Letter to Marian and Frank, December, 1969

 Rachel and Charles Biel

Iguazu Falls, Brazil, 1969

My Aunt Marian kept many of the letters my mother, Donna Biel, wrote to her.  She returned them in 2010.  Most are recorded here.  They were not entered in chronological order, so the best way to view them is by year, found in the index on the sidebar.

Dear Marian and Frank,

I had this letter written before Thanksgiving but never got any further.  We are busy with Christmas poems for Sunday School, two plays which include youth and adults.  This time of the year it is difficult to start practice early as the school year ends in December and many are taking final exams, but for those who did well all year, they don't have to take final exams or at least, not in the subjects where they did well.

This year we had Thanksgiving at our church with 90 people present.  Almost all who came have children that go to the mission school here.  Last year it was held at the mission school with 60 and it was crowded.  The school children gave an enjoyable program.  Of those present, one other couple are Lutheran, some Baptist and most are from the United Missionary Society.

The first week in December we were gone for four days to the beach where we had two days of business meetings with our mission representative from our Board.  Rachel and Charles stayed with members of our church.  We were not to take our children along, but took Helen and there was one little girl for her to play with.  We enjoyed seeing the other missionaries but had to travel one day to get there and another to get back.  On the way back, Helen had a fever and was vomiting. 

Helen will have her tonsils out on the 30th of this month.  We have a doctor who is a specialist in child anesthesia.  She will be at a Catholic hospital run by Germans.  Helen recently got over a light case of the chicken pox.  Last month she had the mumps.  Charles recently had German measles with a high fever for one day.  When he had the mumps, he was in bed for almost three weeks due to re-swelling and fever.  Rachel has been very healthy and hasn't missed a day of school.

The children continue to be much larger than those of their age.  In the small mission school, Rachel has to sit with the 4th graders who are her size and her classmates, the 2nd graders, sit in smaller desks in front of her.  Grades 2-5 are taught by one teacher in a large room.  There are fifteen-  five of these are second graders.  Rachel's teacher says that she is reading very well. 

A few days before Christmas Charles graduates from the nursery-kindergarten school.  Hopefully in August he will start first grade at the mission school.

In January we will go to a family camp called "word of Life" which all but two of the mission families from our church will attend.  Some of the families I hadn't seen for three years as we went on furlough, then they did when we got back and we live too far away to make a visit unless we take a vacation.

Cliff continues to travel often.  Recently, a week at the Bible Institute in Cianorte, three days to a pastor's meeting in another state.  This last month was one of confirmation of nine in the country church, 11 in the city church and almost the same number in a neighboring city plus a class to be done this month at a chapel where he goes twice a month.  For five weeks we had a girl from our country church doing confirmation as family is moving soon.  When Cliff was traveling, I had three lessons a day with her.  It seemed like there wasn't much time left after preparing for women's Bible studies, taking and getting the children from school, going to sewing class for two hours every day.

At the end of September, I went to a four day retreat for women held in Londrina,  a two hour drive from here.  Two women from the country church and three from here went.  It was the first retreat held in this area- we had 65 women.  It went well except for problems of language as some older women understood only German and others understood only Portuguese.  We feel that German was used too much and hope they will gradually will use it less as the youth prefer Portuguese and soon these will be a part of our women's group.  In the morning our Bible studies were divided into groups of Portuguese and German and the rest of the program was given in either language.

In the end of October, we had our yearly festival in the church with dinner of barbecued steak and potato salad, cakes sold in the afternoon plus a bazaar of clothes.  This year everything was sold.  Now with this money plus money that the members have pledged we plan to finish the church tower and put in bells.  I helped with the bazaar held for Charles's school.  They are working on the construction of the Japanese Methodist church where services are held in the same building.

We have applied for a three month furlough from June to August in 1971.  Then we plan to come back to Maringa.  Time seems to be going very fast and before we know it, we will be visiting with you.  Soon two of our neighboring missionaries will be gone on furlough and the only American of our mission nearby will be Gaylord Grant in Londrina.  We have become good friends with the German missionaries in Campo Mourao, an hour drive from here.  The only other American missionary in this state where we have our church is a nine hour drive from here and the rest are 12-30 hours drive in other states.  This state was where our mission work started but now that we are a part of the Lutheran Church of Brazil and many of our mission churches don't exist or only remain only as preaching points, we can go to wherever we receive a call.

Cliff has become a good photographer.  He takes photos for weddings and confirmations and makes the copies that they want, thus he didn't have time to get our pictures done yet from the vacation in July. 

 Wedding at Querencia do Norte

We went to see the waterfalls of Iguacu which are higher and greater in volume than the Niagara Falls.  They are in our state, a seven hour drive, mostly on dirt roads.

Sete Quedas with Kathy Fedde

By the time you get this, Christmas will be over.  We hope you will have had a joyous one.

We haven't gotten your new address.  How do you like your new home?  I suppose that by now, Erik is a busy little toddler, getting into things.  Does he walk yet?  Here there is never a dull moment. 

If things don't go right, Rachel says that I don't love her.  She's very emotional.  At times she tries my patience.

