Maybe we'll make this a regular thing?

Wow, guys. I just looked at the dates of our blog posts, and it has been about 3 months since the last one... 😳I can't tell you how quickly time passes here. We've gotta get better at this! Let's talk month-by-month since January.

January: How the year started off...

• Hosted our friend Robyn (who will hopefully be moving here soon)
• Spent time with our pastors from Dayspring Church in Springfield, MO who were here to teach at one of our schools
• At the end of January, we were asked to house an 18-year-old young woman who had previously lived at Vila Betânia. "C" had nowhere to go and we thought we could find a place for her to live in about a month's time. However, we still hadn't found a place after a month, so "C" is still with us today. She's spunky, quiet, and a teenager in all meanings of the word 😉, but we've enjoyed having her with us. She'll actually be moving into our Transition House (for girls who have aged out of Vila Betânia) this weekend. We're thankful she will have a safe place to live and grow during this next season of her life!

Welcomed our first nephew into the family!! 💖

February: Here's the highlights from February...

• Watched the Super Bowl with friends
• Got a stomach bug
• Experienced our first local clinic for an appointment for a friend (and were there for about 3 hours just waiting!)
• Taught a friend how to make American banana bread
• We made buffalo chicken pastels (kind of like an empanada) and absolutely loved them!!

Picked up our friend Kate from the airport... we had signs, unicorn headbands, and gifts. It was awesome!! 

Hosted some new missionary friends (and their 2 kids and 2 dogs) who live in a town about 4 hours away... Selah LOVED it.

March: Some things that happened during March...

• Ate (maybe) too many coxinhas 😍

Celebrated 2 birthdays at Vila Betânia!

We went to the beach for the first time to actually enjoy the beach! We had time to go for about 45 minutes, but it was nice to enjoy something so close to us that we often "forget" about having such easy access to!

Selah had surgery to remove her dewclaws to prevent injury (and was so pathetic while wearing her Cone of Shame).

We enjoyed some drinks and a walk on the beach for St. Patrick's Day.

We enjoyed dinner with friends of ours from Finland who used to live here in Brasil.

April: We've been here for 6 months now! We can't believe how quickly it has gone by. A few things we've done during April...

Celebrated Easter with our Shores family and Vila Betânia kiddos 😍

After spending several Thursday nights just driving around our city looking for new locations to host what we call Street Church, we finally settled on a new place. It was fairly close to our old location, but there are so many more kids. The heart behind Street Church is to spend time showing the love of the Father to homeless and/or drug-addicted children and families in our city, but we haven't been able to find as many homeless children recently. The children in this new park mostly live in buildings close by, but they have still witnessed many more things than they should have to at such young ages. The last three weeks, we've had 10-20 children spend time with us on our "red carpet." We paint finger nails (or have ours painted), draw pictures, tell stories, play soccer, or one of many other things. We just want these kids to be able to be kids, even for just a couple hours on a Thursday night amid all of the chaos of this park. It's a blast!

Hosted a surprise baby shower for friends of ours here... congratulations Ned and Larissa!!

Walked and drove through the "Sea of Candeias" to visit our friends in the communities (aka it rained overnight and it was crazy)!

What's coming up:

• We leave on the 23rd to go back to the US for about 6 weeks, and we're really excited to see family and friends. We're planning to be in the Rochester area of NY for about 2 1/2 weeks and then we'll head to Springfield, MO for about 3 1/2 weeks. After that, we'll be in Nashville for a couple days before heading to Fort Lauderdale for a day while waiting for our flight back to Recife! If you'd like to catch up with us at all during our trip, shoot us a message on FB, IG, iMessage, email, whatever! We'd love to connect with as many people as possible.

How you can be part of what we're doing here:

• Visit us! We've got a guest room, and we'd love to have some friends and family visit!
• Pray for us, Shores, Vila Betânia, and the people of Brasil! Revival, restoration, and revolution are happening here - let's pray for more!!
• Support us monetarily with a one-time gift or monthly gift of $10, $25, $50, $100, or more! Any amount is helpful as we work toward our monthly support goal! We're about halfway there!! Visit our Modern Day website HERE to give any amount. Let us know if you have any questions!

