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Read my archived posts! Click Here Thursday, March 31, 2005 I opened up this blog to type something tonight and I think I've stared at this white space for almost 10 minutes. Its not like I didn't have anything to write, but I just have so many thoughts racing through my mind right now its difficult to concentrate. I think I managed to settle them down enough for long enough to write a little bit of something here tonight. Well today I went out flying again. I left right after my first class this morning and skipped Convo to go do it. I actually did really good today. I didn't throw up until about 5 minutes before we landed. I made it through the whole begining hour unaffected by the motion sickness. It made flying a lot more fun and I was able to conctrate a whole lot better. We did some fun things today anyway while we were up. We did some S turns over the roads at only about 600ft above the ground that was a cool feeling. Then we also did some turns around a point and we used a barn as the reference and we were circling the cows in the field at 600ft too. That was kind of cool. The rest of the flight was fairly normal stuff though we had been doing lately. I'm not sure what happend there at the end though. Somethign just got to me and I was out of it pretty quick once the nausia hit. Keep praying for that guys! Anyway I ended up getting on the ground a little late and I ended up being 10 minutes late to my next class. I told the teacher why though and he seemed ok with it. Then today at work I had to go out and do a serivce call. While I was out Allie Phone texted me and said she was pretty stressed at work. I decided that while I was out I would surprise her at work and give her a hug to hopefully ease the stress a little. It was actually my first time there so I was able to see what everything looked like. It was pretty cool. I was glad I stopped by and I think she was too. The rest of the time at work was fairly routine for me though. After work I headed over to the church and I managed to stay awake the entire time during the bible study. I was proud of myself for that. It was worth it too because it was pretty good. After the service though I ended up finding out I had a meeting back at school tonight as a prayer leader. So I ended up leaving church and going right to that. The meeting was really good though and I actually have a lot of stuff to reflect on from it. (thats part of why my thoughts are racing tonight) But after the meeting I went to late night with Allie and had some cereal since I wasn't able to eat any dinner tonight. Then we basicly just came back to our rooms and did homework and stuff. I managed to sign up for some of my classes for next year, I will need to go visit one of the teachers tomorrow though to see if I can get signed in. But anyway, I am going to head to bed. I'm pretty sleepy. NIght! posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 1:09 AM  0 comments Wednesday, March 30, 2005 Today was a pretty good day of classes. In my first class my teacher was sick and he never even showed up. So we didn't really have much of a class for that. We do have a big group 10 page report paper to work on though so we got together and talked about that a little bit. But we left like 40 minutes early from the class. I had a good sized break between classes today because of that so I was able to have a pretty good time with devotions this morning and also get a few e-mails taken care of. Once it was time for my next class I headed over to that but that class was only about 20 minutes long. The teacher just showed us a video and told us we could go. That was kind of nice. I then went to lunch early and I read a book while I ate while I waited for Allie and Jonathan to show up. So today as far as class time was pretty easy, but I am still left with lots of homework. This report I have to work on will be pretty brutal. Anyway the rest of the day at work was fairly normal.. nothing too exciting to mention there. But after work I came back to my room and started on my Report. I was basicly doign that all evening. Someone had a computer they needed me to fix though too so I kinda worked on that some between my homework and things. Felipe ended up getting online tonight too. So I had the opportunity to chat with him for awhile. That was really cool. We found out a way I can send him text messages to his cell phone through the internet for free. That will be fun. I'll have to send him little notes now a lot. Also Allie wasn't feeling too well tonight so I took a break and made her some chicken noodle soup and brought it to her a little bit before curfew tonight. Then after I got back from doing that, Ben came in and asked if we could work on Accounting homework together. So We tried to work on that a little bit tonight as well. It was just a huge amount of work though so we didn't quite get finished all the way. But anyway.. I am really tired now so I have to go to sleep. Good night! posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 2:01 AM  0 comments Tuesday, March 29, 2005 Today was a fairly typical day. The weather was pretty solom though. It poured down rain this morning so the grass and everything was all muddy today. We're talking POURED.. like monsoon type thing. I was hoping for lightning too but that never quite got here. Thats too bad, cause I really like lightling. Anyway, I was ready to get back to school from my nice relaxing weekend. Apparently my body still wasn't though because I still kind of dozed off in my classes today. I made it through alright though. Then things at work were pretty typical as well. It was a little slow today but for some reason the time seemed to fly by. I always like it when that happends. next thing I knew it was 6:00 and time to leave. On the way back to campus Allie called me and we decided to meet up for dinner at the Marriot. That was fun, I had breakfast for dinner tonight. After dinner though I came back to my room and started to work on a little homework while I waited for Jonathan to get here. I didn't really get very far on it before he came though. But we ended up talking for probalby an hour or so about a bunch of stuff. It was good too because we haven't had good quality time since I got back from my trip. I was really glad to finally spend some time with him. Jonathan.. I love you man!! After he left though I kind of just continued with my homework and chatted with Allie a little bit. But once I got done with my Stats homework I decided it was time to get some new pictures up on my website. Unfortunatly I haven't gotten to the pictures from my missions trip yet though. The ones I put up tonight are just some random other ones. I have a few from my birthday (video too) and some pictures that I drew, ect. If you want to check it out you can go to www.jerdill.com/photos Take a look I know you'll enjoy them. Oh I also decided to pull the stitch out of my wisdom tooth hole tonight. Allie ended up copying a picture on my webcam of me doing that. I have that on there too. By the way, its really weird pulling a long piece of string through your gums.. its a really weird sensation. It kind of makes you tingle. It wasn't like a small piece of thread either.. we're talking kite string type stuff. It was pretty cool. OK well anyway. I need to get to bed. Enjoy the pictures! posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 1:28 AM  0 comments Monday, March 28, 2005 Today was a long but wonderful day! First of all the Lord has Risen so it can't get better then that anyway. But secondary, I just had a good time hanging out and relaxing again for the most part today. I did have to wake up at 5:30am though because Allie and I were goign to head to the SonRise server that was going on here at liberty. It ended up raining though so they ended up moving the service inside instead. The service was pretty good, but I've defenatly been to better ones in the past. It ended up getting done at about 7:30am so Allie and I had a full hour to just do stuff until our church opened at 8:30 for breakfast and stuff. We ended up just swinging by the house and playing some Kirby (nintendo) for a little while unitl breakfast time. It was nice to just sid and fellowship with people today at churhc. Everybody missed me while I was gone and was glad to see me. For the easter breakfast we had Pancakes, eggs, and sausage. After breakfast we started the regular morning service. It was kind of unfortunate today that we didn't really have that many peple there this morning. I don't even think we had any visitors. For being Easter we were hoping for more. Oh well. Anyway after church Robert and I headed to the Donnebergs house for the afternoon. Britt and Allie cooked us lunch for today. It was really cool of them to do that. They did a terriffic Job and it was very delicous. They made one of my favorite meals, Tacos. Oh alos Allie had a new Easter dress that she wore today to church. She looked so beautiful in it. It was blue with some pink flowers on it. I Liked it a lot. Anyway after we all had lunch we just relaxed the rest of the afternoon and on into the evening. First we watched Napolian Dinamite. (I fell asleep during it) and then I was kind of drozy for awhile after that so I slept most of the afternoon all comfy on the couch. Later we watched the the DVD of one of the concerts from my missions trip and then I slept some more. Allie had some homework she was working on today while Britt and Robert kind just lounged around like me. But anyway. Thats mostly what I did the rest of the day. It was good to finally have that weekend to recoupe from everything. I think I am ready for school to start again tomorrow. Night everyone! and Happy Easter again! I know mine was. =) posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 1:41 AM  0 comments Sunday, March 27, 2005 Happy Easter!!! - Gotta get to bed.. sonrise service tomorrow (techincally today) at 6:30am posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 1:56 AM  0 comments Saturday, March 26, 2005 Yeah, I had a really good day today. Ended up getting a good grade on my