Maybe I Am Old!

Wedding Day 2010

Byron and I came to Brazil as a married couple to begin our lives as full-time, career missionaries in August of 1994.  We probably meet Naldo and his wife, Ivanete, sometime in  1996.  I'm sure that when we first met they only had Misraela.  They lived in the Joao XXIII neighborhood of Fortaleza and were having meetings with other Christians in there own home when we first met them.  We were asked at some point to go out and help with this work and we eventually moved to the neighborhood to be closer to the work.

Byron and I had little to nothing, having arrived in Brazil to fill some positions at the MK school with the idea that when our money ran out, we would go back home.  Not too long after we met Naldo, he gave William a gift of a nice little pair of leather sandals.  He had seen that William had no shoes and felt like he needed some.  Now the little fellow was a baby and I put those little booties on him, but the child would always kick them off.  Actually he did the same with little sandals and flip-flops through the years.  But the sandals that Naldo gave him were never lost and were well received and well used.  Naldo was always making sure we had groceries and helping us as much as he could.  He had a little store and would ask if we needed anything at all.  I recall that he once brought a special kind of whipped, spiced molasses from the interior for me when I was pregnant with Dalton.  Said it had lots of iron!

2005

Through the years we lived in Joao XXIII, Naldo and Neta (Ivanete's nickname) were great friends.  We often shared meals together in each other's homes, more theirs than ours!  Whenever we had visitors from the States they were always invited to taste Ivanete's incredible Brazilian food.

Eventually they had three girls and we had our three boys.  I always thought how nice it would be if some day my three could marry their three and we would all live close together as one big, happy, extended family.  But things change and missionaries are always on the move.

We left Fortaleza in 2003 to go to the interior of Bahia, hours and hours away.  In 2004 Byron asked Naldo and Ivanete to consider coming to Bahia to help us in the missionary work, particularly with the island camp.  They came!  For two years they worked with us in the camp ministry and preaching in nearby fishing villages.  Every two weeks they would come in from the island to make purchases and stay  for several days for the girls to attend school to get their assignments.

It was not an easy situation, but we all got along well and things went fairly smoothly.  Sometime in 2007 they went back to the state of Ceara.  We were not able to see them much after this as they decided not to go back to the big city of Fortaleza, but to the interior where Naldo and Neta had lived as children.

Well, Misa, I guess this means you are not going to marry any of my sons, but Josemar is a good fellow.  I can only wish you all the best.  I pray that you will raise up your family as a good Christian mother and always look to your own mother as the good Christian mentor that she is.

Take care!

My William with two of Misa's cousins in 2001 at a wedding in Madeira Cortada.  Hmm... maybe he could marry one of these?  Taina is nice and she's a good Christian girl.  I can't remember the name of the other, but I know she goes to church and well, she is a cousin of Misa's.  It's a thought!