Justin Acuff’s Blog

Today’s trip got off to a much later start than normal. It was planned that way though. Just before our hiking adventure, Michele was going to be passing through town, so Jon, Mer, and I had lunch with her. It was good to see her. Had to leave kind of early because we were going to meet up at the church building at 12:45 to go hiking in the Big South Fork area. Surprisingly, we actually left close to on time. Nobody was really late.

The event was advertised to all the youth group going into 9th grade and up. The people who went were, Bryan and Me (youth workers), Elizabeth B. and Matt T. (just finished their freshman year in college), and Benton S. and Paul H. (fixing to be seniors in high school). All in all it was a really fun trip. There are lots of rock walls which would be fun for climbing and repelling. Too bad I didn’t bring any of my gear.

Alright, I’m really tired now and I still need to make some changes to the MediaShout for worship tomorrow, so I’m just gonna cut straight to one story. Everybody is alright, so this makes for a really funny story. Around dinner time, we setup camp and started a fire. We cooked hamburgers and hot dogs. For dessert, we cooked Smores. I’m not going to take for granted that everybody knows what a Smore is… Its two graham crackers with chocolate and marshmallow between them. Well we were roasting the marshmallows over the fire. Paul had gotten one really burned and for fun, he threw it against the rock wall that was nearby to our campsite. When it hit the wall, it stuck to it. So well, he decides to do it again. He puts the marshmallows on his stick and puts them over the fire. It catches on fire like its supposed to do. As he’s bringing it over, it falls off onto his leg. (I can imagine how hot it was). Well human instinct reacts to begin stimulated like that… however, his response was to fall down INTO the fire. Luckily Benton was close by and prevented him from rolling into the fire. Thank goodness he didn’t get injured. Some of you may look at my pictures for this trip at http://gallery2.justinacuff.net/v/hiking_biking_outdoors/Honey_Creek_2005-07-30/ and see a picture of Paul’s leg. Even though it looks like of like bird crap, its really the marshmallow that burned him. Once we saw that he was ok, well all broke out in laughter. It was scary at first, but has got to be one of the funniest things I have seen since returning to the United States.

This year Mike, Jessica, and I are going to the National Campus Ministries Seminar at the University of Oklahoma. Mike and Jessica will fly out on Wednesday afternoon because Mike has a Campus Crosswalk meeting. I am not flying out until Thursday afternoon…

So if anybody could give me a ride to the airport around 1:00, that would be great. We are all flying back on the same plane on Sunday, so I can just get a ride with them on the way back. Thanks in advance.

… my luggage didn’t make it on the plane to Knoxville. I kinda figured it was going to happen. Switching airlines from American to Delta with only 1 hour… So hopefully it comes today. Oddly enough… I had two orders of pictures from Walmart.com. I did one order of 149 on Saturday morning and one order of 44 on Saturday evening. The only order that had come in was the one I ordered later. Oh well, hopefully they will have the others tomorrow and I can start putting them in a photo album.

Even after a night of blowing stuff up, we managed to make it out of Brazil without any injuries. I guess the UTKNOX has to thank the team from Lubbock, Texas team for taking both of the two required injuries for the year. Kristy took the required Buggy injury (Chad) and Tim took the required night before injury (Me).

Ok, so Amy and I have arrived in Dallas, TX for the end meeting (with all our bags so far). Now that I’m back in the US, I can’t wait to get back home. It was nice to take a hot shower again. We have a crazy flight schedule though… We fly from Dallas to Orlando and then switch airlines in Orlando (from American to Delta). …I’m not a big fan of Delta… This has me really worried about getting our luggage lost. We only have an hour layover in Orlando, so that doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for a delay in Dallas.

It saddens me to write this post… but tomorrow I will be getting my flight to arrive back in the United States. We fly out of João Pessoa to Recife to São Paulo to Miami to Dallas. In Dallas we spend the night because we have the end meeting with LST. After that is over with, we fly from Dallas to Orlando to Knoxville. This year has been really great and I really do want to return later. If not doing LST, then doing something else.

