Lagoa Taqural (Our neighborhood park)

The babies enjoyed the sunshine and just strolling around the park. Kati and Preston couldn't resist pretending that Kati was being attacked by the huge snake and Preston was saving her.


We just wanted to share with you about the park here in our neighborhood. It is really a neat place. It is huge with a huge lake and walking trail all the way around it. It also has unique birds in cages that you can look at and enjoy as well as plenty of birds in the wild that if you get lucky you can catch a glimpse of those as well. We have seen all kinds of parrots and even toucans. It is really neat and like nothing we have seen in Mississippi. There is a train that runs on Saturday mornings and takes you on a tour of the park. There is a big ship that you can tour and it is supposed to be a replica of the ship that brought the first explorers to Brazil. There are also many different food and beverage vendors. You can get coconut water and drink it right out of the coconut if you want, you can get pastels, fresh juices, ice cream (corn flavored if you want) and many other things. There are also swan boats and that is way cool. So, yesterday we went to the park and wanted to just be there and walk and enjoy the beautiful day. We were going to do the swan boats but walked around the lake first and by the time we got back the boats were closed. We are going back next weekend for the babies 1st birthday, so we will get pictures posted of our family in the swan boats. Preston made me promise!

Oh I almost forgot the craziest thing of all that you can find at the park and that is the capybaras. They are just loose in the park and not hard to find at all. They are huge and it seems so strange when we run into one on our path. They are not aggressive and they will run away if you get too close, but we have been told that if you corner one that are not afraid to use their big teeth. Yesterday, we were within 15 feet of one and he just laid there and didn't seem to mind that we were there and taking pictures of him.



So there you have it. It may not be much, but it's what's in our neck of the woods. Thanks for reading.

Keri....Cooking?

Yes, you read that right....Keri has been cooking and Brazilian style at that! One of our language teachers, Priscilla, has come over a few times and taught me how to cook some things. We have done a dessert, passion fruit mousse, which was very good. Then we did a cheese bread, pao de queijo, and Preston likes that one so much that he no longer wants it from the bread store, he only wants mine! :) Then she taught me how to do lasanga, rice and beans, and stroganoff. I am no longer afraid to use the pressure cooker. That is how we cook beans and other veggies and I can do it now, yea me! It has been a challenge to come up with meals in Brazil. Everything is different! We can't find some of the things that are in the States and then we can't figure out what other things are. It is still a challenge, but thanks to Priscilla it is now much easier. The family has been very eager to try new dishes and I must say that everything so far has been delicious. My mama would be so proud.

Language School is in Full Swing

Paul and I are now in the middle of week 4 of language school. We are a LONG way from being able to speak the way we need to, but the good news is that we are understanding a good bit. There are even times that I am shocked that I actually understood something. Preston and I were able to talk to two of the college guys next door, Nelson and Alfredo. We carried on a conversation even though it was short, but it was a conversation none the less. I was able to make complete sentences. Again, they were short, but they were complete! Praise God! We even took some homemade chocolate chip cookies to them. These are just small victories and may seem so insignificant to most of you, but they are HUGE in our book. Thank you Jesus!



I for one still feel very much like a child, but with every word that I understand, or sentence that I understand or even conversation that I understand, I feel so empowered. We are still taking baby steps and will be for a long time, but God is showing Himself to be faithful as always. He is making our ears to not just hear but understand and believe it or not, He is making our tongues to speak where people can understand us. We thank God every step of the way for walking with us through this journey.



Please continue to pray for us that we will grow in language and meet more and more new Brazilian friends.

Would you guess that this was in Brazil?

I never thought that I would see this in Brazil…..

