Cactus Flower

Last week I told you the rest of the Hit and Wait story.  After hours of waiting, being hungry and thirsty, the police finally gave back all my documents and said we were free to go. A few days later, someone called our house asking for me.  It was the beer truck man!  I was never sure how he got our number.  I don't know if he had written down my name, or if I had given him a tract, or if I actually gave it to him for some reason or another - I don't think so on the last one.  Anyway.  He said that he had some expenses for medicine and wondered if I would pay for the medicine.  Ok.  Hmmm. And what to do now?  I talked to Uncle Byron who suggested that perhaps we should and that the amount wasn't that much so it didn't sound like a trick.  I agreed to meet the man.  I said that I would meet him at the beer plant where he worked. I took David's mother with me.  I had asked the man to tell me the name of his supervisor.  Whe...

Here's a photo of David's family.  He was a little older than this when he had the problem with his legs.  I took his mother all over Fortaleza to all kinds of doctors and for all sorts of examinations as we looked to find the reason for his problems. Well, last week I left you hanging and ended my story with me arriving at the hospital with the man who jumped out in front of my car.  Let's be careful here not to say that I hit the man or that the car hit the man, because in all reality the man hit me.  These little details are important.  Especially when you find yourself in front of police.  And, if you boys remember, police in Brazil often walk around with machine guns and can be very scary. And that is exactly where I found myself as soon as we arrived at the hospital - with two gun toting police men with full body armor waving me down and asking for my documents.  The police men said we would not be allowed to leave the hospital premises until ...

Some people "hit and run," that's an accident with a car where someone hits another vehicle or pedestrian and then leaves the scene.  Once Aunt Michele did a "hit and wait."  When we still lived in Fortaleza, I did my best to avoid driving in rush hour traffic and especially tried to not go into the downtown area.  Fortaleza is a large city of close to two million people.  If I was going to go shopping by myself downtown or to the doctor, it was better to just go by bus.  I would often take all three of the boys from our house to the MK school by bus.  We would take one bus out of our neighborhood to a big terminal and then catch a bus to another big terminal.  From there we would have to catch one more neighborhood bus to get to the school.  Usually the boys were very good and even enjoyed the rides. When William was about 5 and Dalton was around 3 and Greyson was just a wee little thing, one of the little boys at our church got very sick.  ...