stats tests I took Wednesday. But even better, just had a really fun relaxing night that I really needed tonight. Allie and I watched like six episodes of American Idol, And we completely chilled, it was marvelous! It was too bad when curfew was getting close and we had to get up and head to campus. Stupid Curfew. Ok good night! posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 1:23 AM  0 comments Friday, March 25, 2005 Ok, I spent too much time writing the post from my missions trip. SO I won't write much for today. But I did take a test today and it only took me about five minutes to do because I had everything memorized so that was pretty cool. But I also found out I have a 10 page research paper due in two weeks, so that kind stinks. Anyway, I've been really tired all day for some reason. I even went to sleep fairly early last night. I am going to head to bed now. posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 12:14 AM  0 comments Thursday, March 24, 2005 Saturday I was able to sleep in until 10:00 this morning. It was a good thing because I needed that extra energy since I would be sharing my testamony in front of about 800 people later that day (I didn't know it at the time though). I'll talk more about that later. But to start things off I didn't have to be at the church until 12:00 so I had a good slow morning to get ready and spend some time with my host family. The ironic thing about that was however that Felipe needed to be at the Easter play practice at 8:00 that morning, so I had to work through the language barrier all morning with the family. It was quite fun though. My ride ended up being 45 minutes later then he had mentioned before, but during that time I got to know Renata (Felipe's Sister pretty well). It was cool. Anyway, Theo finally ended up getting to the house and I hopped in the car with him and we headed over to the church. After getting to the church we loaded up everybody into the bus and we went to our concert location for that day. The place today was up in a small town up in the mountains of Brazil. It was georgious up there. The drive was about 2 hours from the city though, so it was quite a trip. After we got to the town, we met up with the pastor that setup the concert there and he wanted to take us out to lunch. There was a very nice restaraunt close to town that was located basicly on the top of a mountain surrounded by other mountains on three sides. I have lots of pictures of it but it was a beautiful place to eat lunch thats for sure. The food however wasn't really all that great, but when you factor in the view you saw while eating... that brings up the points quite a bit. Also the restaurant only had two other people there at the time so our group basicly had the entire side of the mountatin to ourselfs. A lot of the guys did some crazy stuff just to play around, like roll down the side of the hill, Wrestle, fight.. you know all those things guys do when thier in those moods. But after awhile it was time to gather together and go back to the town and setup the stage for the concert. We were technically affiliated with the church there in town for the night, but we actually setup the stage in the town center basicly. It was a huge open arena all around with only a roof on top. It had enough room to seat probably everybody in that town. This concert was probably my favorite one out of all because it was open to anybody in the town and in walking distance from almost all the houses. So there were little children that were able to come even if thier parents didn't. The crowd actually started out rather small for the first song or two, but once the people started to hear something going on, they left thier houses and showed up in the arena. By the time it was my turn up to share my testamony I would guess about 800 people were there in the seats. Now public speaking I absolutley hate, I decided that I would rather get my teeth pulled in Brazil then have to stand up and talk to people (and I actually know this because I had my tooth pulled in Brazil). Even worse though, Jacob decided he was going to tell me I was the one doing my testamony that night about an hour before it started. I was stressing out sooo bad. When it was my turn up, I walked up on stage followed by the Missionary who would be translating for me. Then the missionary ended up talking in portugues for what felt like 10 minutes. So I was stuck standing there looking at all these people for a really long time with no idea of what the missionary was saying. That made me even more nervous. With God's help I made it through though, and apparently I did alright because people complimented me afterwards. Could I tell you what I said up there.. probably not, it was all a blur and my time up actually is more of a blank in my mind looking back on it. When I think about it I remember standing up there for a long time.. then he stopped and nodded at me indicating it was my turn, then I said "Oi Boa Noite".... and after that I have no memory of the next however many minutes. The next thing I remember was walking to the stairs off the stage right and sitting on those until the next song started. Its actually pretty weird.. But on the bright side, when the concert was all said and done we had the report of 7 people coming to Christ that night. It was good to know I was a part of that. The Lord does great things, even in small towns up in the mountains of Brazil. After the concert was over was when I had the most fun. As the people were cleaning up and taking down chairs I ended up finding a mass of kids and started playing with them. It kind of turned into a big game of Tag where I was It.. and even if I tag somebody I was still It kind of game. I think you know what I'm talking about. But it was a great time running around with I would estimate about 18 little kids (between 4 and 7) weaving in and out of the chairs being put away. I was pretty tired by the time we had to leave. One of the little girls took a liking to me and grabbed on to me and wouldn't let go for awhile. I ended up carrying her with me down to the church where we would grab a drink then pile onto the bus. I got some good pictures of me with the kids, and this girl wanted to be in every single one of them. She was pretty cute and I had a good time with her and the others. But the time came for us to go and it was sad to leave her behind, we however had a long trip back home. We finally got back to the church in the city around 12:00 and Felipe came to pick me up and bring me back home. He and I didn't really do too much that night, we were both exausted. Sunday This sunday was another fairly long day for us, it was however the last day we had for any concerts and once we finished today, we were basicly done with all the missionary had planned for us ministry wise. It was our final stretch and I know God helped us the whole way through it. Felipe and I got up a little bit late, but we still made it to the international (english church) on time. We had our first concert there that morning, but we didn't do the drama there for some reason. Wagner had also come early that morning into town and he was with us all day. It was a lot of fun to see him again and we had a great time hanging out. I still had my duties with the team though so we didn't get to really do all that much together. By this time our routine of concerts was beginning to seem rather mundane and repetitive for us. But God was still using them because through it another person came to Christ that morning. Come to find out later, that was the first person to ever get saved at the International church (they had started it about 6 months ago). That was pretty encouraging to hear. Because it was the "english" service though I have a feeling a lot of the people didn't know what was going on. They just wanted to see us sing. The person that did get saved that day knew english fairly well. Anyway, I do know its not us or what we do, it all comes back to God and he can work through any language or any barrier. He could have touched a non english speaker that morning if he had wanted to. After the morning service, Wagner and I went out to lunch together and had a good time with each other there. That was really the only quality time I was able to spend with him though. The rest of the day we had to hang out together while I was doing all my other duties with the team. It was still cool though. I was really glad he came. The next place our group went was to the Brazil NASA space center. (residents area). We had to get special Brazil military clearance in order to get into the gates. (we got Wagner one too so he could come) That was a fun experience. After we got through we headed into the heart of the residential area inside, and we setup on a small stage in an area where there was an outdoor swimming pool, and a little out door dessert shop. Once we started, the crowds started to pour in. That was more of just a fun concert to get people gathered around. They only did songs and we didn't have any kind of speaker or drama. The main goal of this concert was to draw them in and invite them to come to the church service that we would go to right after it. It actually worked quite well because after we stopped the music and started packing up, all those who could speak portugues that came along with us told the people to follow our bus when we left to the church. We ended up having about 7 cars do that when we left. It was pretty cool how that worked out. The next (and last) two services that night were at the main church building. It was a building that held roughly 2000 people (if I had to guess) and it was for the portugues congreation. These last two services were very good. The first service started at 4:00 and went to 5:30 then the last and final service started at 6:00 and went till 8:00. Both of these services were basicly identical services with only a few more things added into the last service to fill the extra half hour. I'm just going to talk about the second service though because that is the one that more people came to, and its also the one that I could feel the Lords presence in even greater then