Either Riders or Fools

7/19

2010-07-19T17:11:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I've written a post! I want to remember the things that happen here so I'm going to try to make a list of the main events so far and separate them into paragraphs:

First of all, not even a week after getting here, I had the whole mishap with my computer. I literally dropped it from a few inches but it was enough to lose the hard drive. That was a pretty tough blow.. I basically lost the whole weeks worth of work I had been doing here as well as a great deal of the recordings that Regan and I have been doing... We might be able to get those back though but not until I return to the states.. That was a hard day because Brazil also was eliminated from the world cup and I'm not gonna lie, it was a very stressful game! I still blame it on the ref who must have thought were playing hacky sack or something because he made the worst calls. So all of that made that day pretty rough.. But later that night, several of the guys and I went to see Toy Story 3. That definitely helped a lot, the movie was fantastic and I can't wait to see it again! After that, we went to this little stand thing in the mall there called Choco Fruta. Self explanatorially it is basically chocolate and fruit. There is a desert that they have there called Tentacão which means "temptation". Diego told me that and I thought "huh, this should be pretty tasty". That was an understatement. On paper, it was just simple strawberries and chocolate with a small Everest of whip cream but there was something about those strawberries, that chocolate, and that whip cream that was just... I don't even know how to describe it. I took one bite of it and suddenly I literally forget the day's prior suckiness. I felt all of my muscles relax and they stayed that way until I finished. It probably sounds like I'm over dramatizing it and being silly and I am.. But I'm not because it was so good! We've gone back at least 4 or 5 times... I now understand the name. It sounds really good right now actually....

Let's see what else has happened... The next thing that sticks out in my mind is when we went to my friend Nick's situ which is basically a farm. It was about two hours away by a town called Campos Do Jordão. I was told that we would leave around 3:30 so that's when I was at the door ready to go but there ended up being several setbacks which I didn't know about so I ended up just sitting there until about 7 and then we didn't leave till 8. Don't worry, they called around 5 and said they were still coming so I knew they didn't forget about me.. Anyways, we finally got there at night time and we were disappointed to find that the stars (which they told me are usually amazing) were all covered by clouds. But we made a fire and had some good food and laughed for several hours. Eventually the clouds rolled away to uncover exactly what they had been talking about; an amazing display of stars which included a very defined milky way and lots of shooting stars. We laid down and watched them for quite sometime! The next morning I somehow woke up before everyone (which is rare) so I decided to go look around. I opened the door and was blown away by how beautiful the terrain was. I had no idea that it was there because we got there at night. There was farm and grazing land and beautiful landscape and wilderness that extended half way up the mountains where the exotic trees would meet and take rest of the way. The sun was different than Minnesota's. It was spectacular. I couldn't just stand there so I hiked to the top of a large hill that the house was on which involved getting over the obstacle of two electric fences. I probably stood at each fence for about five minutes trying to analyze the best way to get over without getting shocked and then once I decided the best way, spending another several minutes trying to decide if I could even jump that distance. I finally made it to the top and got to see even more on the other side which included a huge rock on this mountain and a water fall. É foi muito legal! We spent the rest of the day hanging out and having fun. Daniella taught me some Portuguese by going through a Brazilian comic book, I'll see if I can buy some somewhere to bring home. We also had a Brazilian steak barbecue which was awesome!

Daniel and Diego are in Mozambique now so I spent the first week of that alone in the Denham's house which I really enjoyed! I felt so grown up working 9-5 and then coming home to a very nice house. For food I would go to the Padaria (bakery) across the street from Fiel and get something. It was pretty fun stumbling my way through ordering two cheese burgers in Portuguese. But I'm getting better! I was even able to talk to the girl that worked there a bit. There's also this lady that works at the register of the restaurant we eat lunch at and every time I go there she picks something to new for me to learn. She's very cool. But the Brazilians find living alone very counter cultural so they kept asking if I was ok. I really did enjoy it though. My friend Davidi said I could stay at his house while they are all gone so I decided to take him up on the offer for the weekend and then I would go back. But his family is very inviting. Very! Davidi speaks a very small amount of English but he is trying to learn. And the rest of his family doesn't speak any. Never the less, his mother still somehow convinces me to eat more food. I woke up this morning just in time to make it to work but I wasn't even able to sneak out. She got me to sit down and suddenly there was a whole table of food and coffee so I had breakfast there. She is an adorable older lady who is very sweet and very expressive! I just don't know what she's saying. She also has a little tiny pocket translator so she'll stumble around trying to find the English word in her very small mental list and then resort to the device where she'll type next to me so I can see it. And then she gets so excited when I finally understand what she is saying! I'm definitely enjoying my time at their house. They also have a church underneath their second floor house which is currently blasting out of tune Portuguese hymns and a woman preacher screamin' the name of Jesus Cristo. It's pretty fun to hear. Well that's all for now, next time I'll talk about yesterday which was going to the actual town of Campos Do Jordão. That was great!

