Jesusluvsall's Blog

In June and July 2015, I was in Rio do Sul a small city in Santa Cantarina Brazil. I was there to teach English at a university there, Unidavi. For about three weeks of my time there, I stayed in the apartment of missionary friends who were traveling in other parts of Brazil.

The experience was awesome because I stayed by myself and took care of myself in another country. That included doing my laundry, going to the market, and making my breakfast. I spoke Portuguese most of the time I was there except while I was teaching and after class when I would go out with students or faculty for dinner after class.

Each morning I made my coffee Brazilian style.

I enjoyed drinking my cup of coffee sitting in the balcony to see the view and on some days at dawn.

I had fruit and yogurt for breakfast every morning, but one morning I decided to cook an omelet. The frying pan was no-stick with a white interior. I started cooking the omelet and want to check my facebook messages quickly. A friend in my home city was completing her application to medical school, so I helped her with a little editing and forgot the omelet. 45 minutes later I finished helping my friend and suddenly remembered the omelet. The frying pan was multi-colored on the inside mostly with black and brown. I soaked and scrubbed it five times to get it looking like this.

I was worried about having ruined my friends pan. I looked at stores in the city but could not find one that was the same. And I mean I SEARCHED. The Director of the Language department took it home and somehow got it cleaned.

When my friends returned, I told them about my little adventure with the pan. The wife responded, “That old thing? I brought that from America a long time ago.”

So I was worried about something that she did not care about. I made the problem bigger than what it really was.

How often in life do we make problems bigger than they really are? Granted there are serious issues people can have, but I am talking about blowing small things out of proportion in our minds.

I think we can all learn from the frying pan the lesson of not making things bigger than they really are especially if we follow Jesus. 🙂