Kites Over Itaquera V

For pilots and passengers, the hard part to flying is take-off and landing. Seeing the ground shrink beneath me on take-off frightens me like nothing else. I’d rather be on the ground petting anacondas.

Sleep was a rare commodity leading up to the trip. I had plenty of unfinished business and I take some of it with me to Brazil. I started packing after midnight the night before we leave. All I do is throw stuff in the suitcase and carry-on bag and hope I got everything. I hate packing, though, since it means I am going somewhere.

Five of us from church are on the trip, about the right size, I came to find. We meet at church at 4:30 after a frenetic day of work. Fifteen hours of travel await us and I’m already bushed.

Brad East is the Associate Pastor and heads up the trip. He is good with details and has been to Brazil for advance work. He makes only one mistake on the trip: he tells us the on-board meal to Brazil is breakfast and I bring two pounds of grapes to hold me over. Only minutes later, the stewardesses wheel out dinner and I can’t resist. To me, there is no such thing as leftovers. I eat what is in front of me, no matter what. After dinner, I feel pregnant and can’t bend forward in my seat. I find I will not be hungry until we leave Brazil.

I napped for what I thought was a long time and wake up thinking surely we are close. I am rudely jolted when I look at my watch. My nap was only an hour and there is still eight more hours to go. Worse, I cannot get back to sleep and I am both tired and gorged beyond belief. The movies are no good but they do have GPS, which is both good and bad. I don’t have to ask the stewardess if we are almost there yet and I know exactly when we fly over the Amazon.

Also accompanying Brad from the staff is Tren Groat. He is the College and Career Pastor and will head up a follow-up visit in June. He barely looks old enough to even have graduated college. A John Lennon pre-hippy hairstyle makes him look years younger. His dark hair can pass for Brazilian but his skin is very pale. He stands tall and deliberate like most Brazilians; nobody slouches in Brazil.

The only woman on the trip is Jean Oye. She is a widow and has been on this type of mission trip several times since her husband died. They don’t come any sweeter than Jean and she is extremely affable. She is also tough, having been on a mission trip down the Amazon. Thank you for your obedience, Jean, better anybody but me.

Greg Bryan works in the printing office at church. He is unassuming and deceptively funny. He enjoys beating me at ping-pong but won’t say it. Let the record show I beat him once.

We left St. Louis and it was 32 degrees. We arrive in Sao Paulo and it is in the 80’s. Already in one respect I love Brazil. But I am still miserable from lack of sleep.

Immediately apparent are the loosened mores of Brazil. Advertisement after advertisement throughout the airport contain women about ready to catch cold. At least there is strategically placed clothing. I learn on the trip Brazilians are not immodest because there must be immodesty to be immodest–they just don’t care.

Missionaries John Weaver and John Johnson greet us at the airport. I was expecting tall, bookish types with reading glasses as they blended in with the kiosks. Instead, they seem like good car salesmen. I should know since I am a Product Trainer for a domestic manufacturer. Like a good policeman, they know how to passively take control of a situation.

John Weaver has a slight build and deserving of his Grasshopper nickname. He barely knows how to stay in one place long enough. He sticks out in Brazil because of his reddish-blond hair, almost as blond as mine. John Johnson, on the other hand, is unhurried. With dark hair and dark eyes, he falls in my Brazilian template and he even sounds Brazilian when he talks to the Brazilians. When he talks to me, I learn quickly he is from Texas.

We have two interpreters joining us, Natan and Dalete Sampaio de Aquino, brother and sister. They stand straight with narrow bone structures. Natan looks graceful and amiable. Dalete has sleek, elegant lines–bonita. Immediately, I see they are transparent, without guile, and I know I am no longer in America. I don’t know if it is the car business or American culture in general, but everything in America seems to have an angle. We hide behind visages or facades, rarely showing our true selves. Already at first glance, I want what the Brazilians have.

We ride in two cars to Pastor Rubens house to drop off our things. Immediately, we get to work.