6/28

2010-06-29T04:37:00.001-07:00

Seriously, it was an amazing day. Diego and I got up after much alarm snoozing and finally walked to work. I found out that today wasn’t an ordinary work day, Brazil had a game against Chile. So we started off the work day with a tour of the awesome building and offices. Diego and I spent a pretty decent amount of time catching up on all of our social networking which was very helpful. Later, he started to fill me in on the project we would be working on which is basically introductory images to some video sermons. Shortly after, Daniel Gardner, another really cool guy who works at Fiel came. He was a missionary kid when he was younger so he is great at both languages which is immensely helpful! After awhile, we had our lunch at a restaurant that is free to us for lunch which was pretty good! We came back to do some more work until three o’clock came around. Game time. Daniel let me borrow his Brazil jersey for this came. So we put on our shirts and wore big Brazil flags as capes and started getting pumped up. Watching the game brought a whole new level of appreciation for watching soccer. Maybe it was the excitement of a bunch of Brazilian guys cheering at every little triumph and jeering at every poor call. Or maybe it was just being in Brazil in general. Nevertheless, I got just as into it as them. Every one of the three goals would send us flying into the air cheering. Also, after every goal, people all over Brazil shoot off fireworks which added nicely to our noise. After Brazil beat Chile 3 to 0 (no big deal). We all ran out into the streets cheering and waving our flags. A ton of people were outside dancing to music, blowing horns, and cheering the cars that would drive by honking. At one point they even stood in front of a bus and got it to stop so that they could cheer to it. It was crazy but so awesome! Best part of the summer so far.. Later, we went to the mall and I got a sim card for a phone that I can use here which is pretty nice. Then the guys and I got some pizza and went home to the Denham’s house and played some wii sports and fit. Diego dominated everyone including me in tennis but I was eventually able to beat him. That was about it! Waking up to go to work still feels like ages ago. It’s a good thing I’m writing this down otherwise I would probably forget it!

6/27

2010-06-28T06:01:00.000-07:00

This morning we woke up and went to church! A lot like the Bible study, it was really cool to hear a church service in another language. It really broadens your view of God when you meet awesome Christians from another country. At one point during the service, the pastor asked if anyone was there for the first time. He had me stand up and started asking questions but I had no clue what he was saying so Diego of course stood up and told the congregation about me. The best part was that for some reason, the people here can’t figure out how to pronounce my name.. I think they think it starts with a P or something but they all sound the same to me. So at the service I Diego and the new friends would say “Beau?”, “No, Beau” , “umm Beau?”, “No, not Beau. Beau.” I still haven’t quite figured out how they keep saying it wrong.. Anyways, during the service, a woman gave me a Bible with both translations side by side which was awesome. I spent the whole service trying to learn more words. After that I got to meet people from the church and a lot of them knew a decent amount of English. One of them even used to live in Minneapolis and even Duluth when he was my age! After church I went out to eat with Rick’s parents and sister. It was really funny sitting in the backseat while Faith (Rick's sister) drove around town trying to find this restaurant while receiving completely opposite directions from the two parents. It was quite the adventure! At the church we go to, they have two services on Sunday that they both go to so we went to the evening service which was a lot like the morning one. A lot more of sitting and listening to Portuguese which I can't understand.. They speak it so fast! It's still really fun though. After that though, we went out to eat for Diego's birthday. He just turned 24 and a lot of people came to celebrate! I got some delicious bruschetta and had fun talking to people who wanted to practice their English. It was a very eventful day! By the end of it, I felt like that morning had been a couple days ago. Having a great time so far:)

Brazil 6/26

2010-06-28T05:53:00.000-07:00

I’ve been here for about a day and a half. It’s been pretty interesting coming here and not actually knowing anyone but I’ve already made several friends and we’re having fun! Diego and Mr. Denham Sr. picked me up from the airport and we had an interesting time on the way home getting a little lost. But we eventually got to Diego’s family’s house. He has two younger brothers and a younger sister and parents that basically speak no English so that has been pretty fun awkwardly walking by them and just knowing how to say hello. Language, has been very fun. I’ve heard people say that Portuguese is a lot like Spanish and even with a couple years of taking Spanish classes, I still have no idea what they’re saying! It has helped a little though. I have a decent understanding at how verb conjugations work and general sentence structure. I just can’t understand the words that they’re saying.. After trying to sleep off some jet lag, we went to a small bible study that Diego and his friends have. They were all so friendly and eager to talk to me and I made some good friends. Some of them spoke very good English! It was so cool listening to an entire Bible study in portuguese. After awhile I just took an English Bible and a Portuguese version and compared it to try and pick up some more language and it actually helped quite a bit! After that I came home and listened to some Relevant podcast, it was good to hear words I could understand for a bit!