Feliz Ano Novo, Amigos!!

Happy New Year, friends!

       We can't believe it is already 2018. What a year 2017 was! I finished working as a teacher in Walnut Grove in May, began working at O'Reilly Auto Parts' warehouse in June, and finished working there in August. We traveled to Florida in May with my family for a family vacation! JD finished working his truck building job in August, and we traveled to New York for 10 days in September. We also spent time with my family in September before we drove to Chicago to fly to Recife! We've now been living in Recife for more than 3 months. That still blows my mind! I can't believe we're already almost halfway to our first visit home in April. Time has flown by so quickly.

       We haven't written an update in two months, so this one will cover quite a lot of time! I didn't post as much online over the last 6 weeks because I was sick. I got some sort of respiratory infection (we think a mild case of walking pneumonia), had a fever on and off for several days, and had a cough I couldn't shake. This lasted through Thanksgiving, our staff retreat, and more. It was really frustrating because I wasn't able to do visit our friends through our outreach many days, I missed street church, and I stayed home from visiting the babies at Bethany for the entirety of that time. I'm so glad that I'm better now! We visited the babies at Bethany for the first time in a LONG time yesterday, and it was great to play with them and hold them again!

       As you've probably seen on my social media accounts, we got a dog! Our Selah is 8 weeks old today, and we picked her up just one week ago! Looking back at pictures, she's already grown a ton in that time. She's learning how to sit, lie down, and play gently. She is doing great with meeting new people and is content to just sit by and watch everything happen. We think she'll be a great friend to everyone that comes to our home!

       Many of our missionary friends flew or drove home to spend time with their families for the holidays, so there were only a few of us left here. We made sure to spend a lot of time with each other to make up for not being able to be with our families! Christmas Eve is the big day here in Brasil - many people start their time together around 8 or 9 PM with a big dinner and afterwards, they open presents and celebrate with fireworks. We spent Christmas Eve evening with our fellow missionaries and girls living at Bethany. We watched "The Nativity" and ate a lot of good food and desserts 😊 On Christmas Day, we invited our friends over to just spend the day hanging out. We also facetimed our families and celebrated as much as possible with them.

       My family was able to send some things with some other missionaries back in November, so they snuck in some gifts - our traditional Christmas Eve pajamas and Christmas morning stockings! It was so special to be able to participate with them in those traditions!!

       Our Portuguese is coming along! We have slacked on spending time studying each day, but we are making plans to change that and be more determined to spend time practicing each day. Immersion in the culture is amazing and has really forced us to learn to communicate with those around us!

       If you would like to partner with us with a one-time or monthly gift, please message us to find out how! Thank you, as always, for keeping us and the entire Shores team in your prayers! We truly appreciate them all!

Month #1

As of last Thursday, we have been living in Brasil for a whole month! That puts us at 5 weeks being here now!! This has felt like the longest and shortest month of our lives. As of late, we've been involved in many different aspects of the ministry.

1) The Father's Love Conference was just held a couple weekends ago. It was a great and busy time, and we enjoyed it immensely! Head to Shores of Grace on Facebook to see some photos, videos, and testimonies from it. JD played the drums for 3/5 sessions and Brittni recorded the sessions. It was a great learning experience!

2) During this time, we also hosted 7 adult guests and a baby! They were visitors from the city of Fortaleza and from the Sertão. We rarely saw them since we were so busy with the conference, but it was very exciting to have so many people staying in our home. We look forward to doing it again soon!

