First, Best Destiny

For a couple of years I taught English and did missionary work in Brazil, South America.  My wife is Brazilian-American, and my children were both born there.  One day while I still lived there a letter came in the mail from a woman who attended a church I’d served in Missouri.  I don’t remember anything else she said in the letter, but I do remember she said: “you’re living your dream!” That day as I rode the city bus home from work I saw a Brazilian flag flying high over a John Deere dealership (yes, they have those there) and remembered her words.  I felt a deep sense of satisfaction.  It’s been a while now since I felt that way.

We left Brazil for a multitude of reasons, not least of which being the tenuous financial situation of both the country and our household, and the fact my permanent visa was taking so long to be approved.  Our intention was to move back in five years.  That was 2003, it’s now 2009 and I haven’t been back once.  My wife went to visit her family in 2006 and my mother-in-law has been to visit us in New Jersey a couple of times.

What happened?

There’s a large Brazilian population in the part of New Jersey where we live, and we attend a Brazilian church.  Products from Brazil are readily available at area supermarkets.  I don’t have to deal with the frustrations and indignities of life in a developing nation still hung over (though they’d scarecely admit it) from years of a military dictatorship and rife with silly, counter-productive ideologies.  Still, it just isn’t the same.

We have a good life here in the United State and I can’t see uprooting our family for another major move, but that doesn’t change my sense that Brazil was, is and will always be my “first, best destiny.”