So...

2010-02-11T22:56:00.000-08:00

So I don't know if any one reads this anymore but in case you're wondering, I have stopped blogging about little random things and am now just putting up my song lyrics in another place. So check out:
http://fromthisplacesongs.blogspot.com/
I would love to hear your comments and thoughts and maybe ideas or whatever you have to say so share that!:) That's about it!

Cool

hindsight..

2009-09-05T23:35:00.000-07:00

I'm really curious why I chose to use a picture of a fire hydrant for my blog picture...

Music?

2008-12-26T20:56:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm daring to write another post. Only because I know there are just so many avid readers that want to keep up on such a riveting blog. Let's see... What is new?

I'm working on a song right now called In Need of You. I have most of it finished except a bridge and a couple places that need rewording. I'll post it up here when I'm done though. I've also been doing some recording too with my new microphone! I recorded the song Come to an End the other day and made a myspace for some silly reason. For some reason though, I currently have ninety-four plays on that song. I have no idea who would want to listen to that song so I'm assuming that myspace has a glitch or that people are unknowingly stumbling upon a random person who's only friend is Tom. Anyways, I'm working on a recording of All That Isn't You which I'll put up as soon as I record the vocals which I will do as soon as I get over this little cold. So yeah... That's what I've been up to.

You've just been UPDATED!

Too late to reschedule

2008-10-30T00:21:00.000-07:00

I don't like having to go to bed early to wake up to Physical Geography....

Random Sentences

2008-10-28T23:46:00.000-07:00

So it has definitely been awhile. I haven't really had anything I felt like writing so I'm just gonna say whatever. Right now I'm sitting in my room. The weather right now feels like a battle between fall and winter. Autumn fights to stay alive but it is gradually succumbing to the cold. The leaves have have pretty much all fallen. Hmmm... I've been playing a good amount of guitar lately trying to write songs. Every time I sit down planning on writing a song I get in the right zone but quickly lose all creative movement. I'm not sure why that is... I've been doing a lot of design stuff though. Here is one of them I've been working on lately:

Ready or Not

2008-09-10T12:33:00.000-07:00

So being in college is a pretty crazy new step. I've been meeting a lot of people and having fun. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in this newness. I still have those nostalgic moments though. In one of those moments I was thinking about my sister Gabby and how much I miss her and all the things we used to do. So this song might be cheesy but it's just how I felt..

Ready or Not
We're coming to a new step
Whether ready or not
Things have got to change, dear
Whether ready or not

So know you'll never leave
My memories
So take this melody
With you

Strength seems to follow you
Wherever you go
Let Him be all of you
Let it overflow

[Chorus]

We're coming to a new step
Whether ready or not
Things have got to change, dear
Whether ready or not

Ready or not
Ready or not
Ready or not
Ready or not...

See ya later, Alli-gator (yeah, cheesy)

2008-08-19T23:27:00.000-07:00

Tonight I said goodbye to my good friend Allison Joy (I don't remember her middle name but it should be Joy) Steddom. From being the first thing I hear when entering a mile radius of her, to turning around at Dunns and randomly seeing her standing behind me, she has always been a dear friend and close to me. Alli is probably one of the best advice givers I know. She always had a question to throw out and I would realize that I hadn't even asked myself that. I'm definitely going to miss her sense of humor. I'm excited to hear how Indiana treats her and hope she continues to share her endeering laugh and contagious heart for Jesus with everyone she meets.

(I just had to throw this one in)

Very Random Thought

2008-08-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

If you could
control the
weather,
what
days
would
you
choose
to be
bad?