3) We have started working with the kids at Bethany!  At least once a week, we go over for a few hours and hang out with the babies (boys and girls under the age of 3).  We spend time playing with the babies and young kids in the baby room, but we also spend time taking them out in the yard to let them burn off some energy!  On Tuesday evenings, we help take the older girls from Bethany to our base where we have a futebol (soccer) court. We often play a mixture of soccer and Brazilian dodgeball!  Here are few pictures from Bethany this week:

4) Every Friday night, staff and volunteers at Shores head to the Avenida (the word for Avenue in English) to minister to the women that work the streets here in Recife.  When we go, we go with the purpose of revealing the love that a Father has for his children, and speaking to their true identity: they are His daughter/son, and there is nothing they can do to separate themselves from His love.
       On this Friday particular night, we met a girl who we'll call Jessica.  When we approached Jessica, she was staring off into the distance completely oblivious to anything that was going on around her.  We started a conversation with her and came to understand that this was her first night back on the streets after having left them for two years!  She told us she didn't even know why she was on the streets; she had a good job that paid well, a good family situation, a life that was not stressful at the moment, etc. But here she was on the streets where her value, her humanity, and her identity are dictated monetarily.  We started sharing with Jessica about her true identity: she is a daughter and she has a Papa that loves her. We told her He has already given her the keys to freedom and all she needs to do is unlock the door that is in front of her and walk out from the (proverbial) cage she found herself in.  As we continued to share these truths with her, she eventually revealed that she has been struggling with shame and feeling like she was beyond rescuing - that it would be a waste of God's time to even try to show love to her.
       After listening to her share these intimate details of her life, it caused me to ponder, reflect, and search myself to see if I also allowed to shame and guilt to drive me further from God.  Did I allow myself to go into a place that, although it was void of God, felt comfortable to me because I knew I could control the circumstances around me?  Not surprisingly, the answer was yes.  We all, I feel, can identify with Jessica in a similar way.  We all have allowed shame and self-condemnation to push us into a place that feels comfortable, though in actuality, it is a cage that we have committed ourselves to.  It is much easier at times to convince ourselves of our guilt and shame than it is to convince ourselves that our Father loves us the same no matter what.  His love is unconditional and there is nothing we can do to earn it.  All it takes is for us to draw near to Him, and He will draw near to us. 
       In the case of Jessica this night, the Father was drawing himself near to His daughter and showing that there is nothing she can do to separate herself from His love.  His love will chase her down and meet her wherever she is at - even if it is on the side of a street while she struggles with knowing she is worth more than any price that will be offered to her that night.

5) Make sure to follow us on Instagram to see snippets of our life here in Brasil! 
       - Brittni's: @brittni.grant
       - Jd's: @the_bearded_lumberjack

Please be praying for a few things for us!
       - Our monetary needs: We still need several more people/families/businesses to partner with us to do the work we are doing here. We have about $700 out of the $2000 we are needing to raise each month. To become a partner or to give a one time gift, please click here!  This is instrumental as we pay for our rent, groceries, etc! Please let us know if you want to talk more about this!!
       - Our Portuguese learning: We are practicing our language skills for about an hour each day on our own. Pray that we absorb as much of the learning as we can and that we would have opportunities to practice our speaking and listening skills with native speakers! 
       - For continued grace: to adjust to our new lifestyles, new country, new cultures, and to being away from our families during the upcoming holiday season! 

We're here!

Hey guys!

We made it to Brasil!!! We've been here in Recife for about 6 days now, and we're so glad to be here.

Thank you so much for your prayers and thoughts throughout our travel days to get here. We truly appreciate them so much!

All of our luggage made it here without any issues - none broken or cracked or missing! We were immensely blessed upon arriving at the airport because we were only charged $1,000 for our luggage. I know this sounds like a lot, but we were expecting them to charge us about $400 more because of an oversized, overweight bag that we had. The people at United in Chicago were very kind and helpful at getting us through the process quickly. We also made it through customs and immigration without issue. There were a couple moments that made us a bit nervous when they didn't understand our visas (it isn't a very common one here in Brasil), but all was approved and we were able to meet the Shores founders for some coffee right out of customs. It was a great end to our travel journey.

Us with all of our luggage after we arrived in Recife!

Our priority for this first little bit is to become acclimated to our home and life here. To us, this means finding out where to buy cooking staples for the cheapest price and best quality (like spices at a fruit and vegetable store and frozen chicken at the closest grocery store to our house), purchasing a water filter to have drinking water, and learning the streets. It has also meant buying snacks and lunch at the padaria (bakery) around the corner while we've been busy unpacking our house. We have all but a couple small items put away in our house, and it has made it feel much more like a home!

