Casa Semear: Overview of 2012

Here´s a short video with some pictures of everything that happened at community center Casa Semear during 2012! 

We´re very grateful for everything God did in and through us at Casa Semear and in the hearts of the children, teenagers and families we were able to work with during this year!

All honour to Him!

Picture overview of October & November

Before we celebrate the start of a brand new year, we want to share with you a picture update about our life and work here in São Paulo and everything that has happened during the past few months.

October 2012

The Super Little Ones´ camp-in party

In October it was time for a very special program for our Super Little Ones (a name they themselves came up with for their group of 5-7 year olds). At community center Casa Semear, besides the normal weekly program, every now and then we try to invest some extra time and attention in each of the different age groups, and this time the youngest kids were the lucky ones!

We organized a huge camp-in party at the community center, just for them; two days filled with joy and laughter, a very full program including lots of games, arts and crafts activities, barbecue, watching IceAge4, a photo-shoot and sleeping in real tents!

 

The kids had a wonderful time, although we, aunts and uncles, were totally exhausted by the end of the weekend ;0) But that´s fine, it was absolutely worth it! It was great to see all those happy faces and be able to offer these kids a different environment for a bit; a time to just have fun and to forget for a while about the problems they, although still very young, already face in their lives…

 

Social Awareness Day

The 27th of October was a very special day this year: we organized a new and very well succeeded event at community center Casa Semear. In collaboration with Mackenzie University (one of São Paulo´s public universities), we organized a Social Awareness Day for the community surrounding Casa Semear. 

It was wonderful to see how God provided everything that we needed to run this event; in a quite short period of time we managed to get a number of different volunteers and professionals to come and serve the community in different ways.

 

Together with more than 40 volunteers who came out that day to help us, we were able to offer the community a day filled with fun, advice and health orientation. It was a very busy day, with lawyers, dentists, story tellers, candy floss, social workers, nurses weighing people and measuring their blood pressure, diabetes tests, hairdressers and a lot of fun and games for the children! We had a total of 300 people come to Casa Semear that Saturday, and were very pleased with the results. We would like to turn this into a yearly event and already have a number of ideas for next year.

 

November 2012

Road trip to the beach

In November, we took the SemearKids, group of 8-10 year olds, on a road trip to the beach for a day! Most of them had never seen the sea before, so you can imagine how special this outing was for them! They enjoyed all of it very much: the water, the waves, the sand and the sun.

 

As poor kids who grow up in the slums of a metropole like São Paulo and hardly ever get a chance to leave the concrete jungle, there´s a lot they don´t know or understand about nature and the sea, which resulted in some very funny comments and questions from their part. At a certain moment, Marcus (10 years old) standing at the seashore while running some sand through his hands, asked me: Auntie, did they make this stuff out of sand or cement? When I explained to him that it was sand, but that it hadn´t been made by humans, he looked very puzzled and said: How come it wasn´t made by humans?? But someone made it right? Well, that must have been God then… he concluded.

Little Iara asked me several times that day if she was finally allowed to go back into the swimming pool again… ;0)

Adoption Support Group

Since September, Caio and I have been attending monthly meetings of one of the very few adoption support groups here in São Paulo. We started to participate in these meetings mainly because our psychologist from child services who also did our screening interviews recommended it to us as a way of preparing ourselves better for the arrival of our adoptive baby boy or girl. And I have to say that we´ve really enjoyed these meetings. 

It is really nice to get to know other couples that are in the same phase as we are, with (more or less) the same vision and motivation, and it has been very interesting and useful to share experiences and just talk about the whole subject of adoption. It suddenly turns this whole adoption process into something very real and we can see it helps us in preparing for the arrival of our little one. 

Caio´s work, new opportunities and a study Bible

In the past four months, Caio has been busy doing work for two different Christian publishing houses and besides that, he finished his last classes that were still missing for him to complete his Master in Divinity. His graduation will be in March of 2013!

But he also spent a lot of his time on a new job that God brought to him in a very special way: through one of his theology teachers, he got the chance to participate in writing and revising theological notes and comments for a new study Bible that is going to be published here in Brazil. He was able to work on different Bible books and really enjoyed this great opportunity God gave him! Over the past semester, we´ve been able to clearly see God opening new doors for him, leading him and giving him opportunities to use his gifts and talents in His kingdom.

 

God bless you! Love,

Caio & Dot

Merry Christmas & a Blessed New Year!

