Like a Family

Living Stones functions much like a family, complete with me (Rachel) saying “You need to listen or I will go tell Flavio,” which normally works. I might be able to get kids in Indianapolis inner city to listen, but these kids still hold out. Yelling and punishment are not proper solutions, but it is all they know. It takes a long time to retrain these things.

For me and my family, it was really after we began getting up in the morning, having devotions and breakfast together, that Christianity came to life. Living Stones begins with us sitting in a circle, in the church or under a tree, and having devotions. Then Flavio gets out the guitar and we sing.

From there, every day is different. Sometimes we get into a conversation started from the devotional. Or we talk about something that is going on in the kid’s lives. Or we play Frisbee or soccer. Other times, we actually follow what I plan and talk about a character quality and color a picture or do a craft.

During, in, and through this time, Flavio or I am figuring out what to cook for lunch, cooking lunch, serving lunch, and washing dishes. Lately the girls have been helping me cook. We sit at the table cutting up vegetables and stirring pots while chatting about life and what we want it to look like. One of the girls brought a bag of potatoes from her garden, so we had potatoes with everything all week: beans and potatoes, noodles and potatoes, fuba (similar to cornbread) and potatoes, soja (a soy bean meat substitute) and potatoes,  and chicken and potatoes. It was a lot of potatoes.

Wednesday, October 12, is Children’s day. The community churches use this holiday to get together at Word of Life and celebrate with our church family as well as our personal family. It is $10r a person, so most of the Living Stone’s children do not have the money to go—and this is their one chance a year to go swimming in an actual pool with a waterslide.

Last week we put together some jobs around the church to do in exchange for the money needed to go to the party next week. The boys worked hard, weeding and raking the grounds, while the girls washed down the whole church and all the classrooms. If you would like to help support their work, please go to www.wribrazil.com to donate ( Please make sure it is under Living Stones, and marked for Children’s day).

One marked memory is when five or six of the kids were in the kitchen (while I was trying to cook), sweeping and mopping the floor while we all sang and danced to the World Cup song “Waka Waka.” Paulo came in from outside, covered in sweat, so started a slip-and-slide—belly first, across the kitchen floor.

Plans are still working towards our big Children’s day party, on October 25. Funds are still needed to make sure we can have over 150 children for an afternoon of fun and evangelism, complete with cotton candy, bounce house, trampoline, popcorn, clowns, and hot dogs. See the above link for donations.