Our Brasilian flag hanging in our new living room 😍

We have attended a couple of ministry events so far - staff bible study and the Children's Day Party. Staff bible study was a great night to say hello to people we've known for a while and to meet tons of new people! The Children's Day Party was a lot of fun! Children from the local community came to enjoy games, snacks, a play, dance, and more. We are very excited to become involved even more.

We are so thrilled to finally be here and be part of the Shores of Grace family. However, we moved in faith that God would provide all of our needs. We are currently about halfway to our funding goal of $2,000 per month. If you would like to become a monthly partner or give a one-time donation, please click the "Giving" link on the right side of our blog (or bottom if you're reading on a mobile device). You are just as much a part of our work here as we are, and we so GREATLY appreciate you.

Let us know what you'd like to know about our lives here, and we'll be happy to talk with you or write a post about it! We love and miss you all!!

Com amor,
the Grants

Update: 09/10/17

Hi guys!

We have grand plans to send out an update at least every week, but so far we've only sent out a post about once a month. Help keep us accountable to posting more so we can keep you involved in what we're doing!

1. Financial needs: We have had some awesome one-time gifts this month, adding up to almost $1000. We are still in serious need of some monthly supporters who will partner with us to allow us to serve the Brasilian people without needing to worry about where our finances will come from. We are still at about 1/3 of our monthly need (about $700/$2000). If you would like to partner with us through a one-time or monthly gift, please contact us, or click HERE to go to the site where we funnel our giving through. They are a 501c3, so you will receive a letter for your taxes at the beginning of the year! If you'd like to bless us with a physical gift, our Amazon wish list still has items on it that we will need as we get down there! Go HERE to view it.
2. We were approved for our visas!!!! This was an incredible feat of God because we received our visas back in just 3 weeks - we even found out on Brittni's birthday! It was incredible. This was key to us being able to leave on the planes we booked tickets for, so we were so excited to get them back so quickly. Having our passports back also allowed us to visit the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, so that was a fun treat 😊
3. Travel details: We will be flying out of Chicago on September 25. That means we leave to head up there exactly two weeks from today!! We can't believe how quickly it is coming up. We will leave Chicago on the morning of the 25th, spend the day in Orlando while waiting for our flight to Recife, and then take a red-eye flight to Recife and arrive the next morning on the 26th! We are so excited to get to our new home and get settled in.
4. Current life updates: During the last week of August, we packed up and moved out of our home, finished up our time at our jobs (Brittni at the O'Reilly warehouse and JD at Bus Andrews Truck Equipment), and moved into Brittni's parents' house. It was an emotional, stressful, and exciting week. After all of that, we packed a couple bags and drove 15 hours to visit JD's family in Rochester, NY. We have done numerous things, and you can see pictures at the bottom of this post! We've really enjoyed this time of rest and relaxation after packing up our home.
5. Coming up soon: We leave to go back to MO on Tuesday morning. We will be there for about 10 days before we head to Chicago. We are hoping to spend time with several of our friends and family members. If you'd like to spend time with us, please let us know!!

We are feeling all of the emotions you can imagine: excitement, joy, sadness, happiness, stressed out, It doesn't feel real yet, but we're ready to get there and make it real!

Stonybrook Park - an incredible (though long) hike with amazing views!

Hiking at Stonybrook Park

We didn't post about it on social media, but we celebrated our first anniversary on September 2nd! It's been an incredible year!!! We had tacos, AMAZING ice cream, and watched Despicable Me 3 😍

We visited Niagara Falls with JD, his sister Jen, and his mom!

We road the Maid of the Mist boat to visit the Falls!

Our ponchos were very fashion-forward 😏

View of the Falls from the Canada side

Much better views on this side!

Super vivid rainbow! I don't know that I've ever seen the purple in a rainbow.

Mini-golfing with JD's brother, Josh, and his wife, Olivia! We had a blast!

Exciting update!

Guys! We have exciting news!!

1) We bought the tickets for our move!

We needed to have a flight itinerary for our visa application, so we bought the tickets a couple weekends ago! Eeeek! As long as our visa is approved in time, we will officially be leaving for Brasil at the end of September! We have tons to do before then, but we're incredibly excited!