the first time. For this service the building was basicly packed out and there were even quite a few people lining the walls standing in the back. This was also the service that Felipe's Mom and Sister came to (both unsaved) and also a highschooler that was the Missionaries nieghbor we all had gone to visit a few times during our afternoons off at the missionaries house. This highschooler in the past was very popular and athletic and always had all the girls and things. But then he got in an accident and was paralized. Since then he has slightly recoverd and he can sort of get around using a walker with help from family or friends. THis story even has more to it and its even more amazing how this all worked out, but I don't have time to explain all of that right now. But anyway just by having this kid show up here at the service that night was a very cool thing. You'll have to ask me about the full story some other time. Well because the building was soo full that night the worship was amazing. So many people worshiping God in one place was an awsome thing. Then hearing people worship in spanish, english and portugues at the same time was an even cooler thing. We did our drama that night too and the last and final drama everybody said it was the best we had ever done. Then when the pastor came up to speak, Tom gave all of us a little raido transeiver and he went into a back room and translated the sermon on the fly for us listening in through the transeiver. His sermon talked about dissapointment and how not getting our way can bring us down sometimes. This message touched the struggling paralytic boy because he had expericence great depression with what happend to him. That boy along with about 25 others that service came to Christ. It was cool to see how each person that went forward had a friend there that night to help them. But the paralytic boy had about 7 people come down and help him, but he pushed them off and he wanted to walk to the front on his own.. it was sooo cool to see him. He was struggling but this boy made it all the way to the center of the stage without any help from his friends. When he got there though his friends did close in and hug him and there was great rejoicing in the church that night for this desision the boy had made. His heart had been very hard and closed to Christ ever since the missionaries had tried to talk to him.. but there is even more to this story I don't have time to share at the moment. Ask me sometime. So, yeah I could really feel the Lord moving in that place that night with the many desisions for Christ and the state of worship everybody was in. I was really hoping Felipes family would be a part of it, but they weren't. They never really even brought it up that night either. After the service was over we were free to go back home with our host homes and for once it was early enough to spend quality time with them. I ended up getting back to thier house around 9:30 that night. WE had Pecania (barbecue) for dinner and fries along with beef stroganoff. It was sure delicious. I was hoping for some kind of opportunity to bring up the service to them and talk to them more that night, but the Lord didn't allow that to happen. It was a little difficult having to talk through Felipe to translate all the time. We still were able to bond as freinds and family however and it was a great time of fellowship with that. We took family pictures and once it got late they started to say thier good-byes as I would be leaving early the next morning. It was sad times. I knew I would miss them a lot. They gave me a cool card saying how much they appreciated me and the friendship I had built with them. But anyway.. I"m not goign to talk about that anymore because it makes me sad. I just want to remember the awsome work God did through us that week. It was amazing how he used us. posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 11:23 PM  0 comments Wednesday, March 23, 2005 Hey everyone.. I made it back safely, but I had to jump right in with life again. Got back at 12:15 had to be at work by 1:00 the same day.. then I also have two tests tomorrow I have to study for. super tired.. need to sleep. Night posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 1:21 AM  0 comments Saturday, March 19, 2005 Thusday morning started off fairly normal. I didn't really eat any breakfast though, i just had a peice of bread with peanut butter on it because I couldn't chew anything still. So Felipe and I headed to the church to meet up with the group. Our first stop yesterday was at a school sort of like a Technical Institute. The people there were either college or older age. The place we setup at was in a little foyer area that was like a glass room. It was fully surrouned by glass except for the floor. It was really cool looking. The room was kind of small though, so once we got the music started it was kind of difficult to fit everyone in the foyer. The crowd seemed to really enjoy what we did there though. At this place quite a few people knew english, so a bunch of us mingled around and tried to talk to some of them. I was able to communicate to the few I talked to where we would be this sunday and invited them to come along. We are trying to push Sunday morning to the people we talk to because we will be able to do our full presentation of the gospel and all of our songs, ect. So I hope to be able to see some of those guys at the service then. Once we finished up at the Technical Institute we headed to the downtown area for our next presentation. The Bus was only to take us in so far because he wasn't allowed to take large vehicles in past a certain point. So we hopped out as close as we could get and started the walk to the Mall in the middle of town we were going to have the concert at. It was a cool experience walking through all the little shops that lined the streets on our 5 block walk to the Mall. Upon arrival, we helped finish up plugging in the instuments and Microphones because the Sound guys from the church here were running a little behind. The presenation went very well, it was cool to play right at the entrance to the mall. We had a pretty good audience by the time we had got in a few songs. Just random people that came to shop ended up stopping to see what was going on. We had lots of Portugues tracks we handed out as well, and some schedules in portugues of the other places we would be this week in hopes we could get some of them to come. Once the people started to disburse we hit the road again and headed to Lunch at my favorite Churrascaria we went to on Wednesday. Unfortunatly this time I could barely eat anything and I just had to eat noodles and rice and things like that. But that wasn't going to last much longer. Once the group got done eating, the girls went off to a womens bible study that the english church puts on Thursdays. Then the guys all headed to the missionsarys house for the rest of the afernoon. I however went with Tom to the dentists office. Surgery Time The time had come for my tooth of wisdom to come out. Now I was very nervous about this whole thing and I hadn't sweat the entire time I've been here that I know of.. but by now I had a nervous sweat. The dentist that was going to do the procedure, goes to the church that Tom Turley had planted here. It also turns out he is one of the best dentists here in town. The Dentists name was Theo and he actually was the one that came to pick up Tom and I and bring us to his office for the extraction. I was able to get a picture of Theo in front of his office building before we went in. Now the dentists office here in Brazil are quite a bit different then in America. There was a little reception area like you would see back in the states, but there is only one room where the dentist does the work in. This room with the dentists chair was also the Dentists office room and he had his desk with all his books and computer and everything right there in the same room. Then also there was a few seats in there extra so Tom was able to come in and sit in on the surgery to watch while it took place. It was good about that though because Theo is still in english school and he didn't know how to explain some stuff very well in english. Theo started out with taking some x-rays. In america they make us wear a lead vest when they take the shot. This time he just put the machine right up to my head and clicked the button. He did however make Tom leave the room at the time. (Kinda makes you wonder about why he had to leave, but its ok for the machine to be right up against my head) Anyway that was a cool expericene and he let me see my X-ray when it was done. He also let me keep the picture as well. In America they wouldn't have let me take it home, they have to keep it on file or something. Anyway once the x-ray was done the next thing he did was shoot me up with novacane. It was good he had that but still it was interesting staying awake through this operation. In the US they would usually gas you up and you would be asleep during this time. Here in Brazil that was not an option. So it was in a way a funny thought when I picture it again in my head how this operation looked from my perspective. First he did a little bit of teeth cleaning then he grabbed the plyers and started to pull on up. This little guy was in my jaw very well. Just using his arm strenght was not enough and he had to push off of my chair with his feet a little bit. Then in the middle sometime he even had to stop and take a break and breathe a little bit and wipe the sweat off of his forehead. He had given me three shots of novicane stuff so I wasn't feeling a thing pain wise, but I could still feel all the preasure, he had to pull, and twist a little to get this thing out. When it finally gave way I physically heard a pop sound and a thunk and then I could taste the blood on my tounge. I had to spit quite a bit before the blood flow started to slow down a little. Thats another thing they don't have here in Brazil is those little sucking straws to get the saliva out of your mouth. Anytime you need to spit you just have to sit up and spit. After that it was time for my first