Twelve days left. I’m reading two Christian devotional books nowadays: My Utmost For His Highest, a classic by Oswald Chambers which I have frequented since high school, and Pão Diário (Daily Bread), a Brazilian evangelical devotional with many contributing authors released just this year. Today both books contained a message about patience, about the dangers of being careless and impulsive and the importance of trusting and waiting on God. I will take this as a sign. I am feeling very impatient right now, and have adopted a somewhat careless attitude towards my work this week. I’m ready to come home! I miss my people! And I’ve begun to share that sentiment a little too freely—first on facebook, then to my close friends here, then to my host family, and now to some of my students.

Also, I had a majestically freeing realization while I was on the bus earlier this week: I don’t really love teaching, and I’m not fantastically gifted at it. If I want to, I can keep fighting an uphill battle to succeed as a teacher, and I can obtain more opportunities to come back to Brazil to teach down the road. Or, after I finish out my teaching commitment here in a couple of weeks, I can put my whiteboard marker and my Portuguese-English dictionary on the shelf and leave the room. I can call it quits for the time being and pursue some of the things that I really do love to do, that I feel like maybe I was made to do, and which can help people and bring glory to God just the same. That realization led me to forego submitting an application for the Fullbright English Teaching Assistant grant competition, whose preliminary deadline at FSU was yesterday. It’s a really cool program and a prestigious award, and I think I would stand a chance at being among the recipients. I whole-heartedly support what the program is going to be doing in Brazil in the next few years (placing recent U.S. college grads with a background in English education in local high schools and colleges to improve the quality and availability of English instruction in the country). It’s hard for me to pass up an opportunity like that, especially when I would love to come back here in the future, and when I see that it is going to be meeting a real need here. But I know people who love teaching; I’ve met them. They’re working their butts off, but somehow at the end of each day they’re finding themselves more fulfilled because of it, a little more like they were made to be. I don’t have that feeling; I find it doing other things, and considering I am only ever going to have one life to live, I might as well spend most of it doing the things that fit.

For the next six days, though, I need to remind myself to be patient. No matter how “done” I may be with this task mentally, I still have about 60 students to whom I have committed another week of my life. This last week of classes is important to them, and they deserve a version of me that is thoughtful, prepared, loving, and present. It ought to be pretty neat, too, especially with my teenage students at Arte e Vida. I am in the process of creating a gameshow in which they are going to be the participants. It should be a really excellent way to motivate them to review what we’ve learned in class and for me to evaluate their progress. What's more, it should be really fun for everyone involved and educational for those students at the NGO who were not able to participate in my class but will be in the audience for our show. A final perk of the gameshow on my end is that I get to jettison some of my stuff under the pretext of giving out “prizes.” According to my recent online research, it turns out the weight limit on my luggage is going to be fairly restrictive; last month I bought two hammocks, a small statue, and many other small souvenirs, and received a number of books and articles of clothing as gifts. So, while I came to Brazil with some predestined “prizes” (a few FSU hats, a Mickey Mouse beach towel, some American candy, pencils, etc.), some interesting, alternative prizes will be making their way into the selection. “Congratulations, kid! You won my college-level English-Portuguese dictionary with more than 120,000 translations! Don’t drop it—it’s heavy!” I was considering putting my unopened jar of peanut butter in the pot, but I found out that one of my close friends here really likes the stuff. She is lovely and deserves hundreds of jars of peanut butter for being such a good friend to me, so it will go her way. This seems by far the safer option, too, because peanut butter is weird and random to the point that the staff at the NGO might catch on to my scheme.

In other news, I have been able to participate in more Christian gatherings this week, which has been really great. On Sunday I visited a cool “Episcopal Charismatic” congregation. I definitely didn’t know what to expect, but turned out enjoying the service a lot. The priests wore traditional robes, and it would seem that the church administers the Eucharist every week, but otherwise it seemed much like a Baptist or nondenominational church with a little bonus passion. I was told that I would be able to meet many of the church’s young people if I returned for one of their evening services, so I am hoping to do that tomorrow. They also have home groups that meet throughout the city on Monday nights. Then, yesterday I got to attend a Bible study that my friend Augusta and some of her evangelical coworkers felt led to start up at their office during their lunch break. The study has been going on in one form or another over a period of ten years. Yesterday there were about 8 people in attendance. They conduct their time much like our Bible studies at Intervarsity, where everyone has a copy of the scripture, reads it together, and discusses its application. We read through Luke 23, in which Jesus is tried by Pilate and Herod, sentenced to crucifixion, bears his cross up to Golgotha with the assistance of Simon the Cyrene, and is crucified between two thieves, surrounded by mocking voices. It was good to be reminded of Jesus’ actions in those moments, and I enjoyed the other people’s insights into the passage. After the study ended, I got to talk for a little while with one woman from the study named Clara. They like to affectionately call her Clarita, and nearly every time they said it I found myself perking up, since that’s the nickname I have gained from my roommate Hannah.

Clarita was talking about her life, and how she often receives messages from God for people. Many times it’s a friend or coworker, and she sends the person an email. Other times it’s a total stranger. She said that one time she walked into a restaurant and God told her to tell everyone in the restaurant that He loved them. She said she felt “about this big” (holding up one hand and leaving about a centimeter between her thumb and index finger), but she did it. From these experiences, she has been told so many times “You always have something to say at exactly the right time.” Complete strangers, like one couple in another restaurant incident, have broken down crying in response to her messages. I am really glad I met Clara, saw the way she interacts with people, and heard her story. It seems like most Christians either listen to God, but aren’t open to sharing His specific thoughts towards others, or are very open to speaking to others in the name of God, but aren’t really listening to God in the first place. I don’t know where I fall; it depends on the month. I both want to be like her and am horrified of the idea at the same time. I want to be willing to be used of God in such ways, and I could see Him leading me in that direction, but I have a deep-rooted fear of offending people. We’ll see! At least now I have a beautiful example to consider. Here’s a picture of me, Augusta, and Clara.

Finally, this is the best invention I have encountered in Brazil. It is a tennis racket with a layer of mesh that carries an electric current in between two normal mesh layers (safety first!). When the racket is charged, turned on, and its handle button is pressed, it becomes an unassailable force against the mosquito population. The racket-wielding individual swishes the racket through the air or brings it to rest atop an oblivious, lazy mosquito at rest. Then comes the POP! and the sparks and life just seems to get better one dead bug at a time! I had a lot of trouble sleeping my first month here because I was not aware of the racket and I had mosquitoes attacking my ears in the night. The mosquito population is vast here, so vast that the mosquitoes I just described aren’t referred to as mosquitoes—they’re referred to as “murisocas,” the type of mosquito that dwells in dark places and comes out more at night. Other types, including the kind of mosquito that comes out in the daytime, flies near to the ground, and causes the ravaging disease dengue here, have their own names. The mosquito racket is my friend. The smell of my room is that of burnt mosquito.

The last thing that many murisocas see in my house. Note the messy hair, got-for-free pajama t-shirt, and facial expression displaying both intense anger and sheer joy.


I feel like I should apologize for having written all that. Thank you for caring enough to read all my junk. Goodnight, and I am still (calmly and reservedly) very much looking forward to coming home soon.

Claire