Here we are...Brazil!

After a wonderful (although too short!) weekend back in California, we repacked and put our traveling clothes on again.  Once again it was a short flight to Texas followed by a long flight to South America (which feels even longer when you can't sleep, unfortunately).  This time, Sao Paulo was our destination.  

Brazil is unexpectedly...fun!  Our quick afternoon visit to Foz do Iguacu had me dreading coming back to this colorful country, mostly due to my own distaste for the "lost" feeling of foreign culture combined with language barrier.  But actually, we've had a great experience so far!  Customs and the airport scene went surprisingly well, praise the Lord!  I'm not sure I could have handled anything else in my overtired state!  Between Spanish and our broken Portuguese, we made it to the hotel with little difficulty.  Then came the hour ride into downtown to Monsanto.  Yeah, I know, we all have our own opinion of Monsanto as a corporation, but let me just say, for all the bad rap it gets, it's made up of some wonderful people working very hard!  We were greeted warmly, treated to real Brazilian coffee, and ushered into a meeting room where the magic was worked once again!  Ana and Galli were expressive and impressed which made telling them about the harvest monitor an exciting meeting!  Their wheels are turning--they'd like us to do some testing, not in the Sao Paulo area, like we'd thought, but in the big-business Mato Grosso state.  We'll see.  

 Jonathan and Justin at Monsanto.

Though we had a great time downtown, I was drooping.  We got back to the hotel decently early and, because we didn't fly out for Brasilia until early afternoon, we had a glorious, slow-start morning!  Just what we needed to work in some rest and recovery from the crazy weekend and 24 hour travel!  

A quick flight to Brasilia, more handshakes with Monsanto people (yay! people who speak Portuguese and English!) and we set off on the long car ride toward the first farm.  We just arrived at our hotel and won't be headed out to the farm until tomorrow morning.  Early.  Well, you can't have 8 hours of sleep every night.

Now here comes the cool part of the post.  Brace yourselves!

Last week, Justin got a newsletter from some missionary friends of friends (Matt and Janelle Steidinger with PAZ) who are living in Sao Paulo as they begin their language training before heading to the Amazon region of Brazil.  He forwarded it to us, and Jonathan sent them an email on Sunday introducing ourselves and letting them know we'd be traveling through Sao Paulo.  We told them we didn't expect to have time to meet them since they live about an hour outside the city, but that we'd love to bring them any supplies they need from the States.  By the time we left on Monday, we had a small package to send to them, complete with Easter candy goodies!  Through some email correspondence, we learned that Matt was up north of Brasilia picking up a car for the family.  Hmm, north of Brasilia, that's where we're headed.  Actually, he mentioned he was stopping a farm to visit someone he knew from his farming days in Illinois.  Hmm, an American farmer from Illinois with a farm north of Brasilia.  Could it be?  Yup!  God is like that--always setting up connections!  He was stopping by the same farm where we will be installing harvest systems.  There wasn't much overlap since they (he's road tripping with his son and another PAZ missionary) were just driving through, and we're on a tight schedule, but we made time to grab dinner with them.  

 There's nothing like the sweet fellowship of the servants of the Kingdom!

Can I just testify of the beauty of the instant connection that only comes from the Spirit?  Seriously!  I know the ones who've never tasted it will just write that last sentence off, but...Listen to me!  There is a bond running deep when people who know the same God, who have never met before in their lives, experience that real brother-to-brother, we're-in-this-together, you-know-what-it's-like, meaningful, tangible experience of mutual understanding.  It's unreal!  And only possible because by the Spirit living in us, we can sense the Spirit living in them as well!  Absolutely breathtakingly beautiful!  No other way to describe it.  

It was such a gift from God!  And...it's got our minds spinning.  Getting to hear them testify of revival in Brazil as the church explosively grows through the power of the gospel of Christ...it gave us the chills.  But even before all that, our Brazil experience was tugging at us...planting seeds maybe?  In our Monsanto meeting, right off the bat, Ana mentioned how thrilled she was that "one of the Precision Planting guys brought his wife"!  She's been trying to convince Monsanto they need to get someone from Precision to help the transition into the Brazilian market.  Put simply, there's a whole lot of potential in the farming industry right now in Brazil.  A whole lot.  This technology, and all of Precision Planting's products, could completely turn farming practice upside down and do wonders for the Brazilian growers!  But Monsanto struggles to fully understand all Precision's technology; they're more about seeds and chemicals and stuff.  Basically, if Jonathan was looking for an international job, doors could be opening for Precision engineering positions in Brazil.  Whoa!  Just a second, right?

Anyway...just seeds.  God knows what He plans to see through to a harvest.  I learned a long time ago that His thoughts are far above ours.  That story of the sower and his seeds?  It's more than just an illustration of the response to the gospel.  If God's the sower, He can place each seed exactly where He wants it to go.  He knows if this one's going to make it past germination.  Meanwhile, it's powerful to see the Kingdom at work in this place so far removed from our daily life.  

And that's a reason to glorify the King!