If you don't know where you're going, you'll wind up somewhere else.

Thursday night is usually spent with one of our small groups. Last week there was a change in plans and we wound up going bowling with our teen group from church.
It’s interesting how something so simple can be so much fun! Some of the moms and dads even came along, not to chaperone but to bowl too. Here in Brazil, you rent the lanes by the hour instead paying per game – expensive on the weekends, but pretty reasonable on discount Thursday night, plus the food is “buy one get one free”. You also have to understand that Bauru has only one bowling alley with only ten lanes.
Since it was a long holiday weekend - May 1 is Labor Day here - nobody had school the next day. Some of the kids had never bowled before so they liked it that guardrails could be put up on each side of their lane so they wouldn’t get gutter balls, and some of their balls were ricocheting down the lane.

Along with a couple good games on my part, and one not so much (it’s been six years since I last bowled), we all shared some great tasting pizzas - half mozzarella/half pepperoni (pepperoni isn’t popular down here).

We had good news on Thursday that church documentation had been released by the city government. Now it all has to be registered federally for our tax exempt number.

On the Friday holiday we just kind of crashed, laying low close to home. I could have gone parachuting at the airport that day, but decided I didn’t want to hurt myself before going hang-gliding in Rio when Natali comes down in August. Hang-gliding is something I’ve wanted to do for years, and figured jumping off a cliff and flying down to a beach is I’d better get it in before leaving Brazil.
Saturday night was our regular meeting with the teens, and along with study and games, we started preparing for the fifth Sunday when they lead the worship service for the whole church. The talk now is all about their “winter” retreat in July. That’s just before one of the guys heads off to Germany as an exchange student for a year.
Sunday, I felt a little lost as I didn’t have to be up front for anything except announcements. This is Tim’s month to preach, and the praise team didn’t need me. But it was kind of nice to have more time to greet people and visit with them a while.
On Monday, we tired to start our mission field council meeting earlier out at Blazers’, but it didn’t work. We got through business in short time though as Sue had to be back to church for ESL classes and then we had a discipleship after ESL finished.
Last night was our only night “free” this week. Again it was kind of a lost feeling as to what to do with the evening since Big Bang Theory (the only TV show we like on our free night) was a repeat. Tonight is leadership planning meeting. Small groups are tomorrow, plus in the afternoon work for Sue with the ladies decorating for their Saturday Mother’s Day tea.