2) We sent all of our visa documents in to be processed by the Brasilian government!

These were sent off about a week or so ago, and now we have to wait for the decision of the government! We used a visa service to ensure we had all the necessary documents, so we are expecting to be approved, but you never know what may happen when working with a foreign government.

3) We have a move-out day for our rental home in Walnut Grove!

We recently let our landlord know that we are planning to move out of our home by the end of August. This has given us a deadline for getting all of our things packed up and ready to go!! 

4) We will be using September as a month to visit family.

We were able to visit JD's family over the 4th of July, but three days there just wasn't enough. Because of this, we will be heading to NY for about a week and a half at the beginning of September. We are really excited to get some time in with friends and family, eat some really good food, and see some sights (we're looking at you, Niagara Falls and Stony Brook)! For the last week and a half or so before we leave for Brasil, we will be staying with Brittni's parents.

Other important notes:

• We are still working on raising funds to be fully supported in this time. We're currently about 1/3 of the way to our goal of $2000 per month. If you feel led to support us in this way, we'd love to partner with you in reaching the lost in Brasil! (click HERE to give)
• We have made a list of items that we are hoping to take with us when we move, and we have added them to an Amazon registry. If you can't partner with us as a monthly supporter but still want to help, the items on that list would really help us out! Click HERE to visit the registry.
• Please be praying for us over these next couple months! Here are some specific needs/requests:
• That our visas are approved in plenty of time for us to leave on the date we bought tickets for
• That we would have plenty of time with friends and family over the next two months
• That we will deal with every emotion as they come up (even if - and especially if - they are hard)
• That we would find people to partner with us financially to reach our goal
• For our language-learning skills

Our turn hosting monthly small group dinner at ReRico Brazilian Steakhouse! Everyone enjoyed their Brazilian experience :)

Long- Awaited Update

Oi, gente! This is Brittni.

Wow, it's been a long time since we've posted! We have a few things to update on!

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about how crazy this whole thing is. JD and I are moving to Brasil in TWO MONTHS. Two months! That is coming SO quickly. We have been busy working, spending time with friends and family, and preparing our things for our move.

At the end of May, we took a trip with my extended family to Pensacola, Florida to spend time with more family and to enjoy one last big family trip before we move. We got to go to the beach, visit some extended family, see the Naval Aviation Museum, and eat some delicious food!

Last week, JD and I traveled to New York for a very quick trip to see family over the 4th of July. One of his uncles hosts a HUGE party for family and friends, and we have made it up for the last two years. It's a great time to catch up on life with family, see a great firework show, and eat some delicious food! I personally loved the strawberries and ice cream ;)

We have also spent time with some friends and family recently. A couple weeks ago, we had dinner and walked a trail with some friends from church; this week, we spent time with my younger siblings at a local arcade, Thai restaurant, and a place that sold gelato :)

In the actual process of moving to Brasil, we're making forward progress! We're still practicing our Portuguese so that we can hit the ground running when we arrive. We are also finishing up our visa application to send off ASAP!! We are planning to send it out by the end of this week, as long as we can gather the last couple documents by then (which we believe is totally do-able!). We've been busy getting fingerprinted, collecting college transcripts, recommendation letters, and more to be able to apply for the visa. We are using a visa service to ensure that we have everything we will need to be approved as quickly as possible. The current processing time is 3-4 weeks, so we are hoping to have it back in a month or so!

We have raised approximately $600USD in monthly support. We are still hoping and believing for approximately $2000USD per month to pay for all of our needs (rent, utilities, food, clothing, etc.). God has shown us his faithfulness and helped us to trust Him through the little things, so we have faith that He will show in the big things like our finances! We need your help in this, so if you have felt a nudge from God or just want to help us out, please click HERE! We have already begun paying for the rent for our house in Brasil, so our needs are immediate! Please know that no gift is too small. We appreciate anything and everything that is given through us! We couldn't do this without your help!!

P.S. - The organization we use to process our financial gifts is a 501c3, so you will receive a giving statement for taxes at the end of the year! Yay!