Today was a last party. This is something I am glad of. I know the purpose they parties serve and they are great for that purpose, but they can be so draining on hosting. Today we were a man short. Chad left this afternoon since he has to be back at work on Monday. The fourth person is really a help in keeping the flow of the party going. Our theme was Arr!!! Pirates! Some of the first couple of games seemed to drag to me, but I think people had fun. Our biggest hit was the treasure hunt. We had 4 pieces of a map with clues on the back to find the next piece of the map. Tafanie, thanks for helping out tonight… We really needed you. It would have been impossible to watch the food and make sure the games were running smoothly with only three people.

To all my new Brazilian readers, I love y’all very much and I am glad I got to spend this short time with y’all. Last year, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to return, but God provided a way. I pray that he opens an opportunity for me to come back next year as well. To those of you that I met last year, I feel like this year I haven’t gotten to know y’all even better and am really thankful for the times we shared. Thanks to many different things, its a lot easier to stay in touch. To the people that I just meet this year, these past two weeks (or less if you didn’t show up for a while… ) have been great. God Bless you all.

Goodnight everyone… I must put off packing until the morning. Bye Bye Everyone.

No Tafanie, we aren’t laughing WITH you, we’re laughing AT you.

After finishing our reading sessions on Thursday, we were going to go over to Joey and Edda McKinney’s house for dinner and to spend the night. Their house is very nice, but has on big problem… BUGS! The other morning (Chad, Amy, and I weren’t there, but trust us, we’ve heard this story many times…), Tafanie was over at their house. Before you eat a meal, you need to go around and kill all the flies. However, you aren’t allowed to kill them on the table. Well for those of y’all that know Tafanie’s sense of humor, she says the table is a “No Fly Zone… You Get it? A No Fly Zone? HAHAHAHA!” So this morning, Joey made her a sign…

After Breakfast, we heard a song that was made up about the injuries last year. I thankfully had the less serious of the two with a broken toe. Chad broke his collarbone which required surgery. Joey and David made up a song about us. (Mostly about Chad though). He is Titanium Man and I am his sidekick, Tonto Toe. They sang it to us. Finally we began our day long adventure with the buggies. Since we had 7 people, we had to get two buggies. Our experience wasn’t the same as last year… This was very calm and without “emotion”. It was just a ride along the south coast of Paraiba (the state we are in here in Brazil). Our ride ended at a beach called Tambaba, a nudist beach. Don’t worry, the beach is divided into two parts… a regular beach and then the naturalist beach. We only stayed on the regular beach.

As my previous post stated, yesterday morning started out very early. We set our alarms for 4:00 so we would be ready for Julian to take us to Cabo Branco to see the sunrise. Afterwards, we came back to the school and went back to sleep for a little bit. It still wasn’t enough time though. Wednesdays are also my busiest day. From 10:00 - 12:00 is the only free time I have until I am finished reading at 7:00. 4:00 is when the church members meet here to play soccer so I try to keep that time free. We didn’t start playing soccer until a little after 5:00 though. I didn’t get to play very long because I had a reader at 6:00 and I figured it was probably better to shower before that session started.

Yesterday was also Iordan’s birthday. Amy, Chad, Jesse, and I decided we wanted to get him something. We each pitched in a little and got him an English - Portuguese Bible. Yesterday was also Friend’s Day in Brazil. People write notes to their friends and give it to them. I know I’ve heard some of y’all say that you want Valentine’s day to be more like that.

Last night Natalia, Andrea, Giselle, and Amanda wanted to take us out for Tapioca. Unfortunately Chad and Jesse had readers, so they weren’t able to go. It was very good. I’ve only had Tapioca pudding in the United States. This is VERY different. Its almost like an omelet but not so much egg. I also got to try Macaxeira. I didn’t like it as much. So after we finished eating, we walked along the street where there were lots of stores. Being the only guy in the group meant a lot of standing around while they shop. This is when I really wished Chad and Jesse were there. The night still wasn’t over… We continued walking and got ice cream. While we were walking though, we stopped several time to take some crazy pics. I end this post with one of them.

