Meetings, a practical alternative to work.

Every morning this past week I’ve been up early for a meeting. I’m not a morning person, but for the most part, the meetings have been worth it. And of course, there were some meetings at night as well.

One early morning meeting was with an old student of mine who is an ophthalmologist. Four years ago I had the early stages of a cataract, and because of some blurriness in one eye I thought it was getting worse, but thankfully, after visiting him, he said that the cataract had not changed, but it was viscosity causing the blurriness.

Another couple of meetings were with two men who will be our first deacons at church (officially elected at the May annual church meeting. Both of the accepted and are excited about serving. This is another big first step for this church.

We found out at our small group meeting that Elizeu and Claudia (the couple who were robbed Easter weekend) have already sold their house and are moving into an apartment until their house that is under construction is ready. The police also caught the three robbers, but most all the things stolen were not recovered.

Now we didn’t just spend time in meetings, we’ve gone out on a couple dates over the past couple weeks. One outing was for dinner with a couple that we’ve been discipling and have become good friends.
We’ve done this each time they finished another study book. This time it was to a rodízio – that’s where the waiters rotate around the restaurant during the evening with about a dozen different types of meats on skewers – sooo good! Between eating and chatting we were there until the place was ready to close.

Then on another date, I found big chocolate Easter eggs. Normally the chocolate eggs don’t even go on sale, but these were - at 75% off! And these were one-pounders! Imagine a pound of chocolate in the shape of an egg, and inside chocolate cream candies – marula cream (a nut that we first tried on our trip to Africa), and the other flavor, doce de leite. I couldn’t pass that up, and we’re still enjoy those now.
Over the past several weeks, we missionaries have been meeting about property for church. Over the past four years, it has been like a roller coaster ride with ups and downs, and one situation after another happening as deals fell through with owners changing their minds or raising prices, other buyers getting in before us (it is a complicated process with a church involved), but right now it appears that we are down to one piece of property. We have ten days to get our ducks in a row, confirm documentation with city hall, and bring it up to a church vote. We’ll see how God leads through this process.

And the best part of all this is...tomorrow's a holiday here! Yay!