The past months in pictures

A lot happened in the past three months, by God´s grace we´ve been able to experience many different things. So here are some pictures to update you all in a creative, visual way about our life and work here in São Paulo, Brazil.

June of 2012

SuperWoman program

In June, towards the end of the first semester of the SuperWoman program for teen girls in community center Casa Semear, we organized a special beauty day for the girls.

A long Saturday full of beauty workshops (hair, nails & make-up) and for each teen girl an individual photo shoot with the theme: Believe it, you are beautiful! 

Adoption

On the 12th of June we received a long-expected, super important phone call with some great news: we were approved as adoptive parents by the local authorities of São Paulo. 

This means that we´re on the waiting list for a baby now and that, one certain day, we´ll receive another phone call with the news that we´re going to be a mommy & daddy! Super exciting!

 

Also in June, community center Casa Semear received a big group of teenagers from a church in Texas, USA.

A 12 day long mission trip brought this group of excited young adults to us to help us finish some of the building work and paint the newly build staff house at Casa Semear. We and they, I believe, had a great time! 

Holidays in Holland

A bit later in June we, Caio and I, went on a short holiday trip to Holland and London. It was very good to spend time with our family and friends there and just be away for a bit, relax and regain our energies while enjoying Holland.  

We also went on a short city trip to London in honor of our fifth wedding anniversary which we celebrated last year (05/08/2011).

July of 2012 

Teen camp

In the beginning of July we flew back to São Paulo, well rested and with new strength. As soon as we got back here, we started the preparations for the yearly teen camp of community center Casa Semear which we always plan in July, during winter holidays.

We had some amazing days with a great group of kids during camp. We had lots of fun during the many sport activities and (night) games and a lot of time to really invest in our friendships and trust bonds with these kids. Together we studied and lived through Joseph´s life story and talked much about family relationships and forgiveness. It was a good, special time! 

Spare time...

At home, in our spare time, we´ve been busy improving our office space and creating a creative arts & crafts corner for me (Dot). As Caio is most of his time working at home now for the Christian publishing house, working on text revision, translation and investing in his theology studies, it was about time to improve his office space a little.

Caio´s been busy making a new office table, book shelves and a book case out of used pallets and wooden crates. Here´s the result!

I love to be creative in my spare time and so, when we were in Holland, I bought my very first sewing machine. After reorganizing the office, I now have my own arts & crafts corner where I can spend all my spare hours and relax.

 

August of 2012 

On the 5th of August we celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary! Going through life together and building up a life together has been and will always be a great adventure we both greatly enjoy; we can clearly see God´s guidance, presence and blessing upon our lives and we´re just so thankful to Him for these past years and the future that lies ahead of us!

 

SuperWoman program

In August the SuperWoman program for teen girls started once again for the second semester of this year. I now work with a quite stabile group of around 20 girls between  11 and 15 years old. Every week there is another dynamic, creative and interesting meeting in which we talk about all kinds of interesting topics for teen girls and study the Bible together and seek God in prayer.

It is so encouraging to see how much these girls have grown in the past year; they are a close group with good friendships, trust bonds and openness among each other. In the past couple of weeks we´ve been talking about a woman´s body, sexuality and dating.  

We think it´s very important to talk about these topics with the girls and try to guide them and teach them Biblical principles. Especially when you realize that actually many girls who come from the lower social classes in Brazil get pregnant during their teen years…

September of 2012

Since the beginning of September we have two new family members: Jip & Janneke! Their names refer to a famous children´s book from Holland that is all about the adventures of two little friends named Jip & Janneke.


ABBA staff retreat

Also in September we participated in the yearly staff retreat of our missionary organization ABBA. The retreat consists in a long weekend away with the whole ABBA team (from various different ministries), it´s a time to rest, to seek God together, pray for each other, develop and strengthen friendships and just hang out and have fun. And this time it was even better because my sister, Joseline, and her Brazilian boy friend, Bruno, went along too!

The ABBA team is a great bunch of people, they´re like a second family to us, so we always enjoy it very much to be able to spend a few days with them.

We enjoyed all the free time, the fun during the many games, the camp fire on a lovely, warm evening and all the laughter and jokes involving the costume parties during dinner time...

We are very grateful to God for giving us such great colleagues, friends and brothers & sisters!

God bless you!

 

Caio & Dot