Julian is one of Jesse’s readers. Last week he took us to the fort at Cabedelo and to Jacaré. Yesterday he showed up at the school because he wanted to take us to Cabo Branco to see the sunrise. As I have mentioned before, Cabo Branco is the furtherest point east of the Americas. Julian arranged to pick us up at the school at 5:00 A.M. He has really been wanting to take Jesse to see it. Jesse didn’t go with us because he was staying the night at Joe’s (Lori’s brother) so that he could go to the airport to get his return ticket changed.

One of the things about Jacaré, is that a guy plays the saxophone while the sun is setting. It is supposed to be one of the most beautiful sunsets in the world. Julian, being a saxophone player, decided to give us a surprise. While we are standing there, he goes to his car and pulls out his saxophone and starts playing for us. He was very good. It was a very pleasant surprise. Afterwards, we headed to the true extreme point, Pointe do Seixas and walked along the beach there for a little bit. Afterwards, we came back to the school and needless to say, we went back to bed.

Today is also Iordan’s birthday.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, IORDAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well today was mostly just reading sessions. I had 8 on my schedule, but only 3 showed up. Of the three that showed up though, 2 signed up for more time later this week. The friendships I formed last year seem stronger this year and I am forming new friendships. Its really great. It’s going to be hard leaving again. I’m really tired right now, so this post is going to be brief.

If you haven’t noticed… I’ve been putting up pictures pretty frequently. All of this years pictures (so far), can be found at: http://gallery2.justinacuff.net/v/mission_trips/Brazil_LST_2005-07-09/

Saturday was the second of our free days. We started off the day by going to Hiper Bompreço (a big superstore kind of like Wal-Mart, actually its owned by Wal-Mart). We went there to get some groceries for the next few days and to get ice cream and stuff to make cookies for the party that night. We ate lunch at the Pizza Hut in Hiper. Pizza Hut is really good down here (I’m not one usually for pizza). I think I like it so much better down here is they put way less tomato sauce on it. Anyways, its also one of the most expensive restaurants we will eat at. After we eat, we took our groceries back to the school and put them up.

For the next part of our day, we went to the downtown area. First we went to the zoo. It was worth the R$1,00 to get in, but not much more than that. For those that are curious, R$1,00 is equal to about 42 cents. The exchange rate isn’t quite as good this year as it was last. A lot of the animals were just in their feeding cages. It must have been their nap time or something. Oh well… We did get to see some cool birds, monkeys, and quati. After the zoo we went to the São Francisco Church. Jesse, Amy, and I did the tour of the church. I don’t think some of the people from Laurel could handle visiting this church. It had a lot of beautiful sculptures and paintings of Jesus on the cross. The church is no longer used for religious services anymore. They have turned the upstairs into kind of a history of the church and the city. After we finished this church, we headed to the old governor’s mansion. We watched the sunset from there and then took a bus back to the school.

Saturday night was our first LST party of our project. We had a small turnout, but it still turned out to be a lot of fun. We just played miscellaneous games and relays. I kind of missed the first couple of games because Lori had showed up with my laundry. I figured it was kind of important to start getting my clothes hung so they might dry before church started the next morning. It was a really good time though. The flash on my camera had been set to full power, so I have a lot of over exposed pictures… I’ll try to fix some of them, but a lot of them will take some work to fix. I have only put up a few of the better ones on my site for now.

Today (Sunday), we had church in the morning. Afterwards, we ate lunch with Joe McKinney and his kids, The Hagewoods, and Ricardo and his sons. The women were all out on a women’s retreat this weekend (except Lori for obvious reasons). Which reminds me, a comment was made at the party last night that you could tell the women were absent because of our decorations. After lunch, I ended up going with Lori, her mom, and Amy to the Artisan market. I’ve been a few times, so I new exactly what I was looking for. I should have just walked back from the market. I had a reader at 3:00. At 2:30 I said we probably ought to get going. Of course, we don’t leave until 3:10. Thank goodness Chad was willing to cover. Davison was the only reader to show up at 3:00. Then my 4:00 reader showed up at 4:25. Before I tell you who he is, let me tell you a little about him. He’s CRAZY! HAHAHA He’s also very good at Pump It Up. A game very similar to Dance, Dance Revolution. After his session, he hung out with us for a while. Chad, Amy, and I had decided we needed to get out, so we decided to go to the Mall. There is food there and there is also a movie theater. Well on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday the movies are R$12,00. When we had gone earlier it was just R$8,00. The movie was also going to start really late, so we decided to come back on another day to see it. Since my reader had one credit for Pump It Up, we went into Gamestation and watched him play. He’s very good. Way better than I would be. Now let me introduce this reader to you. He’s Iordan. I can’t quite think of anybody at the CSC or at Laurel with an attitude like his. Well after we watched him do his four songs, we caught a bus back to the school. Since the last time I was here, they have gotten a ping pong table. I’m not as good as Charlie or Joey, but I’m not all that bad either. The paddles and ping pong balls have been missing up until today. I played Nielson and it wasn’t even a match.

