wanted to join the military (the girls because of the horses and the guys because of the cool uniforms and the Big Band!!!)

Thank you all for your birthday wishes! Yes, I had a very pleasant birthday Sunday….I do miss you all a lot and I wish you all could have been here to celebrate with me. Without you all we just had a very small birthday party after having been invited to a huge churrasco over at the missions center.

One of our often seen visitors

When are we having lunch!? Some really hungry kids waiting for us to serve lunch

Miss you all and take care!
Dominik

The first page of our much loved, often read and freshly printed "jornalzinho" - little newspaper

So this Monday several kids came to ask me a whole bunch of questions about where I come from, why I work here and about my family. This went on until Thursday, when Roberta asked me if I could help her with her newspaper project. She told me that the kids (or a small group of them) where writing some articles about anything, really, that happened at the crèche (CCF) during these past months. I already loved the idea… So in Thursday Roberta and I were working to put together all the different articles to a real newspaper so that we could print it on Thursday night. It really was hard work (because we only had little time), but the kids put some stuff together…It was so funny to read some of the articles. Kids are so honest that sometimes we only notice it on paper. Some wrote: Mesa Brasil is an organization that donates all kinds of fruits and vegetables that sadly sometimes get here already rotten and unenjoyable. So Roberta really had to work on that… (=

But with a lot of effort (and much laughter) we got our work done Thursday night and could deliver the newspaper to the kids on Friday. It was a tremendous success…all the kids loved it and were pleased to see themselves (directly our indirectly) involved in the process of building a newspaper.

Everyone, in groups or alone, sat in a quiet place and literraly disappeared behind one of the "Jornalzinho"

From now on the “Informativo CCF” is supposed to be published every other month and who knows, maybe we’ll find a sponsor for this project who will supply the needed material to publish the newspaper in some churches and outside the CCF.

Other than that this week was pretty quiet (I’ll tell you about our trip to Paraguay next time…)…the usual, the computer classes, a crazy dog and our house keep us pretty busy and really take our (free) time…

Talk to you soon and you all take care!