Rain, Rain, Go Away!

     Pretty pink sky this morning means bad weather. Yep. It started raining even before we had to walk to PIB church to get on the bus. Drove quite a way to the Santa Anjo school, a nice building totally paid for by one woman. It's a Catholic school, and all the children are learning English. Their principal spoke to the children, and then welcomed us, all in English.

       This place really did have a sport court--or actually 2 of them on 2 levels. All the children wore uniforms and sat on the floor for our concert. Many had cameras and even I-Pads to take pictures of us. Before the concert, they had the "grand opening" of their new English library--we gave them a drum roll, and then a "ta-da" with the whole orchestra!

       Afterward, the children presented us with gifts of chocolate candy, and then we ate lunch with them in the lunchroom. Had a little time after lunch to interact with some of the kids before we had to leave for our next stop.

My gift bag

the English books for the new library

Becky is giving the girls stickers

We ran through the downpour to the bus, and drove to the Autodromo where many of the children have their music classes. We did a little more in depth explanation of all the instruments, demonstrated them, and answered questions from the children. They were very interested in the trombone and French horn. Several asked good questions, like, "how do you know where all the notes are on the trombone?", and "why did the girl turn the French horn around and around?" The spit valves got some Brazilian "Eews" and "yucks". Then it was the kids' turn to give us a concert, and we got several songs on the recorder and some nice rounds with the violins.

        For some reason, the blog wouldn't let me put captions on the last 4 photos, so, from top to bottom: The violin class... signs the children made, beginning with "Hi guys"(green), "Welcome" (pink), "We have made these" (light green), "4 you" (white), "Thank you for coming" (pink), "We loved your visit" (red heart)...everyone wanted to have their picture made with Adora, 16-year-old horn player from Nairobi, Kenya...and lastly, the building where the children have their lessons--quite small, but they're so happy to be learning the violin.

       Tonight we played a concert in the Seventh Day Adventist Church of Curitiba, and many of the Brazilian players are also members of that church, including the concert master of the Curitiba Symphony Orchestra, who came and played with us.

       It finally stopped raining this evening, so we tiptoed through the puddles and mud back to the hotel. Another long day, but it's such a blessing to be able to play with the nationals, and so refreshing to be able to speak freely about our faith in Christ in the public schools. Camp never fails to give the entire salvation message in each place where we give a concert, and God blesses not only our audience, but we always feel like we receive the greater blessing.

       Terry and I spoke for just a few minutes on Face Time, and now it's definitely time to say goodnight.