Well Meredith, you were right, it is very difficult to blog when the Internet is down. I hope nothing urgent from work has come in or anything else. The internet has not been working here since Tuesday afternoon. You see, Hunter owns a business and on Monday and Friday he is here in João Pessoa, but on Tuesday through Thursday he is in Campina Grande. The DSL and Wireless Router are kept in his office at the Escola da Biblia. Well on Tuesday afternoon there was a power outage that lasted for several hours. (Long enough that our beef was rank). When the power came on, the wireless network was not working. The office didn’t see the effects until Wednesday morning. Junior’s computer also uses wireless to get on. When someone with a key came in, I got to take a look and see what the problem was. Brazil runs on a 220V system. The DSL modem is 110V (this is what the US uses). Hunter has a special power strip that converts the power into 110V. This power strip must have spiked when the power went out and it blew the transformer in the DSL modem’s power supply. So needless to say, we’ve been without internet for quite a while now.

But enough about that… Let’s give a run down of what all has happened: It’s been really great getting to see people from last year and meeting some new people as well. I have a reader everyday at 4:00, but he hasn’t been showing up. Yesterday we played soccer at 4:00 with the church members so I decided to play… Guess what, he shows up. I didn’t read with him yesterday, but he hung out plenty at the church. Then I get a call from Renaldo… (he read with Jenny and Loraine last year) He wanted to meet us today to take us to this Special Cultural Market. I asked him if noon was alright and he said yes. Well tonight at 7:00 he shows up. He thought noon meant in the evening… oh well. It’s all good; he was taking his girlfriend and his sister too. We already had plans to eat dinner with Hunter, Lori, Mathias, and Sabrina. Who is Sabrina? Well she’s still inside Lori’s tummy but any day now…

Thursday we also got a visit from Dalcino. Chad emailed him that we were in town and he came by to see him. Both Chad and I read with him last year. He’s a really great guy. It was really good to see him.

I know I’m jumping around, but I’m writing as stuff comes in my head. On Wednesday night, one of Jesse’s reader’s, Robinson wanted Jesse to come look at his computer. Jesse points him over to me, since I’m pretty good with computers. We walk for 25 minutes to his house which is 10 minutes away. (I know it doesn’t add up, don’t even try) It didn’t take me long to fix his modem. After it was fixed he kept offering me everything… Money, DVDs, CDs, even an English-Portuguese New Testament. It was really nice of him, but as you know I couldn’t take it. All I wanted in return was a ride home (since he had a car).

Today, Samuel hung out with us. (It’s a free day for us.) We took a bus to Cabo Branco. It’s the eastern most point of the Americas and the closest to Africa. Anyways, thanks to erosion, it looks a lot worse than it did last year. Then we went to eat at some restaurant. I think Jenny and Jennifer had eaten at this one last year with Andrea and Natalia, because there is a picture of them there. Afterwards we went to the Tambau Beach. Afterwards, we meet up with Julian and he took us to a Fort and then to Jacare for the sunset. We were late for the sunset, but oh well.

Now enjoy some Forró.

I can’t say that I am going to give a run down of everyday at the end of each day, but I might try. Friday and Saturday are the days that I might miss. Those are our free days.

