Hi again, here's a small update from us in Campinas.
We are feeling well, are still healthy, and we are happy that more and more of society is opening up, and that the situation with Covid-19 is calming down more and more (at least in our city Campinas, and in the state of Sao Paulo as well). In Campinas, the occupancy rate at the ICU is now around 70%, when it was at its worst it was 95-100%. It is still a tough situation, where many are still affected, and the quarantine continues, but with "relief" in what is required of us.
The churches can slowly start having services again (with max 50 in attendance) so we have been to our first service since March - a DRIVE-IN family service in the church parking lot. In our condominio (gated community where we live), the pool has finally reopened, to the great delight of our kids. But quarantine continues and we are encouraged to stay at home. What is new, however, is that Kajsa starts school on October 7, and Eliah two weeks later. Adam, who is in high school (6th grade), will continue with home school via video and zoom throughout the school year. We look forward to Eliah and Kajsa starting school, because then it will also be a little easier for us to catch up with work, which we long for.
Right now, we are so excited that the Swedish Mission Council has approved our application for funding for an anti-corruption project, which we hope will be able to start after the New Year. More info about it will come in a later blog post. In any case, it feels great and very encouraging. We see that it is so needed, and we think the project is super well designed! Anna will be involved in it to a large extent. Now during the autumn, Anna works mostly as a sounding board for Tania Wutski (main coordinator at our partner NGO “FEPAS”) in the preparations, including translation of project texts and the development of an anti-corruption policy for FEPAS. Staffan works on his portuguese and tries to spend time on it. He will also be teaching at our sister church CIBI's annual mission week at the end of October (this time online via zoom, what else in these times).
We feel good in the middle of everything, even if we are a little tired and worn out after 6 months in quarantine in a new country, with home school and without a real vacation. But, our mood is good, we still feel we are in the right place.