Your eyes are not deceiving you, they are in Southern Belle dresses and Confederate uniforms. They are dancing a dance that was supposed to have been popular in the 1800’s. I don’t think you can tell, but they are dancing on a confederate flag painted on the floor. This was a confederate festival that we went to in Santa Barbara which is about an hour outside of Campinas. This is to celebrate their history! Yes, THEIR history. After the civil war in the USA, there were Southern families who moved to Brazil. They were offered land in Brazil for $.22 per acre and slavery was still legal. So, many families came here and began to raise sugar cane, corn, watermelons and other crops. It was the funniest thing to stand there and here songs like Dixie, Yellow Rose of Texas and Yankee Doodle Dandy (all in English), but all the language spoken around us was Portuguese. There is a group of Confederate Sons and Daughters that take yearly trips back to the South to show kids and grandkids where their ancestors came from. They are also trying to keep the Southern English alive and teach that to their children as well. We didn’t meet any of those people, but I wish we could have. I was interested in hearing the Southern English that they would speak, but maybe next time.

There is a cemetery here where the original group is buried and to be buried in this cemetery you must be a descendant of one of them. It was very interesting to walk around the cemetery and read the tombstones. Preston found it very interesting and we had to pull him away.

They served some Southern food such as fried chicken and biscuits, but no sweet tea and Kati said that should be a sin.

All in all, it was a very neat time. Even though we really don’t have much in common, it was just neat to think about the heritage that they were celebrating and the fact that it is the same heritage that we have.

Interesting, huh?

Language Learning

We have officially started language learning. We thought we started two weeks ago but were informed that it was only preliminary stuff we were learning. So, we officially started the official language school this past week. We have class 2 hours a day and then 1 hour out on our route and then 2 hours of homework. The class starts with review from the day before and then we learn something new. The second hour of class is a review from the day before and a review from the hour before and then we learn something new. Then we go on our routes. Our route is just a small street that has a mechanic, tv repair shop, small market, gym, bread store, pharmacy, and a small shopping center. We have been introduced to all of the workers along this route and they are aware that we are learning Portuguese. We thought we would be a bother to people trying to work, but they are so excited about helping us. It has been really neat to see how people react to us. It will be nice when we can carry on an actual conversation instead of just asking our simple basic questions. We try to ask everyone at least two questions and then get them to ask us those same two questions. So far, it has ended up being way more than just two questions that have been asked. Some of what has been said to us we can understand but most we can't catch. I am going to take my dictionary next week and maybe I can look up words that I don't know. I have a feeling that they will be more than eager to help us with that too. We have already had two ladies tell us to bring pictures of the kids next week because they want to see who we are talking about. Our experience so far is that the Brazilian people are very kind and loving. They keep telling us that the real conversations with people will happen. We don't see it right now, but we will keep you posted on our progress.

Please keep us in your prayers because this is not easy for our old brains to take in. Kati has made it her goal to be understanding her teachers by the end of April. It is a very ambitious goal, but she seem to be headed that direction. She is listening intently and asking lots of questions. Of course, Preston is picking up on words left and right and we fully expect him to be our interpretor in just a short time.

Also keep the babies in your prayers, they continue to fight one bug or another. We can't seem to completely get rid of anything and one of them seems to always be running a fever.

Please send us any questions that you may have about our life in Brazil. We welcome them and would love to hear from you. Our email address is cunninghamsinbrazil@gmail.com, so just email them to us.

Love to you all,
Keri

Life in a foreign land

I'm sad to say that it has been 10 days since my last post, but we have been under the weather to say the least. The babies have been running fever or playing fever tennis as I call it since it seems to go back and forth, back and forth! We also have had 5 out of 6 of us with a terrible stomach bug. And before you ask, we don't think it was the food. I never got what the rest of them had and I ate the same thing that Paul and Kati ate. Preston did not eat what they ate and neither did the babies but all 3 boys were sick as well. So, we don't think it was the food, just a bug. A nasty bug at that! We had to have fellow missionaries come over just to sit with the babies so I could get some sleep. Since all of the sick ones were up all night long, so was I and we were all exhausted. This time of transition has been tough but add sickness like this on top of it and it only makes small issues seem really, really big.

