An Awesome Day

When we awoke this morning the birds were gently singing, the sun was shining, there was a gentle breeze blowing through our window and... who am I trying to kid! We woke up this morning the same as most mornings... tired because we had to get up few times during the night with Robert, scratching all the new bug bites we received during the night, kids jumping in our bed with us (which is nice except it's only a double bed and everyone in fighting for position), having to hurry and get all the kids ready and downstairs while they're still serving breakfast, having to decide who gets to sit at our table this morning (which isn't a bad thing... at least they are fighting because they want to sit with us), having to try and keep Gabriel and Robert semi-clean during breakfast (FYI, yogurt in Brazil has the consistancy of a glass of milk... not the best choice for a 2 year old if you want them to be able to wear the same outfit after breakfast!), having to try and decide if we should risk paying money to take a city tour with this wild group of banchees called the Dunn's. It was a typical stressful start to the day. I originally decided that we weren't going to go on the tour... then I offered to stay behind with the two little ones, then my mother-in-law offered to stay behind with the two little ones, then Mary Jane said let's just forget it, then I said, "OK, I'm just ready to go home anyway!" That was how our morning started. It was definitely an opportunity to have a horrible day. We were all frustrated. Mary Jane and my mother-in-law went down stairs to do the laundry and I sent all the kids to the room with the TV in it. I turned some music on my i-pod and laid across the bed... discouraged and depressed ( you guys probably think I'm a schizophrenic with all my emotional mood swings. You try adopting 5 kids from a different country then get back to me.). Then as I laid there I remembered yesterday (I'm a slow learner) and what the Lord dealt with me about. I could either turn it over to him and adjust my bad attitude to an attitude of gratitude or I could just lay there and feel sorry for myself. I decided to take the first step and move out of this funk I was in. I asked my father-in-law to go ahead and book the tour bus because we were going. So, we all got ready and the tour bus came and picked us up. Let me tell you something... the kids were amazing. They sat in this 15 passenger bus on and off practically all day and they were great. It was probably the best day we've had since we've been here. We were able to visit several parks, the botanical gardens, the tower downtown, we even went out to eat at a restaurant at the end of the day! Everyone had a good time. I wish I had more time to blog tonight, but we just found out that we have to get up at 6:15 to go to the passport office in the morning, yippee! There were so many funny things that happened today that I wanted to tell you about... like this one park that we went to. It was beautiful and the city had a lot of money sunk into this thing. They even had 100's of exotic birds and monkeys throughout the park that you could look at. The landscaping was beautiful, there were several water features throughout the park, there was a playground in the middle of the park for kids... but this thing was loaded with prostitutes! There were more ladies of the night (or day in this case) than you could shake a stick at! Now I'm not making light of prostitution, because it's not something to laugh about. These ladies need Jesus just as much as we did before we met Christ... and I have compassion for them. But man, this was a family park in the middle of town with schools and buisnesses all around. It was so surreal. It was just weird to be enjoying a day out with your family and as you're taking pictures of your kids having a good time looking at the Tucan, there's a call girl picking up some guy at the bench right next to you!!! The funny thing was that none of the locals (i.e. joggers, bicyclists, kids walking through the park after school, other parents.) seemed to pay any attention to them or even mind they were there. I guess the U.S. isn't as defiled as some people say, huh? Anyway, all in all, today was an awesome day.

We only have 10 more days and we're coming home! Thanks for following our journey through this blog. We're grateful for all the emails and comments of encouragement. You guys are great!

Love ya,

Jim and Mary Jane