Passions at War

2008-08-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

I love my guitar. It's sort of pathetic but when I go a day without playing it I feel like I'm missing something. For me, the guitar is like an emotion sponge that absorbs all of my highs and lows. When my fingers touch those strings I suddenly start to feel everything around me fade away. I'm not very good compared to a lot of people but it doesn't matter. I often find myself in my room blaring my acoustic through an amp and singing unwritten songs at the top of my lungs. Who knows if it sounds good... Actually we have thin walls so my family can usually hear it.. Anyways, there are so many times throughout the day, no matter where I am, that I think of song ideas or a melody or lyrics. People who know me can testify to my obnoxious singing and random interjections that are beside the point. I sing, play, write, and listen to music a lot.

But wouldn't it be so great if this post was about my Bible?

I love my Bible. I don't read it as often as I would like or even as often as I should. I sometimes go to it when I am stressed out or upset. I should yearn for this book. I should turn every page with awe at the wonders that are beheld. God's word should always be on my heart and my lips just as music sometimes tends to be. When I look up at the first paragraph I imagine what it would be like to truly be fervent and boiling for Christ. That the walls of this world could not hold the resonating sound of my love for Christ. But so many things like fear and distractions get in the way. We all have passions that are at war within us. We need to continually feed the fire that burns for Jesus. I need to continually feed the fire that burns for Jesus. Because what he did deserves our gratitude and what he does deserves our attention.

This is home (I guess)

2008-08-11T14:36:00.000-07:00

I've been away for a month now but I am finally back. It's a different feel somehow. America seems different. My accent seems lame. No more waking up to the marvels of being sandwiched by amazing sights. I feel like I was spoiled being surrounded by mountains, the sea, spectacular cloud displays, and farms. I know this country has its own appeals but I miss those of Northern Ireland. It's also different because during the trip everyone was constantly moving and now I'm home with no schedule. A restlessness inside of me wants to open the door and step out onto the streets of Kilkeel and go on a dander along the fields. Yeah, I'm being dramatic. But now that I'm home, I have to get used to it. Almost more so than when we started the trip. With what we were doing in Northern Ireland, God's work and presence were pretty much right in front of my eyes the entire time. Now that I'm home and getting back into the routine, I have to do a little searching.

Unconditionally

2008-07-01T20:34:00.000-07:00

Today I heard an analogy of when we come to God with our works and try to show it to him. I won't repeat the analogy but I really thought it was interesting to think about. We find these works and hold them up to God to show him so we can feel good about ourselves only to find that it is nothing in comparison to His perfection. That God's unconditional love takes precedent over all works is amazing. Sometimes I do things that I feel makes me a Christian, forgetting the simple fact that what I do doesn't decide my eternity. It is where I put my faith and trust. Solely leaning on Jesus' name that saved me from sin.

In The Passenger Seat at Sunset

2008-06-19T10:02:00.000-07:00

My mind has been strange lately. A constant playlist of questions, emotions, and thoughts. Sometimes it gets so loud in there that I can't turn it down. Always racing, searching the depths of my memories and knowledge. But then I catch a glimpse of the sky. The clouds, the sun, the reflective light, the transparencies, the blue, the golden, the white. All the factors combine to collectively make a mind-melter that blows away the problems and distractions and I realize that I am staring at the raw and beautiful glory of God.

We're either riders or fools behind the reigns..

2008-06-12T10:21:00.000-07:00

Ok well I'm finally getting a separate blog upon Gabbymac's persistent requests. The name of the blog might seem kinda strange but it is one of the beloved lines in the song The Cure for the Pain by Jon Foreman. "Blood is fire pulsing through our veins, we're either riders or fools behind the reigns". The first time I heard that it sparked new thoughts. Which one am I? There are obviously different weights to both sides in various aspects of my life. I often see moments in my life where I fall short and don't make it. A fool behind the reigns doesn't take charge of the situations they have fallen into. They glide along ignorantly laughing and enjoying the ride wherever it may be heading. Maturity means taking those events and leading them where you want them to go. That is something that I have been searching for lately. Not just a new, older, and smarter take on humor, relationships, friends, and money but a new outlook on how to deal with situations. I still see traces of that youthful, somebody-get-me-out-of-this-mess, attitude in me. I just need to let go of those things and take the reigns and steer. Which brings to mind another song: Steer by Missy Higgins. Oh boy, it's only the first blog post and I've already quoted two of my favorite musicians.. Anyways, part of the chorus goes "And now you finally know that you control where you go, you can steer."

With all that said, I can't "steer" by myself. As Michael would say, I'm directionally challenged. And I fall down a lot. I don't really want to end this with the cliche phrase of how I continue to fall down and he picks me up... But it's true. I even overlook that fact too often. Grasping the truth that God is in control is huge in gaining a better understanding in maturity.

Beau