Please pray for us as we try to acquire some language because the communication barrier is hard on us Southerners who really want to be hospitable, but feel very rude when we can't say anything. The people are so friendly that they just come up and start talking to us, mainly about the twins (or gemeo in Portuguese), and all we can do is smile, nod our heads, and say Obrigada (thank you). We want to speak to them but can't and it has given us a feeling that we have never had to deal with before. We ask that you please pray for us.

Let me tell you a little bit about what Preston has done. There are all kinds of pet stores here and he wants to visit every single one of them. Well, we went to a big pet store on Satuday and there was a lady from a Humane Society, I think. She had several dogs that she was trying to find homes for. There was a sign on the cages that said, "Please don't touch the animals", at least we are fairly certain that is what it said. Preston was deteremined he was going to figure out how to get to pet the dogs, so he stepped up to the Brazilian lady who spoke only Portuguese and was going to try to communicate. In the meantime, Paul was about to panic and wanted Preston to stop. I convinced him to see what would happen and if Preston would be able to get his point across. Paul was a nervous wreck and had to walk away. He missed what God showed me clearly!!! As he stepped up to the lady she was speaking with another lady and they both looked at Preston and said something. He shrugged his shoulders and just looked at me. They turned to me and asked if we spoke Portuguese, I think. I told them, no Portuguese. Well, the lady obvious saw his little heart because she grabbed his hand in hers and they began to pet the dogs. He got to pet every single dog for a long time and never understood a single word that was said. I feel that God clearly showed me that this child has the faith that I am supposed to have. I fear not being able to understand or speak and he doesn't fear at all. He wants to understand, but he doesn't fear. By the way, he is doing great in school. Not necessarily the academic part of it, but just in making friends and communicating in some way, he has nailed it. Praise God! He was our biggest prayer concern and we now believe that he will be our translator soon. GRACE.

Now Kati, she has struggled in school because she can't understand what is going on and she just doesn't understand how being there and listening to the language is going to help her. We keep telling her that it is going to click but it will take time. We as Americans aren't used to waiting on much and the Cunningham's aren't immune to that, so giving it time is hard. Well, we have found that she is picking up on little tid bits and she isn't even aware of it. Paul got an email that had a Portuguese phrase in it, "Tudo legal." We didn't know what it meant so I got the dictionary. As I was looking it up, she looked over Paul's shoulder and said, "Oh, that means everything's cool." When we asked how do you know this. Her reply was, "The kids say it at school all the time." We just had to sit back and laugh and thank God for his faithfulness. She is getting it even when she doesn't know she is getting it. This is all a God thing and we give him all the glory for what he is doing. By the time we leave Campinas in mid-September, I can't wait to write to you all and tell you how the kids have blossomed and have adapted to this foreign culture that God has sent us to. GRACE.

Please pray that Paul and I will have the same story of blossoming because right now it is hard and we can't see how it will happen. We need all the grace we can get. Thank you for partnering with us in prayer and we will keep you posted on how we are getting along.

We love you all and look forward to hearing from you soon.

In His Loving Arms,
Keri

McDonald's in Campinas

For anyone who knows me, you know that I dislike McDonald's greatly. Well, we have a McDonald's in Campinas and we were curious if it tasted the same as in the states. So, for dinner tonight we went to McDonald's. We were able to use a little bit of Portuguese which amounted to telling the cashier 2 number 7's with a coke, a number 1 with a coke and a kid's meal with a cheeseburger and an orange fanta. I know it doesn't sound like much, but we were so proud of ourselves. By the way, it tastes just like in the states.

I drove tonight, so remember to pray for me and the family as it has been a long time since I have driven a stick shift. I have never driven in Latin America and they make up their own driving rules - as they go!

Thank you for partnering with us in prayer. Please continue to pray for us as we continue to adjust and acclimate to things. We are starting to feel excitement about being here. Paul has been sitting here with his Portuguese dictionary trying to figure out words. He really wants to understand and be able to pick the language up as quickly as possible. He has made friends with the pastors son, Rodolfo and Rodolfo keeps sending emails with Portuguese phrases that Paul has to figure out. It is funny and I can't wait to hear this Mississippi boy start speaking Portuguese.