stiches I had ever recieved and again... right here in good ol brazil. He had to do two stiches and I saw the string go in the mouth and then saw him pull it back out as I felt the pressure of him pulling the string to make it tight. That was a sensation I don't think I'll forget anytime soon. Theo let me keep the tooth he pulled. In america I don't think they let you keep those either. I will have a picture up once I get back home of the size of this tooth. It looked like a shark tooth or something. Anyway, I had to leave gauze in my mouth for the rest of the day to catch the blood from it. Theo also gave me a prescription drug for Anti-Inflamatory and anitbiotics. The antibiotics was what Jacob told me I had to take. Theo didn't think it was necessary for those but since Jacob is in charge of me I went ahead and got those. This whole experience was actually quite amazing in how it worked out. I would have needed to get this done anyway whether I did it here or waited until I got back to the states. Truthfully though I think it was all of God for why I had this tooth ache while I was here. Jacob said I was such an encouragment to him and the rest of the team for enduring this pain but still keeping a joyful attitude. He had mentioned that any time we were out doing a performace they wouldn't have even known I had a major headache/tooth ache. I can't take all the credit for that however. Becuase anytime I was out the Lord helped the pain go away for the most part. Sure it still hurt a little but, God made it bareable anytime He wanted to use me. Also as I look back and recall now when I was witnessing to the gentlemen on Monday night I don't even remember the slightest bit of pain. That in itself shows the power of God. But thats not all, this story gets even better. Normally in the states having a tooth pulled could cost anywhere between $400 and $500 American Dollars. Well Theo decided he wanted to do this for me for free as a gift. I had tried to give him money but he refused to accept it. Come to find out later Jacob told me he was going to pay for me anyway so it was good he didn't take the money because Jacob was going to pay the expense for me. Jacob tried to push more to get Theo to take the money but still he would not do it. Jacob instead told him to take the cash as a wedding present and he decided that was ok to do. Jacob also bought all the medicine for me and told me that the sponsors of this trip (That means all of you guys as well) took care of all my expensense to have this operation done. I am now pretty much completely pain free and I can chew food just as I could before. All basicly expense free and complication free. Hows that for Gods work in my life here on the trip. That shows how he protects, provides, and teaches us more about him through our trials. God is good isn't he? After my surgery I actually felt pretty good, but Jacob didn't want me to go with the team for the rest of that night. He told me to just stay at the Missionaries house for the rest of the evening. I was dissapointed that I coudln't go with them thrusday night though because they were going to have a concert in the middle of the food court at the mall that night. There was a big stairwell there and they were going to setup the stage right on the stair well. It would have been cool to see that. Anyway, since I had to stay back I ended up working on quite a few computer issues for the missionary. He had a new laptop he wanted setup with everything he needed it to do. And I also had a chance to clean up the computer he was using from a few viruses and spyware kind of stuff. Then I used the time to fast and pray for the team over what they were going to do that night. (I fasted because I wasn't allowed to eat anything anyway for 24 hours except icecream or yogurt). Then I used the time to nap for a little bit also. After the concert was over at the mall The missionarys had come home and they told me the wonderful report of what happend that night. The Lord worked in a marvelous way there. The mall was packed out with people that were seeking/courious/ or just wanted to hear. When it was all over the mall administrators had nothing but praises to say about us. The lord worked though us in a marvelous way that night. I have to tell you a little bit of background to show you what happend. The church we are here with is in the process of doing a big easter production. They are going to have it shown at multiple churches as well as this Mall over the next few weeks. Well that Mall said they would be happy to have them come and show thier easter presentation at the mall but they didn't want to cover any of the expenses it would take for them to do that. So basicly they said sure you can come if it doesn't cost us anything. Well the mall administrators were so impressed with us they said if your easter presentation is anything as good as these singers were, we want to help finacially to get it to come here. Well I've seen some of the ability of the church and the singing and acting skills they all have so I know they will be just as good if not better then us. So the Mall gave the church 20,000 $REAL to help out with expenses. Turns out that was basicly what they needed to get it to happen. (Plus or minus a few hundred). So God answered the prayers of this church and he used the team to do it. Because of what we did the church will then have another opportunity to share the full gospel with this city in a setting where people who would never go to church will see. Pretty cool how that works out huh? Anyway once the missionaries got back we talked about that and I also had the chance to talk to them a little more about being a missionary. Tom actually lived in the Amazon for 14 years before coming to build this church, it was cool to sit and talk about all that he had done and what it took to get here. Felipe didn't end up coming to pick me up that night until well after midnight. But it was worth it alright with me because I had that opportunity to talk to Tom about everything. Its not everyday you get to spend quality one on one time with a missionary. Friday Friday was our buisiest day we've had so far. We had five concerts spread about all over the city. I know the Lord worked in peoples hearts we sang for that day a lot. But what I noticed most Friday was how much the Lord worked in us and gave us energy. I know as a team we grew closer together and learned to rely on the strenght of Christ more then our own strength. We first went to another school and did a concert, followed by another concert back at the mall we went to on Wednesday (This is the one we did out front and not inside). We were pretty pressed for time between these two and we were rushing all over the place. So far we were all still doing pretty good though. Then we had a short break for lunch and after lunch it kind of hit everybody. The drowzyness came on and our bodies told us nooo we can't go. But we fought through and made it to our next two locations. Both of them were english schools and some of the people could understand us. Unfortuantly by this time we all were very exahsted incluing me, and it was difficult for us to engage in conversation with them to build that needed relationship. We didn't complely fail however and I know at least the few I talked to were touched by what we had done. Our day was not over though because we still had once more place to go to that night. By now we had pushed out bodies to the limits and all we had left to rely on was God to strenghten us. We had a time of prayer for the entire trip to our next location that night. As soon as we surrendered ourselfs and gave up everything to God he strengthend us even more then we were when we had started that morning. Our presentation that night was one of the best we had done all week. There was a huge response that night and lots of people wanted to come to some of our other concerts. It was a shame that this was a late show because we only did three songs at the time because it ended up going until 11:00 at night since we had so many shows that day. It would have been nice to share a few more songs that would touch thier hearts. I really think a lot of them will come to some of our other concerts however and then we'll be able to do a full evangelistic service. But what I did see initially that night was the amazing power of God that gave us the energy to do the entire show. I think truly three of the singers wouldn't have even been able to do one song without that. Thier voices were weak and one was even starting to lose thier voice from exahstion. But when it came time to start, thier voices were strong and you could clearly see the strenght of the Lord flowing through thier bodies and joy on thier faces. It was amazing the change that took place. After our final concert was over Tom took us out to another Churrascaria at 12:00 at night. We hadn't eaten since lunch because our schedule was so full. It was funny to see how full the restarunt was that late at night. But the food was awsome. It was like a standard churascaria with barbecue beef/pork/chicken stuff that they bring out to you on giant sword looking things. But it also had an all you can eat seafood buffet. I ate lots of shrimp, salmon, trout, halibut, and an entire lobster, crab meat, plus a few other things I wasn't sure what it was. But it was soooo good. It was my first time I could actually eat normally and enjoy my meal for once. Man it was good stuff!! WE didn't end up getting back to our host homes till about 1:30. Felipe and I pretty much went straight to bed after getting back I was pretty tired. But it sure was a great day and it was great to see how God worked today. posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 11:32 PM  0 comments Thursday, March 17, 2005 Hey guess what.. the first surgery I've ever had, just happend today here in Brazil. Thats something most american's can't say. It was pretty cool. No need to worry though, I'm doing just fine.. I just wanted to throw that in real quick and i'll expand on that next time I have a chance. posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 8:20 PM  0 comments

