Why did the chicken cross the road? There are endless answers to the riddle, but it seems like a silly question to most people today. Living in a foreign country can sometimes open your eyes to things in your own culture that have been forgotten. Like chickens running loose in yards that suddenly and desperately want to be on the other side of the road. Chickens who are as equally certain they are faster than your car as they are wrong. Ever wonder where the idea for flat chicken patties came from?
“Rain drops keep falling on my head” takes on new meaning in houses in most of the world as many roofs get some splatter in a heavy rain and don’t have ceilings to absorb it. You can also learn a lot about your language by learning another. All that silly grammar stuff starts making a little more sense and even some words take on new meaning. Here are some examples I’ve learned here. A county is an area run by a Count – and not just Transylvania. To discover a secret or fact is to dis-cover or un cover it. I used to think hog wash was for washing hogs, but it’s the remains from washing dishes.
Now, if you’re wondering where I’m going with all this, I don’t know – but I REALLY want to be on the other side of the street right now and I just have time to make it before that car gets here.
Life is progressing in Lages. For almost a year we slept on the floor. It was also the living room and kids class room so we did a lot of floor cleaning. Another thing you learn overseas is to leave a space between the mattress and the wall. “Wanderers” tend to follow the wall and if you give them easy passage it decreases the odds of unwanted visitors. I don’t think it works with relatives but I guess you could try. After a certain age, sleeping on the floor adds new meaning to “It’s hard to get up in the morning.” We also used a lunchbox sized cooler for a long time but now have a mini-fridge. Unfortunately, like the bed, it’s also on the floor – but at least it’s easy to get a drink of water at night. Recently I took some old boards and slats and made a platform so now there can be an interstate highway of passers-by and we don’t even notice. We even bought a new mattress and a church member gave us an “upgrade” to a nicer model. But apparently they don't make nails like they used to so the bed is a bit wobbly. But I made my bed and now I have to lie in it.
Attendance is pretty good most days and fairly consistent. We’ve started a Bible study with a new family and they are very interested. Music is an issue. I hoped that if I played the guitar people would sing louder to drown me out. Now I’ve resurrected an old computer program that plays music and shows the words. Our plan from the beginning has been to build in lay workers and we have. They lay around while we work. But we’re slowly trying to change that. We have discontinued two works, one very dear to us.
We were holding on awaiting help, but now we are re-organizing priorities. Kids have lost interest in a couple of old people and the adults were not developing. It was a hard decision. I “quit” almost every day but rarely do I stop. We will still visit sometimes and plan to still do programs during school breaks when there’s better attendance.
Soccer continues to be well attended and on the occasion we don’t have a devotional, some actually complain. In fact, the new family doing the study started coming to church shortly after their son started soccer, though I don’t know if it’s related. An older couple has also started visiting partly because of the drinking water program. I often get comments on how much the cheap water helps and some come from far away to get it. I think I’m finally ready to expand it to other communities.
One more item. We wore out our last printer and are now on our third – people printers, not computer printers. We’ve decided to review our mailing list. One problem is that some of you reading our letter have died without bothering to inform us. A little forethought helps a lot. It can’t be that hard to send me a 30 day advance notice saying something like “Dear Bro. Byron, This is to inform you that as of next September 10, 9:07 pm I will no longer have need of your letters…” etc. Help us out. Don’t be a lay worker. Seriously, if you’d like to be added or removed or if you’d like to have your name / address corrected, now is a good time to do it… even if you’re not dead. And if you told me and I messed it up, tell me again. I’m dumb like that. IMPORTANT! We gladly send the letter to anyone that wants it and have to have 200 to get bulk mailing, so you aren’t saving me anything by cancelling. If you want the letter it is my pleasure to send it, even if it already comes to your church.
Coming home from Lages today I looked up at the browning mountains at the end of our rains and for a moment thought the leaves were turning in fall. I’ve been in Brazil 30(ish) years and still sometimes “forget” where I am. Some things are so deeply instilled that even decades cannot erase them. In modern times we can sometimes visit home and there are pictures to remind us, but I think of the immigrants who went to a new land to never again see “the old country”. How they must have missed it sometimes. As Christians, we “miss” a home we’ve never even seen – citizens of it’s land and ambassadors of it’s King. Soon he’ll call us home for a family reunion like we’ve never seen. So why DID the chicken cross the road? So it could be in my letter, of course.
And with that, I’d better go!
Byron Atha
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