Today is the anniversary of the day we went to Brazil exactly 35 years ago. Anticipation and excitement along with a healthy dose of fear joined us on that first trip. We were young - yes, we really were quite a long time ago. We naively believed we were going to Brazil, never to return to the USA to live. So we packed up all of our earthly possessions and shipped them all in big metal drums and packing crates. If we had realized there was no house there waiting for us we might not have been so enthusiastic. Most of those possessions remained stored in the barrels for many, many years before we had a place to call home and to unpack them all.
Our son John was one of the main reasons we finally purchased a home. Moving into any and every available home and packing up everything each time we traveled into one of the Indian villages was definitely getting old. And John seemed to be the one who felt it the most. When we finally purchased a home and moved into it, we could see an almost immediate impact on him in a positive way.
The house was small, but the backyard was surrounded on three sides by virgin jungle. It was wonderful. We were frequently visited by monkeys and exotic birds. The strip of jungle around all the houses became the boys' paradise. John and his buddies built tree houses high up in the canopy. (Fortunately we parents never saw them and didn't even know about them until much, much later.)
Brazil became our home and even though John was actually born in the USA, he claimed Brazil as his home...until God called him to his forever home. Read about it in Aloha is Forever.
