Camp & Cardio, Barbeque & Blessings

We've been in Brasil for almost two weeks now, and it is becoming more and more obvious to our team just how much God is in control. Especially in terms of the camp that we are all preparing for: Camp Roots.  
Ali has been talking about how camp has been organized so far. She feels as if planning camp has been like buying a suit, where she and Mark have been buying up all the accessories here in Brasil, the tie, shoes, socks, etc., while they're relying on the U.S. camp directors to buy the suit itself. It sounds weird, but but that really is how it seems.   
And sure enough, when Ali sent the lyrics of the song that she wants to use as the theme of camp, she received a reply with a breakdown of what the lyrics meant to the U.S. directors, and how the lines of the song fit perfectly into what they are drawing up for the Camp Roots curriculum. It's details like that that help Mark and Ali be able to relax and trust God with the rest of the camp preparations. Not to say there isn't work to be done, there's just no reason to be worried about it.

In other news, I've started walking or riding my bike to Mark and Ali's house from the house I'm staying at. It takes an hour and fifteen minutes for me to walk, and there's so many hills that it takes 45 minutes to ride the bike. Nothing like an hour of cardio to start your day! (If you know me well at all, you know that I wouldn't do that unless I had good reason to. In this case, that reason is lunch.)

Speaking of food, the family I'm stayin with had a barbeque tonight and oh man was it good!  The only thing that wasn't fun about it was that there seemed to be two language barriers stacked on top of each other. They were speaking Portuguese...but they were also speaking Golf. 

Tonight we also went to another youth group devotional at the Kaisers'. They've been talking about finding God in unexpected places the past few weeks, and tonight we focused specifically on finding God in the blessings. At first, this sounds like the obvious place for him to be found, but there is a lot of great things he does, times when he is actively working, and what do we do? Chalk it up to chance, coincidence, or good luck. Whether it's a full ride to college or a good parking spot, we have a tendancy to explain it away rather than thank God.