Wednesday 28 November 2012

Brazilians in Europe

Although we are involved mainly in what OM is doing in Brazil, we frequently send Brazilians to Europe. We wanted to include this month's Europe in Touch magazine, because there is very much a Brazilian presence, as you will see.



Please click here to open the document  in pdf.


Friday 23 November 2012

OM on Globo!


One of OM's projects "Freedom Climb" has had national publicity here in Brazil on the "Globo" website. Globo is one of Brazil's best known news and current affairs channels with TV, magazines, web presence etc. Click on the links below to learn more about this amazing project!



Desde o princípio tenemos crido que Deus está à frente deste projeto, somos apenas meros participantes do que Ele mesmo deseja fazer em relação à vida destas mulheres e crianças que vão receber o investimento do projeto.
Vai aí um link da matéria que conseguimos com a Vanguarda...se o Senhor quiser pode fazer com que pessoas se envolvam através desta notícia, se não for, fará de outras formas, Ele é Deus! Mas além do Freedom Climb foi uma boa oportunidade de divulgar a OM e nosso site está com link na matéria. Vamos orar e pedir que Ele mesmo traga as pessoas certas pra se envolverem com a causa e pra conhecerem a OM Brasil.





Thursday 22 November 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!

Many of you will be well aware that today, Thursday 22nd November 2012 is the Thanksgiving holiday in the USA.


It is acknowledged that the first Thanksgiving celebration was in 1621, when the Plymouth  (Massachusetts) colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn't until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.

So most of us know that Thanksgiving is officially celebrated in USA and Canada (earlier in the year), but did you know that there is a 3rd country in the list? That country is Brazil - although most Brazilians don't know it! It was declared a holiday in 1949, but only a couple of cities in Brazil have public holidays. Actually many websites I checked stated that there are thanksgiving holidays in Argentina, Japan, Korea, Liberia and Switzerland and other countries. The relationship of these holidays to the traditional USA one varies. It's quite a strange combination of countries!


Here in São Paulo state there is no public holiday, but we celebrated with a Thanksgiving meal back on  Saturday 10th November. It was a charity event organised by a couple of the ministries at the church we attend here (PIB), so we all pitched in helping out with the preparations. It was a delicious meal, with the normal dishes - turkey, mashed potato, sweet potato crunch, gravy and so on. Particularly delicious was the Pumpkin Pie for desert …




Friday 9 November 2012

Where is this?

Where in the world is this?


Beautiful isn't it? It's not Brazil, by the way. If you want to guess, leave a comment!
All will be revealed next week ...

Busy, busy

With the end of the year fast approaching, things have been very busy over the last few weeks. Right after Louissa's 15th birthday party (see post from 20th September)  both Louissa and Joshua had school exams; they are now preparing for the final round of exams, which will take them up to the end of term of November, which is the end of term. At OM, Nelia is busy getting the English students ready for their English exams. Mike doesn't have any exams to worry about, but has been busy in his new role looking after IT  in South America. Part of this was a trip to OM Belgium to attend the annual International IT Committee meeting at the Zaventem conference facilities. 

Those clever IT people

As well as this, Louissa has been busy with extra ballet lessons, getting ready for a performance of Paquita in early December; Joshua has been playing football for the local bairro (district) at under-13 level. His team finished 2nd in the group stages, and will be moving on to the knockout stage this weekend. We'll be sure to take some photos and videos to share with you!