Tuesday & Wendnesday of this trip have also been a blessing from the Lord. We were able to sleep in for a little bit later then we did on monday, so that was nice. But we had to be at the church by 9:00 so we could head out and get ready for our first presentation that day. Even though Felipe and I had more time in the morning we still ended up waking up a little late so I just had some cereal really quick and we kinda had to rush out the door. We ended up getting there on Brazilian time (Late in other words) but since we are in Brazil, everyone was late and working on Brazilian time so we were still like the 4th ones there. Our first destination Tuesday was a Public Middle school. The most amazing part about the last days now was how we could openly share the gospel in a public school here. From what I've seen here in Brazil, its almost as if Brazil is more of a free country then ours is. How sad is that for a country that claims to be Based "Under God" yet won't alow the people to talk about God, and a country that claims to be free but won't let the people be free to even talk about what could provide Love, Joy, Peace and Hope to a group of people who truly need it. No wonder I like this country. Maybe America should just say our motto is "Order and Progress" and Brazil should claim to be the free Nation. It would be more correct. But anyway, back to our awsome day in the City. Tuesday we ministered to these 7th and 8th graders in a school of about 2-300. This school had a blind student and the school administrator informed us that he knew how to play the piano. In Brazil the schools aren't really that great and they don't offer any kind of special training for blind students, so he was one of those kids that was always made fun of and oppressed in this school. Well we had the opportunity to help bring him up to the popularity ladder a little bit. Before the team even got up on stage to sing, we let this blind boy go up and play some things on the keyboard. He had a huge applause when he was done. The blind boy was so excited when we let him do that. It was awsome to see a big smile on his face, maybe the only one he's had in quite awhile. We gave him a free CD also. After that the team then came up and sang all of thier songs, then we also did our Drama and shared some testamonies as well. The students really enjoyed have us there. They cheered quite a bit for us. After it was all over, the students mobbed all of us and wanted all of our signatures. A lot of then knew enough english to tell me I was beautiful/handsom. Then some of the girls were even like "Kiss Me" Of course I didn't do that but I at least gave them a hug. What saddens me about that is how they missed the point of why we were there. They were too preoccupied with us as people then they were of the message we had just showed them through Drama and Song. During all of this I would have had some good opportunitys to explain this to them and share with them more about Jesus and what he has done for us. But it was almost painful to see this mass of children who needed Christ and not be able to share it with them. It wasn't just a Longing to tell them.. It was more of an Urgancy to tell them. I however was helpless it seemed at the time. When it all was over I realized that I was wrong about our helplessness our presence there today still made an impact even if indirectly. The Missionary Tom Turley mentioned to us after we had finally made our way through our "fan club" and girls wanting our "autographs" and wanting to Kiss us that he told us what had actually happend there. Tom told us that he was approached by many of the children and they told him what we did there today opened them up and showed them it is still possible for them to evangelize to thier friends there at school, and our message encouraged them to start doing just that. So maybe we won't see our fruits from that visit right way, but down the road I know God will use what we planted there. After we finished up at the school it was time for lunch. So we headed to another churrascaria and everybody chowed down on as much meat as they brought to us. It sure was good stuff, I was still having trouble with my tooth however and I could really only nibble on the stuff. It was dissappointing; at least I could still taste everything though. After lunch we had some free time again so we headed back to the Missionarys house for the afternoon. I used that time to have my devotions and then I ended up falling asleep for the rest of the free time. It was defenatly a good nap. Diane (Toms wife) then made us Taco Salad for dinner and that was some pretty good stuff too. So far the Food is one of the best things they have here. Our next spot to go to after lunch was a small english school right in the middle of the city. It was a really cool building and they wanted us to setup in the courtyard area in the middle part of the building. The only problem was it was raining here on Tuesday for a little bit. When we got there we had to stand around before we could go out and start setting up. Then before we setup we had to go around and dry everything off. But the Lord ended up stopping the rain for us and we managed to get the concert started only slightly late. One thing that happend that was kind of a downer was the projector we use to display all the lyrics to everything we sing broke down on us. So we had to do this concert without that to emphasize the words they were singing. I think it all worked out pretty well still though. The view from the courtyard was amazing. I tried to take a picture and I hope it worked out, but looking up from inside the courtyard you could turn in all directions and you would be surrounded by skyscrappers. Some were buisness, others were just tall appartment buildings. YOu could see all that with a nice veiw of a palm tree in each way you looked. That was a very nice setting. We were glad it stopped raining. The crowd actually turned out to be a fairly small one but I think the impact on the people was just the same as it would have been a bigger group. I don't remember if anyone on the team was approached and asked more questions about Christ because of it though. I do know the director of the School liked us very much though and he wanted us to come back again if we could. Before we left the director wanted to give us all a gift though. So he had us all go on the stage in front of the crowd that was there and he presented us with our gifts. You'll never guess what he gave all of us. He handed us each a bottle of very fine Brazilian White Wine from Rio De Janero. We of course all excepted it acting greatful so we didn't offend him. But once everybody left the building, our team leader (Jacob) collected all of our bottles of wine and he said he would "dispose of them" I never did figure out what he did with them though, he wasn't going to tell us. But to make up for the taking of our gift he ended up taking the whole team out for Icecream at a cute little icecream parlor that was just down the road. I ended up having some Passion Fruit flavored Icecream. Man I love that stuff. We then headed back to the church to be picked up by our host homes. On the way back with Felipe that night we both tried to teach each other some language stuff and that was a pretty fun time. Then that evening I had a great time getting to know his family some more. I showed his mom and sister some of the pictures on my website and I was able to communicate to them a little bit by way of pictures. That was a lot of fun showing them my family, and virginia, and all of my friends. They really seemed to like that too. I also ended up giving them each a $1 bill american money and they were excited to have them. They had never seen one before and through felipe said they would treasure it and never spend it. Anyway I had a good time with that and Felipe and I ended up getting to bed a little past midnight. Wednesday Wednesday we had the pleasure of going to two public schools. The first one we went to was a school of about 600 children ranging from 7th-12th Grade. The area that was sectioned off for us to perform is was a little small though and it was hard for all the kids to pile in, we weren't able to do our drama for them because of that. There just wasn't enough room. I know we were still able to effectivly present the gospel to them through the portugues songs that they sang. Two of the guys from our team shared thier testamony as well, and the kids seemed to listen fairly attentivley to them as they spoke. Once the concert was over this time, we ended up rushing out fairly quickly so the kids wouldn't try to mob us and get our autographs, It was a good thing we did to because after we all got on the bus they kids had the bus surrounded and they were trying to jump up to the windows. We did open the windows and give them High 5's but all of us refused to sign autographs for them. If one of us would have, then they all would have wanted one and there would have been mass chaos. I was able to get a few pictures of this crowd of kids around our bus.. its a pretty cool looking scene. I was called Beautiful/Handsom quite a few times again, but this time (after finding out later) some of the boys were calling me homosexual. That was nice to find out. I however forgot the portugues word for it, so if I was called it again I would be clueless. I wished again I had the means to communicate to them and give them some kind of hope in thier lives but with this language barrier I just had to surrender and leave that in the Lords Capable hands. I was just glad he used me to at least start the process if anything. Right after we left that school we headed over to another one in a different part of town. This school was a very poor school in a fairly rich neighborhood. The Government decided they were going to close it down and relocate it in about a year so they could make the rich neighborhood still look rich. I guess they don't care what happends to the kids... its kind of sad. In the past this school had the highest rate of teen prostitution in the whole state but God had put some teachers in place there at the school a few years before now and God used them to bring these students back to morality. This school now had some of the nicest students I've ever seen all in one place for the age group. God was preparing this school for us years before we came. It was pretty cool to hear about how that all worked out. These students loved us immensley and went we got done with our concert we didn't have to rush away. it was a pleasant time sitting and hanging out with these kids. I even was able to talk to a few of these students in a little bit of english. I was hugged by many of them as well. (Girls and boys) It was so fun being able to just spend time with these children even if you could't completely understand them. I think the rest of the team enjoyed singing at that school too. After awhile we did have to leave though and our next stop was another churrascaria for lunch. The churrascaria we went to this time was very upper class and it had very nice tiling and glass windows all around. It also had designer chandelers and fine china to eat on. It was defenatly an awsome place to eat. It was my favorite place that we have gone so far. I had to be very careful with eating again though because my tooth by now was causing quite a bit of pain. We ended up eating there for a little longer then I would have liked. It seemed like everybody was done but we still just hung around. I guess it was nice though because I had to eat really slow so I was able to eat more. Anyway we had a little bit of free time again that afternoon so we ended up going to another Mall that was quite a bit bigger then the first one. I wandered around for awhile just looking at all kinds of stuff, but I didn't really see anything I wanted. Then finally about 20 minutes before we had to meet to leave I ended up finding two cool stores that I ended up buying things in. I found a very nice authentic brazilian leather jacket for 85$REAL that turns out be something like $30 american dollars. I figure that was an awsome deal and I couldn't pass that up. I'm pretty sure everyone back home will think its nice too. Then I also found another Brazil teeshirt that I really liked and had to get that. Once the meeting time came around the bus came to pick us up and we headed to the missionarys house again for a few hours. I ended up using that time at the missionarys to fix the projector that had broke on tuesday. I had to disasseble the entire unit, but I managed to get it fixed and back up and running again before our next concert later that night. I also started to work on some of the computer issues the missionary was having and I also needed to get a new computer setup that we had brought him from america. I wasn't able to finish all the computer work, but at least the projector was working wonderfully. Diane had made us all sub sandwiches for dinner that night, but it was just impossible for me to eat anything at the time with my tooth causing so many problems. I was only able to eat a little bit of cheese and then I had to head out to the next concert with the gang. Our next place to go was to the wednesday night church service over at the international church. So we were again able to do one of our presentations in complete english. I was excited for this one because the two guys we had ministered to on Monday night had told us they would come by for the wednesday night church service and we would be able to talk more. Turns out they didn't show up and I was pretty dissappointed. But despite that the service did go very well and we had another great time of mingling with the crowd afterwards this time since they could all speak english. I didn't have the privledge this time of being used by God to communicate the Gospel to an unsaved individual, but one of our singers did actually have the chance and she managed to walk the woman all they way through to a desision that night. So Heaven was rejoicing with us that evening. It was great!!. Felipe ended up meeting me there at the church that night and we headed back to his place just a little before 10:00. It was nice too because usually we get back around 11:00 or later and we aren't able to really do very much and still get to bed at a decent hour. This time though we were able to still have a bible study (and a little longer at that) then pray together and still managed to get to bed a little before midnight. It ended up being a pretty full yet productive day.

posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 8:18 PM  0 comments

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

The last two days have been so amazing!! The Lord has used us greatly. It has showed me the importance of listening to God. Whenever God opens a door for you, it is imparative that you walk through it, for when you do great things happen. Sunday morning we went to the international service and we were able to do the entire service in English. Through our ministry there sunday morning God used us to bring the first person ever to Christ through the Internation church service that the pastor knows of. The church uses a card system where people can fill out and say if they've made a desision and sunday was the first one they ever had comfirmed of a desision for Christ through that church. That was encouraging and it began the chain of events that followed later that evening. But during the afternoon I had the opportunity to hang out with another family (Felipe's girlfriend's) for most of the afternoon. A few of her relatives knew some broken english so I was able to communicate somewhat. But what I had the most fun with was playing with her nephew who was two years old. I had a great time entertaining him and I think the family had fun watching me. He ended up laughing really hard and spitting up some food all over my pants. But it was well worth it. Everybody was laughing. They ended up having Lasagna, it is quite a bit different here in Brazil then it is back home but it was still very good. Then I had the opportunity to try Bregadeto Cake (Allie will make a comment here and tell me how bad I butchered the spelling on that one) But that was some really good stuff. I have had a real problem the past few days with my wisdom teeth though. I really need to get those things pulled because the Devil has continued to use the pain they cause to try and hinder the Work we do here. The only other time they have bothered me so much is when I was back in Utah on my other Mission s trip. Once I got back from that trip the pain went away and they didn't really bother me that much. But now that I am out serving the Lord once again The Devil tries to wiggle his way in and Get at me. This time it is even worse then last time. The tooth has pushed its way down and so much so that every time I bite down I end up biting my cheek. So my cheek is compltely raw right now and then its accompanied by a pounding headache. Not only that I can't open my mouth very far without cutting pain back there. It has not been good at all. It makes it rather difficult to enjoy food. But I fought through it and managed to eat some of the Bregadeto Cake. That was some good stuff, The ice cream they put on it was very nice as well. After the dessert Felipe and I came back to his house and lounged around and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. But we were schedulded to be at the church again at 5:00 to travel to the next church where we would perform that night. The evenign service sunday was even greater as far as effectiveness. The count that we know of so far brought desisions for christ that night up to 21. there was a mass of people that came forward after the service to accept christ. Our Translator Talita gave her testamony to the people in portugues and after that you could really feel the quietness of the people. I wasn't quite sure what she said since it was portugues, but it had a good effect. Our drama I know was greatly used that night as well. I think it was our first time performing it perfectly. We did not make any mistakes at all. But the message was setup to use our drama as an example to the people and they both worked together. When it was all over the people just started coming in. Oh another thing also was we had to get more chairs for all the extra people that had came. we ended up adding about 50 extra chairs in the back then normal. That was also an answer to prayer to have a full house that night, God ended up taking that even further. It was really cool. After the service we went back to the main meeting place for our host homes to come pick us up I was able to talk to his family a little bit more that night after we got back to his place. I gave his sister a little gift also and she got really excited about it. It was just a little stuffed animal thing I brought from the US but apparently she really liked it. Before heading to sleep that night I tried to have a short little bible study with Filipe and then we prayed together also. Felipe is a very new christian and he hasn't made a habit of reading the bible and growing in his relationship with God very much. I have been trying to work with him in that area and he is very receptive to it. He is anxious for us to do that each night. Monday Today was an even greater day for how Christ worked through us. We were invited to go to a Spa/Gym here in the city and play the music for the aerobics class. It was a very unusual thing for us to do as it was nothing the Singers or even the pastor here had ever done before. But thats where we needed to be sensitive to open doors God gave us the opportunity to go into the city in a place where people who had never gone to church before would be able to hear us worship God. We did however have to wake up at 5:00 so we could get to the Gym at 6:30 that morning. While they were doing thier excersices that morning the singers played and sang a few secular songs that the people would recognize just to get them into it, but then they sang thier portugues song of "For God So Loved The World" and I'm pretty sure the message was taken in by quite a few of the people that were there that morning. We ended up giving the instructor a free copy of our CD and she told us she would be using that from now on for her background music. As the aerobics session was getting over we handed out tracts to people as they left the gym and also had some oportunitys to talk to some of the people that could speak a little bit of english, We gave them flyers indicating where we would be through the week so they could come see our full performance and we would have a better opportunity to minister to them in the other settings. We then had an hour break before the next aerobics session where we would sing again for it. During the second session the instructor knew what was coming for our last song and once we got to that song she told the people to just hold a basic stretch and just listen to the music. While the people just listened to the words of the Portugues song I'm sure the spirit moved among many of the people. I and a few others on the team saw some of the people with tears in thier eyes as the song came to a close. We were never really able to see any fruits of that morning come to light, but We know we at least started a spark that would soon grow to a flame in some of those people. The Gym then told us that through this entire week while we were in town we could have a free membership to it and come and go anytime we woudl like while we were here. They had a full olympic sized pool, a weight room, cycling, coffee shop, and lots of other stuff that gyms typically have. So that was a nice perk to have an option for. After we left the gym we were then given the freedom to walk around in the mall for a little over three hours and get anything we wanted to. I exchanged some American money and got some Brazilian Currency $REAL (Pronounced Hay-ow). Then I went and had lunch at McDonalds and ordered a Big Mac and Guanana (yes they have that at McD's it was cool). It took me like a full hour to eat though because with my tooth problem it feels like I am chewing glass without any teeth. It is not a good feeling at all. The BigMacs they have here taste fairly the same but they skimp a lot on the contents.. it was about an inch thinner then it would be in the US. It was still pretty good though. After that I wandered the mall for a while and got a few suveniers and some gifts for Allie I know she would have wanted. It worked out pretty good for me going into stores and not knowing any portugues, but still getting the things I wanted. I also walked through the grocery store for awhile and checked out the cool things they had in Brazilian markets. Then while I waited for the people to all gather and get on the bus I tried some Brazilian coffee at the coffee shop. It was actually pretty good, but it had a weird after taste. Once we left the mall we headed over to the Missionaries home and they had a medium sized swimming pool there and they also had a maid that does proffessional Massages. So some of the team went swimming while they rotated around to get a massage from the Maid. I just spent some time reading the bible and journaling, then I slept for the rest of the time. It was a good relaxing afternoon. But the real journey began for us Monday night. The first part of the week I didn't really feel like we were doing all that much, we just played in churches and it seemed like we were preaching to the Chior and stuff. Now that we were out into the real world sharing christ to the city folk I could really feel the effectivness of our ministry here. I also felt a little useless at first since I wasn't a singer or anything, I didn't really have any "real" job of sharing christ to the people. So far all I really did was stand in the background and help out. Monday night that all changed however. We were to meet at a building where about 100 english teachers from around the city gathered for a meeting. The singers sang a few songs and we had some brazilian fingerfoods but the real ministry happend amongst the mingling. After the singers did thier routine they actually had to rush out and get over to the University to setup for thier next gig over there. But the few of us that weren't singers, or band members stayed behind and talked to the many english teachers that were there. I ended up talking to many of them, but as people started to head out I ended up talking to one english teach who was not saved. This man calls himself a "Master of Religion" he has studied about 5 different religions and tries to live out all five for himself. He is just greatly confused and doesn't know where to turn. I talked to him for over an hour and God gave me all the words I needed to say. There were some scriptures I shared with him that I didn't even know I knew them by heart. Every question he had it seemed God gave me the answer for. I worked my way through most of the obsticles he was struggling with that was keeping him from a relationship to Christ. Meanwhile during my time of sharing Christ with this gentlemen another one of the guys on our team was also engaged in coversation sharing christ to one of these english teachers. As a group we were supposed to go and meet up with the singers at 9:30 because they would have to start thier singing routine at the College. But as our leader went over to tell us it was time to leave God shut his mouth and opened his ears so he could see what was going on. through that we ended up staying to continue with our witnessing to these guys. The Man I talked to I believe is really close to taking the free gift God has to offer. But the final obsticle I could just not get past was this, He thinks that there should be more he has to do then just accept Jesus and repent of Sin. He doesnt understand how that is all that he needs. But through this conversation I believe God took him a lot closer to making a desion. It however got to a critical point were we did have to leave and couldn't stay any longer. Our team really needed us back at the College. We ended up getting the cell phone numbers of these two guys though and we have plans to meet up with them later this week to talk more. They were sooo close and after we got back on the bus to go to the University we showered them in prayers that God would work further in their hearts during this time. After we arrived back at the University the singers had already finished with thier routine but we got their in time for the question and answers from the group of college students. This was another open door God clearly had given to us. We are a christian group singing christian songs but we were allowed into a public school here in Brazil to sing and worship God. Then one of the students ended up asking us about our lives and our church and we had an opportunity to share right on stage what we were all about. It was awsome. The teacher even came up and thanked us in front of her class for the presention after it was all over and she gave us teh opportunity to come back anytime. If that is not God at work I don't know what is. Because we went through this open Door God gave us we ministered to about 200-250 college students and most probably didn't even know Christ. Again we were able to tell them the other places we will be through the week and I think quite a few of them will be coming to those. During those presentations we will be able to come right out and speak about God openly and we will also be able to do our drama as well as share a few testamonies. But Monday was an awsome day and we could clearly feel Gods presence and hand on what we are doing here this week. After leaving the University we met back at the church about 11:40 and returned to our host homes. I was able to share with Filipe the amazing things that happend that day and we both prayed together over those two men we shared christ with as well as the hearts that heard our songs of praise to God who may not have even heard of Christ in that way before. Then before going to sleep We prayed together again, but this time Felipe wanted to give praying in english a try and I was there to witness his first prayer in english. It was very cool to see, he then prayed again in Portugues after that. He was so excited however that he had the opportunity to pray in english and how well he did. I was real proud of him I told him. We ended up getting to sleep shortly after 1:30 Monday.

posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 2:54 PM  0 comments

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Hey everybody, Its sunday afternoon here now and I have a few hours to relax here at my host home. As I think you saw from last nights post I am having a great time. We left friday afternoon at 1:00 and we had about a 17 hour trip until our final destination. I had dressed for classes and left 7:30 friday morning and then I ended up wearing the same clothes for the next two days The donnebergs came to meet me at 1:00 and send me off, Jonathan also came along and we had a good time just hanging out for a little bit while we got loaded up and headed out. It was really nice to have all of the family there to wave good-bye to when I left. It made Allie homesick to know I was going to Brazil and she wasn't. I had to make sure to give her a really big hug before I left. Once the bus left the University we had a very long trip ahead of us. I ended up being the seat mate to one of the guys going to Argentina. We had a good talk regarding spirtitual matters and our own ways of witnessing and things. I also had a little bit of time to listen to my "Portugues in 10 days CD" After we finally arrived at the airport We had to make our way through customs and all the lines all while trying our best to stay together as a group. Once we were on the inside though we ended up having to wait at our gate for about 3 more hours before we could load onto the plane. I just took that time to call my parents, then I read for a little bit. Then finally the moment came. We piled onto the airplane and got situated for a 10 hour flight. It was one of those big jets with 7 seats across and three different Isles. But on the back of every seat was a personal LCD screen so people could watch movies and stuff. One thing I thought was really cool and where I left it most of the time was the "Map" channel It was a direct link to a GPS and it had a diagram of our airplane over the top of a continental map. That was I could know exactly where our plane was at any given time. It also showed our altitude, ground speed, and ETA. That was a really nice perk for the airplane. I ended up being stuck in the middle seat but that was alright, just a little cramped. once we took off and were airborne I started listening to a special CD that Allie made for me with songs relating to serving the lord and mission trip oriented things. A lot of those songs I had heard before but they portray a whole new meaning when your headed into unfamilar territory for the work of Christ. They energized me and got me thinking quite a bit about the many things I will accomplish while I'm here. I then spent some time in prayer and just being silent with God that ended up turning into me falling asleep though. But still I felt good from it all after waking back up. For two hours of the flight I ended up watching "Pay it Forward" that was one of the movie options I had amongst the 5 that they were showing through the programming. Once that was over I listened to Allie's CD again but fell asleep again somewhere after the third song. The next time I woke up we were within 30 minutes of touching down. I flipped over to the "map" channel and watched as we got closer and closer to Sao Paulo. By this time I was getting pretty excited. I really wanted desperatly to see out side of the window but I was in the smack dab middle of the airplane with no way of getting a glimse of the city as we flew over. Then once we landed I didn~t realize how close we were to the ground until I heard and felt the bump bump. At this time I still was not able to see outside and it felt like we were taxing on the tarmac for about an hour before it was finally time to get off. Then after de-planeing I walked into the terminal to find portugues all over the place that was a great sight. It was a good thing our plane came in when it did though because after we found our way to the customs and started to stand in line mass amounts of people came in after us. I think it was like three other planes or something. But if our plane would have even been five minutes late we would have ended up being in customs for maybe up to 2 hours. we fortunatley only had to be in line for roughly 30-40 minutes. That process was very clean and none of us were given any trouble. Then once we reached the baggage claim all of our bags were there and accounted for, so we praised the Lord for that. We worked our way around the airport to reach the main terminal. We had to stop short of going outside though while we waited for the bus to come and pick us up from the church. the short wait turned into a little over an hour though because the van ended up getting stopped in traffic behind an accident. (it was an hour drive to the airport for them) So while we waited we were given permission to wander around as long as we were back in half an hour. I took the opportunity to run outside to get a whiff of brazillian air. As soon as I stepped outside I was surrounded by cigarette smoke and inhaled a big wad. That was pretty dissapointing. After making my way out to the sunlight though it was amazing to see the sky and the trees and the people. Allie told me there was a really cool tree outside I had to go look at too, but I wasn~t sure if I know what she was talking about. I ended up just taking a picture of the one I think she meant and I'll show her when I get back and ask. But I of course had to attempt to climb a palm tree and found out its not that easy. But it was still cool to attempt. Through all of this it was about 85 degrees and since it was about 32 when we left lynchburg I was wearing a long sleeve teeshirt and a fleece jacket. I was actually stll pretty comfortable like that but I took it off because when the other people saw me they said it made them all hot. I also ended up making the first contact with a brazilian man. Come to find out he was a pastor for a church right there in sao paulo but it was difficult to figure out all he meant because he had very broken english. Barely even knew what he was saying. It was fun to work with hand gestures however. Later Talita (our translator) came over and talked to him more so we could completely understand each other. After awhile our bus finally showed up and we were on our way to the church hosting us. On the way we stopped for lunch at a truck stop with a restarunte called a churrascaria. It was fun going to one of those. Its like a brazillian buffet. Then the chefs come around at different times and bring big slabs of meat on a giant knife and if you want some of it you can cut yourself off a slice. Another thing I really really liked was the all you can dring passion fruit juice (Maracuja suco) I was lovin that up very well. Once we had our bellys full we continued our quest on to the church. I kind of fell asleep again on the way there. But we finally arrived at our destination at 3:30 Brazillian time and then we had a concert right away at 6:00 that same night. But first before we did that we met up with our hosts that were to take us home so we could shower and drop off all of our stuff before we returned to the church for our first concert. Everybody ended up having thier host come and pick them up except for three of us by the time mine had showed up. Turns out the host that they had lined up for me previously was not able to do it after all, so they ended up finding me another family to take me to. It was clearly a work of God how that all worked out though. The family God sent me to needed me a lot more then the other one would have. The new hosts I was given to had a guy who is 22 years old and comes to the church there. He is the only one in the family that knows any english and also the only one that is saved. Every other team member was sent to a house where the family is full of christians involved in the church and knew the Lord on a personal level. Most of thier homes knew english fluently as well. I ended up being put into a family where only one person knows english and I have a great opportunity to attempt to share christ with these people or at least show them the Love of God through my actions and joyful attitude. I am so stoked over this awsome opportunity God has provided to me. At firt coming on this trip I didn't know how God will use me since I am not one of the singers, and my only real puropse was to help out where I was needed. God clearly had other plans in mind. Also because of the 22 year old boy (Felipe/Philip) they placed me with, I then had a link to the rest of the youth attending the church and was able to get to know them as well. Its only been two days and I have made many brazilian friends (I~ve even been hit on multiple times..) It has just been an amazing trip so far. Our first concert that night was in a service where supposedly nobody spoke english so through everything we did we had to use a translator, but the worship time and the singers did amazingly well through it all and the songs they sang in portugues I heard were flawless as far as pronouciation so that was a complete success. Our first drama was a little shaky though but we pulled it through, we just found out where our mistakes were at, and learned from them. After the service we just enojoyed ourselfs relaxing and the church had a nice meal for us. After we ate and were satisfied we then got in the bus and went to sit in on the youth group session that was already in progress back at the other building. we sat in for awhile and then just went outside to munch on some snackes while we waited for our hosts to come get us. I again met quite a few of the teenage brazilians and had a good time attempting to communicate with them. Once Felipe had come by to pick me up again and take me home that is when the good time of relationship building started. The first time I went home with him to drop off things, none of his family was there because they were all at work. But after the church service was over and we went back home the family was all there and I had a great time of getting to know them best I could through the language barrier. Felipe also had his girlfriend over at the time too so I had the great opportunity to meet her as well. Then ended up having a late dinner and even though I had eaten already I wasn't going to pass up a meal like that. I had to try everything. I also tried something called a Kibe (Key-bee) and Esfihas it was all very good. After dinner we took Filipe's girlfriend back home and then we drove around the city for awhile just me and him. Then we also stopped in at the market to pick up a few groceries for breakfast. (He wanted me to cook the family breakfast in the morning so they could try american food) I'll talk more about that in my next post though. But the city is amazing and I had a blast hanging out with him. We ended up being out on the town until around 12:30 at night. then we stayed up until about 1:30 just talking and teaching each other part of our languanges. I'm still having a hard time remembering anything he tells me. I learn a word from him and forget it in an hour. I'm glad he is better at english then I am at portugues or we would have a few problems. But anyway.. its getting close for me to leave again to another concert so I'll just have to stop here and continue on later if I have another chance to sit and write a little bit. But I can surely see the work of God every second that passes. Its great to know that wether I am in Virgina, Seattle, Or Sao Paulo Brazil -- God is the same God any time any place and he is proecting and nurturing and watching out for us. His spirit will guide us through anything. It is a marvelous truth you can't help but see excpecially when you are over 4000 miles from home.

posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 2:54 PM  0 comments

Saturday, March 12, 2005

Hey everybody I am in Brazil So far It has been so awsome! I wish I had more time to talk about how great it is. It is so exciting. It was about 85 when I got here and there are palm tree all over.. man thats great. My first whiff of brazilian air was cigarette smoke but anyway I need to get to sleep and I will try and write more later... its 1:30am here and we have to wake up for a concert early. But I am doing well and I~m excited. Chow Ate Mais

posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 11:30 PM  0 comments

Friday, March 11, 2005

Ok, today was my last full standard day here in the USA until after I get back from Brazil. I still had to go to class this morning and to a big group presentation. I think that went alright, at least we didn't mess up really big or anything. After that class I ended up going back to my room to have my quiet time, and also started the packing process a little more. While I was there I needed to finish wrapping presents for Britt, and Allie's "party" we were going to have for them tonight. I managed to get that all finished just in time to make it to my Aviation class on time. That class got out a little early so I just went to lunch early and relaxed for a bit. But the time soon came for me to head off to work for the last time before I left on my trip. It was actually a very normal day there today. I did end up having to help a customer that wanted to return something. Well we have a policy (written on all of our recepts) that there is a 15% restocking fee for returned items that aren't just exchanged. Well this customer got all upset about it and said he wouldn't accept that. Andy was gone at the time, so I couldn't ask if it would be alright to override the policy so I just had to stand by what we had. The worst part is.. the item he was returning was only $6 so he was making all this fuss over 90cents. Anyway he finally just took the $5.10 and left the store fairly upset. That added a nice little twist to the day I guess. Anyway, once we closed up I left the shop and went directly to pick up Britt and Allie to take them out to dinner for thier birthday party thing. Jonathan and Robert ended up meeting us at the restaraunt. We took them out to Olive Garden and I'm pretty sure they enjoyed themselves. After dinner we went back to thier house to hang out for a little bit so they could open the presents from me and Robert and Jonathan. (Thier birthdays are still a few days away, but I had to do it tonight or else I wouldn't be able to until after I got back). I ended up getting Brittany a Giant Guitar Pick and a new Flip/Camera/Cell Phone. She really liked her phone, but I wasn't quite sure what she thought of her Guitar Pick. It was pretty funny though. Then I ended up Getting Allie three bottles of my favorite purfume so she could keep one in her dorm and her car and her house so that way no matter where she is she will always be able to wear it. I told her she is not allowed to Skimp on it either, she has to use lots n lots!!! Then I also gave her my other gift, it was one I've been working on for quite a while now. I drew her seven different pictures of multiple Alley ways and then also a picture of herself. I will end up putting copies of them on my photos page later once I get back from my trip. She really seemed to like them though so that was really cool. Robert and Jonathan gave them thier gifts too, and then we just hung out for a little while at thier house. I had to leave and come back to campus a little early then everyone else though because I had to get some stuff taken care of for prayer leader things. We then had hall meeting and Prayer groups before I could work with finalizing packing up my suitcase. I think I am finally finished with it all now though. I can get to sleep and be ready to face the day tomorrow! I"m getting pretty excited. Tomorrow I will be leaving the country for the first time in my life. I'm headed out there to see what the Lord has for me and I"m sure he has a big plan all sketched out. But for now, first things first, I have to wake up and go to my last class tomorrow morning at 8:00. So I'll say good night, and just incase I don't get another chance, this may be my last blog post for a few days, keep me in your prayers and I'll be back at it again once I return.

posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 2:18 AM  0 comments

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Today was kind of an interesting day for me. I ended up sleeping in until 10:15 completely by accident. I should have woke up by 7:00. So I ended up missing my first class and I would have been late for convo. So basicly what I did was then call the doctors office about getting my Yellow Fever shot today. They were able to squeeze me in and so I made an appointment for 10:50. Once I got there I had to wait for a little while still for them to take me in. Once I was called, it still took awhile for them to prepare the vaccine. I ended up being there until right around 12:10. The nurse ended up writing me a doctors note so I could be excused from my class since it had taken so long. I ended up being able to use the same note for my excuse out of convo so that was cool. Then once I returned to campus I talked to my proffessor from my first class and he let me take the exam I missed in the testing center. So I called Andy to see if he would let me come in later so I would have time to take the test. But I also had a missions trip meeting at 3:30 today so I wouldn't have been able to go until after that (cause the test took me until a little after 2:00 to complete). Andy ended up just letting me take the whole day off since I would really only be there for two hours today because of all of this. That ended up being a very good thing though because I had sooo much other stuff I needed to do today. I had to make sure I got to a prayer leader meeting, then I also had to take care of something in the Students accounts office today. Then I also had a major group project I needed to try and get done. With that little bit of extra time I had, I still didn't get it all done. I had to come back after church and finish the rest. But anyway, I did take a break and met up with Allie and Britt at the Mall so britt could get some shoes real quick, then we all went to church together. Church was pretty good tonight and it was nice to see everyone again before I left on my trip, but unfortunatly my load of homework wasn't getting done at all during the time there. So Allie and I ended up hurring back to campus after church to dive in to the rest of our homework. I've been working on it all night and I finally got it all finished. I only had to stay up till 3:00 to get it done.. I also needed to work on my prayer group lesson for tomorrow and get a few things started packing tonight for my trip. I wish all my classes didn't have everything going on at once during this time. I really needed some time to think and prepare for my trip. Life just hasn't let it happen yet though. I guess I'll have time on our 12 hour plane ride. Ok well anyway, I really have to get to sleep. I have my group presentation due tomorrow morning. Night!

posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 3:11 AM  0 comments

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

I didn't have a chance to blog last night. I was up till around 2:30 working on homework, I didn't even get to finish it all either. But anyway, yesterday was a pretty full day for me. I had my first class as normal (stupid accounting) and then I left directly from that class to the airport. I had the opportunity to fly today so that was cool. It was a really nice day visually, but the winds were pretty strong however. Because of the turbulence and stuff I didn't know If my stomach could handle doing all our other spins and stuff for practice. So we just did some naviagion flight instead as far as going from point A to point B. Then we also did some landing and take offs again. I landed and took off 4 times yesterday. My stomach as getting pretty quezy still with all the wind sheer, and at one point I felt it about to come up. Unfortunatly there weren't any barf bags in the plane this time, so I kinda just had to swallow this one. (Good thing it wasn't all out throw up like last time.) But still it was pretty nasty. I also ended up getting Jet fuel all over myself yesterday too. When I was doing the preflight and checking the fuel tanks, a big gust of wind came and made the plane tip quite a bit, and fuel poured out everywhere. So that wasn't cool either. But anyway over all I feel like I learned a good ampount of stuff yesterday and I had a good time. Oh also while I was out flying I decided it would be cool to fly over the vines center at fairly low altitude right when Convo was getting out. I think convo got out slightly early though because there wasn't a mass of people like usual down there, it was just smaller groups. I asked Allie if she saw me, but she didn't. So anyway after I flew, I then headed to my last class, then straight to work. Once I got off work I then had to do a little shopping. I went to the mall first to get a few items there and while I was there I came across Allie and Jo who were there doing some shopping as well. It was a nice surprise to run into them. Anyway after I got what I needed at the mall I then had to run by Wal-mart as well it gather a few other misc. Items. But I finally got everything I needed and returned to my room for homework stuff the rest of the night. I had to be interuppted twice though becuase I had a prayer leader meeting at 10:00 then a group project meeting at the computer lab at 11:00, so I didn't get as much work done as I would have liked last night. Anyway, I finally headed to bed around 2:30 pretty fammished. Anyway, just thought I would fill in the empty day. I might have time to write more tonight.

posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 10:08 AM  0 comments

Monday, March 07, 2005

Today my church gathered around me in prayer during the service this morning. They asked that God would do great things through me on my trip to Brazil. I know that my church, and all of you back here, will be with me in prayer while I go. Thankyou in advance for the blanket of prayer I will recieve and have alread recived. Today was a great day to just relax and enjoy myself. I did have a little bit more homework I kind of needed to do, but I really just couldn't bring myself to start on it today. I was just so worn out from everything going on. I ended up being able to nap for most of the afternoon over at the Donnebergs. It was wonderful. Near the end of the evening we started watching a movie called "Luthor" it was actually a really good movie but it ended up going pretty late and we had to leave before it finished. So anyway I'm back on campus now and I just had to finish up some required things for tomorrow, but now its getting late all over again so I need to get to sleep. So Good night!

posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 2:14 AM  0 comments

Sunday, March 06, 2005

Hey! I'm not going to be able to blog tonight.. Its too late and I don't have time. Sorry! I'll catch up with you tomorrow night probalby.

posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 3:02 AM  0 comments

Saturday, March 05, 2005

ok, yeah I'm turning in for the night.

posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 2:24 AM  0 comments

Friday, March 04, 2005

Yesterday was a pretty rough day for me. I just had waaaaaayyy to many things I had to do. I had all my classes as normal followed by work, but my day just got hectic once I returned to campus after my day. I needed to go and get Hepatis A shots last night at 7:30 (my arm still hurts from it) and I also had a boat load of homework as well as getting ready for prayer groups and I also needed to get stuff ready to ship out I had sold on e-bay. I had a computer for Brittany I was working on getting fixed up for her too. I also had a few other small random things I needed to take care of last night as well. I ended up staying up until like 2:15ish last night. I'm a little on the tired side today thats for sure. But I have one more class now for the day and then I have a weekend! Yea! OK anyway. I gotta get to class.

posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 12:08 PM  0 comments

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Woke up and went to accounting class. Next I had convo and Jonathan came to sit with me, that was cool. I ended up dozing off here and there though. The message was pretty good this mornign though on Integrity. Then after convo I had to go to a prayer leader meeting, followed by my Statistics class. I then had to hurry to work and help out over there. I had to leave in the middle of the day for a meeting for my missions trip though. The meeting today he just gave us some more information stuff to look over and he told us a rough angenda we would be following while we are down there. It sounds like a very full week. Anyway after the meeting I headed back to work for the rest of the day until closing. After work I went directly to church and I had to run though a practice of the "drama" I would have to do tonight. It wasn't really much of a drama though. All I did was hold a whip and explain how it worked. (I still screwed up a little, but oh well, it wasn't that bad). Anyway, I really enjoyed church tonight and it was nice to be there. We had communion tonight as well. After church I ended up going over to the donnebergs house for part of the evening to work on some computer stuff. I ended up just taking the computer with me back to my dorm because it had a few other problems I needed to resolve. After getting back on campus I decided to start on my homework. After getting into that a little ways Allie ended up coming to my window and she brought me some juice and some cookies. It was great, I loved it. But anyway while she was at my window we ended up talking for about an hour or so. It was really cold outside though and it would have been better to just go somewhere rather then stand in the cold. But we weren't really planning on chatting for that long. Even though I had lots of homework to do, I'm glad we still had some time to talk, it was a good time. Anyway after she left (just before freezing to death) I tried to get as far as possible on my work I needed to do tonight. I wish I could have got more done, but its not that big of a deal. I'll just work on it tomorrow night or something. Anyway, I need to get to bed. I be sleepy.

posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 1:33 AM  0 comments

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Back in class today, I had a test in my AVIA class. I think I did pretty good on it though. Had lunch with Allie and Jonathan then I headed off to work. Nothing too exciting at work, just hung around until closing. After I left work I grabbed take out for dinner and came back to my room and I've been here ever since. I got quite a bit of stuff done tonight though so it was fairly productive. But yeah, thats it for me. I'm done for the night. Off to bed I go! Night!

posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 12:55 AM  0 comments

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Today I woke up and got ready for class only to find out that classes were canceled for the day. Since I was awake already, I figured I might as well just stay awake. Andy ended up asking me if I wanted to just come into work full time today. I told him I would see how things go. I ended up going to breakfast with Allie this morning and then decided to just go to work after that. But first since everything was closed down I gave Allie a ride to her house so she could just hang out there for the day. Then I spent the rest of the day at work. I tried to get to the Doctor today but it didn't end up working out. I need to get my Immunizations for my trip coming up. Because of the snow I wasn't sure if they would be open so I called them to make sure. Turns out they were going to be open until 2:00 so I left work to run down and get those done. By the time I got there though they had closed already. It was rather annoying because not only did I have to leave work for it, but I also had to fight the snow the whole way there. I have to figure out what I"m going to do for them now. So anyway I just headed back to work till closing. After work I ended up going to the Donnebergs for dinner, then Britt, Allie, and I went to Jonathans house for the evening to watch a movie. "Taxi" I had a good time haning out and stuff. I ended up falling asleep for part of it though. Anyway, now I"m back here at my dorm and I am about to go to sleep. I have a feeling we are going to have school tomorrow so I need to get to sleep. Night!

posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 1:27 AM  0 comments

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