Jeff's First Week in Brazil

It's hard to believe that I've been here in Brazil for a week already. The past few days have been a blur... as soon as I got off the plane, we went to the day center and headed out to shoot an agita (a vacation bible school-like activity). The next day, we traveled to Camp California for three days of camp for some of the kids in the favelas where it was pretty much nonstop shooting and quick editing to assemble a slide show and video for the kids before camp was over. We got back from Camp California on Sunday around 5:30PM, went to church at 7PM, and were home by 11PM only to get up again at 3:30AM the next morning and head to Rio de Janeiro for three days. We got home from Rio last night around 2AM, slept until almost noon, and then it was back to the day center for another day of shooting bible study in the favelas and some of the classes offered at the ministry.

Some highlights of the trip so far:

• Visited a place called The Corn Palace which has a variety of items created out of... well, you can probably guess. I tried corn milk and corn ice cream, which were oddly delicious.
• Along the lines of other strange but interesting foods, I can now say I've had passionfruit pudding, an avocado milkshake, and juice from at least a dozen different fruits that I've never seen or heard of before.
• Set foot on the sands and in the waters of Copacabana Beach (surprisingly cold water, even for winter) and saw a panoramic view of Rio from the Christ Redeemer statue.
• Carpooled with nine people (plus luggage!) in a Chevy Captiva (the Brazilian equivalent of a Saturn Vue).
• Filmed kids from the favelas and ministry staff playing a game that involved throwing red food dye at one another. The soccer field ended up looking like a bloodstained battlefield from the movie 300.
• Met some of the nicest, warmest, and most welcoming people. Even though I'm quiet and take a while to warm up to people, I've been treated like family every place I've set foot.

It's getting late so I'll have to post more later, but this really has been an amazing trip. I was originally hoping for a little time away from work and to see some sights... but this trip has honestly been so much more than that. It's been an opportunity to see a larger world and experience new things that I never expected. I'll try to put some of those things into words in the next day or two.