It seems like a long time since we have heard from you, but I realize you could say the same to us.  Hope you are fine and will write soon.

Love,

Donna and Joey

Letter to Marian and Frank, June 1, 1969

 Leadership classes in Londrina, Parana, Brazil, 1960's.

My Aunt Marian kept many of the letters my mother, Donna Biel, wrote to her.  She returned them in 2010.  Most are recorded here.  They were not entered in chronological order, so the best way to view them is by year, found in the index on the sidebar.

Dear Marian and Frank,

we have had some cold weather.  We had a few days down to 5 centrigrade in the house, then it got quite warm with 5 days of rain in a week.  I appreciate the clothes dryer that I have.  I don't know of any Brazilians that own clothes dryers but most of my neighbors could afford them if they wanted them.

Rachel has finished the first grade Calvert school with me.  She has learned to write very well at the Brazilian school which she goes to every morning for five days and will go until the end of June.  In August she starts second grade at the small mission school here of the United Missionary Church.  It is a five minute drive from here.  A Baptist missionary family who lives near us will take turns with us to take their boy and Rachel to the school.  There are a about 30 students- the high school is a correspondence course.  Charles goes in the morning to the school he and Rachel went to last year.  It is a school  directed by a Japanese missionary of the Methodist church.  He is busy practicing writing numbers up to 10 and playing with the boy next door.  Next March, he will start first grade in a Brazilian school and if the Mission school here doesn't have first grade, I will teach him (as of now that mission doesn't have any children his age so they won't have first grade unless a new family comes with someone in his grade.)

Helen has three friends that she plays with, then they go to nursery school in the afternoon.  Of course, she thinks she can go to school, too.  She seldom takes a nap for then we can't get her to sleep until 10 p.pm.  She insists on dressing herself and screams if I help her but yet, though she tries to be grown-up, she still isn't completely toilet trained.  We have many cars that zoom by our house.  It seems like I spend a lot of time watching the children and yet Charles ran across without looking and a car barely missed him.

Cliff is busy planning for activities in July when there is a month off in the school year.  For the first 11 days, he will be in Londrina, two hours from here for Bible camp and for a course for teachers in Sunday School. 

 Mauro and Edilma at Leadership school in Londrina

Cliff is the representative for youth work in the Northern part of this state.  He went to a meeting in another state to plan various types of Bible camps.  One is on music, another on Evangelism and another on the Church's social responsibility.  Some camps are too far away for our youth.  After that meeting four pastors from around here and the director of the hostel in Londrina were at our house for dinner and an afternoon meeting for planning the Bible camps. 

 Square Dancing at the Leadership School

Londrina, Parana, Brazil

Last week Cliff was gone for three days to a meeting in the Southern part of the state.  It was a nine hour drive one way.  Each church was to take two representatives.  One of our representatives was waiting in a nearby town for Cliff.  While he was crossing a street he was hit by a car.  Cliff spent the afternoon with him in the hospital.  He was taken to the hospital unconscious, but fortunately, the head wounds were not critical and he is recovering with a couple of broken bones.

This Thursday we will have women from neighboring cities and I'm sure there will be a good turnout of our group to hear the wife of the pastor who lived for 27 years in a nearby city of Rolandia and formed most of the churches in this area.  Unfortunately, I won't be able to understand it for even though the pastor's wife has been in Brazil for 30 years, she speaks only German.  This weekend Cliff has exchanged parishes with a German pastor.  They do it once every two months in order have German services in our parish.  The pastor and his wife frequently stop here when traveling.  Their oldest daughter, almost six, came along this time to play with Rachel.

For one month, Manuel from our church in Londrina, lived with us.  He is a 25 year old man who was waiting for a work permit in Germany.  He is not of German background.  He has spent one year in the State's on scholarship.  While here, he helped his sister teach English at the Fisk school.  We enjoyed having him with us.  His mother is helping care for the missionary children at the the hostel in Campinas.

A few days ago, Cliff was 33 years old.  We bought him a shirt a month ago.  He acted as if the present were a surprise but later said that Helen had showed him where I had hid it the day it was bought.  In spite of getting older and Cliff is much grayer now, we are continuing to be blessed with good health.

When do we get some pictures of your children?  These pictures we are sending we made four for each brother and sister, Aunt Martha, two sponsoring churches, for our parents and scrapbooks of ours- it came to over 100 pictures.  It certainly comes out much cheaper doing it ourselves and we can blow up the best part of the picture.

Today it was 42 degrees at 7 a.m. and 50 degrees in the house.  We heated the kitchen and Joey heats his office.  A cold spell usually lasts three to four days.  This kitchen has a door on it, leading to a hallway which goes to other rooms.  Our other house in Loanda didn't have a door going to the hallway, so we used a bedspread to keep heat in the kitchen.

While making this letter and developing pictures, we caught six mice in the oven- all small.  As soon as we got one, we threw it out and used the same bait.  Since then, I caught two more and had gotten three big ones on a previous day- total of eleven.  They seem to like the oven in the cold weather-  the nest must be underneath the grill but we can't find anything.

All for now,

Love,

Donna and Joey