Last night we all got to bed really early. I stayed up late writing the blog entry, but I was still in bed by 9:10. This morning I woke up at about 7:30. We had a brief morning devotional and breakfast. I had readers scheduled from 9:00-1:00, 2:00, 4:00-7:00. Of all the readers from today, only two of them showed up… Hilkyson and Renaldo. I did later find out that my 9:00 is out of town this week. Jorge was on my schedule for today, but he didn’t show up. I read with Jorge last year and had a great time doing it. He’s a retired dentist that would come to read with us along with his wife. They are both just super sweet people to be around. I also read with Hilkyson last year. It was a lot easier for me to pick up with him that it was Renaldo. He was ready for the last lesson in the Luke book today. His understanding of the word is good, but his English is so-so. I’m curious if Tim had picked up with him were Chad had finished last year, or if he started all over again.

Today I really had a lot of “evangelistic freetime”. Since most of my readers didn’t show up, I figured I’d get some good ole’ reading time in. On the plane ride over, I had started The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. Its a really quick read and a really good book. I’m not quite done with it yet, but imagine I will finish it tomorrow. I got really exhausted on the plane ride to São Paulo, so after that, I didn’t feel like doing anything but getting to the next gate, so we could board the next plane, so I can go to sleep. Well as I mentioned yesterday, there was a party that it was nice to go to in between the arriving and sleep.

Ok, I might do alright reading Portuguese, but my pronunciation is pretty bad and my spelling is every worse. In yesterday’s post I totally butchered the spelling on Sueneide’s name. I hope I’ve got it right now. Heading to bed now, goodnight.

We have arrived safely in João Pessoa, Brazil. The last day 36 hours have made for quite a long day. It started out with Mike picking me up at my house and then heading to the airport. It took a really long time for us to check in. First the lady wanted to tell me that my VISA had expired two days ago (it hasn’t yet, its a five year VISA). Then what really took so long was the baggage. Apparently the printers that print the claim straps, can only print up to 4 stops. When your trip has more than 4 stops, they have to do it by hand. Both Chad and I had gotten boarding passes all the way through the trip… Amy on the other hand, had only gotten Chicago and Miami. Once in Miami, she would have to get the rest…

The layover in Chicago goes over well and we board the plane to Miami… Apparently LST has a fetish for booking everybody in the middle seat or the very back row. Luckily our crew did a good job of getting a route that would avoid most of the weather and land safely in Miami. Once we got to Miami, Amy had found out that the rest of her tickets had been canceled by the lady in Knoxville. Oh well, let’s see how this turns out.

We all get on the plane to go to Brazil and we are all seated on the last row. Chad and I in the middle row and Amy on the right hand side. Now on the A330, the last row on the left and right side has an incredible amount of space. As it got near to take off, Chad and I moved to the left hand side and got plenty of leg room for our longest leg of the flight. This was a very good thing.

Customs was no problem in São Paulo. Our plane leaving São Paulo was almost an hour late in taking off. When your layover in Recife is only 50 minutes, this isn’t a good thing. The plane was the exact same plane we rode in on. (Different flight number, same plane though). Chad and I had the exact same seat assignments. We tried again to get the crazy leg room seats, but those were taken. Oh well. Our plane was to start boarding in Recife at 12:50. We landed at 1:00 in Recife, but of course being at the back of the plane means its not until 1:10 that we actually get off the plane. Well the way they had it setup, we had to go through security again to get to our gate… This only further delays things… When we get to our gate, we don’t see a plane. Lucky for us, that plane was also running late so no big deal there.

When we arrived in João Pessoa, we were greeted by Tafanie, Jesse, Joey McKinney, Ricardo and Sueneide, and Marcos Paulo. We wait to see if Jesse was successful in changing his tickets and head to the Escola da Biblia. No time for a nap though, we had to go to a party. Luckily it wasn’t one of our LST parties. It was the 2 Year Old birthday for Dillon Newlin (Jeremy and Monica’s youngest child). It was fun, but we are all really tired. Its almost 9:00 and I am the last one up. As soon as I finish this post, I will be heading straight to bed though.

There is also a team for Goodlettsville, TN down here. One of them performed some magic tricks for the kids. Here is a picture of some of the kids watching the magic.

Yep, I leave tomorrow. Guess I really should start packing….

Lori’s due date is right during the time we will be down there. Mathias should be a big brother by the time we leave.