Wedding Pictures

Alright, here is a special  post about Daniel and Sabrina's wedding for all of those who are awaiting news and pictures. As you read it, please keep in mind that I am writing it after traveling all night and that all the pictures were taken by unofficial  photographers, so please forgive any mistakes that may have gone unnoticed. :)

The wedding took place yesterday (Jan. 12th) at a "sitio" in Jundiaí. A sitio here in Brazil is usually a large piece of land that may have a few cows and even a garden on it, but it is usually used for recreational purposes. This sitio in particular had a lake with paddle boats, soccer field, horses, dormitories and several buildings which can be rented for special events. 

Sabrina originally wanted an outdoor wedding, so they rented this sitio and planned to have the ceremony on a lawn near the lake. However, three days before the wedding Jundiaí began having heavy rains to the point that several neighborhoods were at risk of experiencing mudslides.  The wedding ceremony was eventually moved to a covered deck near the lake.


Sabrina with help from her family did as many of the preparations for the wedding as she could. For starters, she made all the wedding invitations by hand. Here is a link to a video of her making one of the invitations if you would like to see it: goo.gl/mKPdk




Sabrina helped her dad make the podium that was used for the ceremony...

....and she helped her mom make the chocolate and coconut candies which were served after the reception. Sabrina also took care of all the flower arrangements.

The Sukerth family also put together a special glass table for the wedding cake.

The finished cake table was very nice! Underneath the table Henrique, Sabrina's brother, put a small platform with colorful LED lights in it. This allowed the platform and the cake table to be always changing colors.

Now I don't want you to think that Daniel was lazy in the months leading up to the wedding so I will include some pictures of what he was busy with. :) Just as soon as he decided to propose to Sabrina, Daniel began looking for a house in São José dos Campos, which is where he works and attends church. The cost of housing in the booming city of São José is very high. Daniel quickly discovered that buying a house was out of the question and renting a house would be difficult. After reading the classifieds multiple times and looking into every option he could find, Daniel found a small house where he could rent the top floor.

As you can tell, the house wasn't in the best shape, but structurally it is a good house, so Daniel set to work fixing it up. He varnished the wooden ceilings, learned to do some electrical repairs, sanded and repainted the gate, and even put in a wall with the help of a brother from his church.






You will also be glad to know that he exchanged the  horrible green paint for several coats of a nice off-white paint.

The wedding ceremony was supposed to begin at 5:30 yesterday afternoon, but it ended up running a little late. This is not unusual in Brazil. Some folks even believe that if a bride arrives late to her wedding, it brings good luck. :) In Daniel and Sabrina's case, though, a good number of guests were still arriving a good fifteen or twenty minutes after starting time, so we all just had to wait.

Thankfully the time we waited gave us an opportunity to take a family picture....

....and it gave Benjamin and Daniel plenty of time to stand on the platform. :)

Yes, that is right! My older brother Ben came to Brazil in order to officiate at Daniel's wedding. I wondered, at first, if the eleven years Ben spent in the States would make his Portuguese rusty. But it didn't! At Daniel and Sabrina's request, Ben preached an excellent message on the need to have Christ first of all as Saviour and then also as the center of our marriages and homes.

The wedding ceremony began shortly after 6 p.m. Due to where I was sitting, I wasn't able to get pictures of many people coming down the aisle, but I did get this picture of Sabrina and her dad walking by.












Daniel and Sabrina sat on a park bench while Ben preached.











After the preaching was done, Daniel and Sabrina stood up and two little girls brought the rings up the aisle. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of  what happened, but it was a funny point in the wedding so I must tell you about it. The two little girls are sisters and they were very cute in their matching dresses. The older sister is ten years old and the younger one is just learning to walk. The littlest one did pretty well taking her baby steps next to her big sister for the first half of the aisle, but then she must have gotten tired and kept wanting to sit down on the floor after every two steps. The older girl did pretty well at first lifting the little one up and getting her to take another few steps, but about three benches from the end of the aisle the little girl couldn't walk any more. Her sister's vigorous tugging on her arm produced no results, so Ben stepped off the platform, lifted the little girl to her feet, and with one little hand holding onto her sister and the other little hand holding Ben's fingers, she made it to the end of the aisle. The rings, by the way, were carried down the aisle in a wooden box which Daniel made to use when he asked Sabrina to marry him.

After rescuing the little girl, Ben stepped back up on the platform and performed the vows. I was able to film that part of the ceremony. Unfortunately, my blog doesn't want to upload the video, so I will post a link to it here: http://goo.gl/9MOgX 
I suggest you watch it, because right before their kiss Daniel and Sabrina gave the audience a surprise. :)

You might have noticed the rain in the video. January is the month of rain here in Brazil, and even though there were a lot of people hoping that the wedding day would be overcast but dry, it rained for the greater part of the day. Thankfully most of the time the rain was a light drizzle, but the rain became heavy during the last part of the wedding ceremony. During this heavy rain, the bride and groom were sprayed on their backs and a gutter overflowed and came gushing down onto the platform and generously sprayed Ben's pant legs, but everything continued on. During the reception I overheard two ladies jokingly say that Sabrina must have eaten out of a pan several times. It seems there is a Brazilian saying which states that if a bride eats directly out of a pan there will be rain during the wedding. :)

Following the conclusion of the wedding ceremony, we all moved to the adjoining building where the reception was going to be held. Sabrina's colors were for the most part various shades of pink, but the tables and chairs for the reception had been done in brown and white with a pot of pink violets as a centerpiece.

Here is a closeup of the table decorations. The white paper with the little bride and groom on it is actually a menu telling about what is going to be served.

The meal that was served was especially creative. Sabrina began the planning process for the reception by looking into various catering services, but they were all too pricey. Then she stumbled across this company called "Pizza Architects".

The "Pizza Architects" make their own pizzas, and then pack the pizzas and their own oven up and take them to the events that they are catering. The idea was creative and the price affordable, so Sabrina hired them to do the reception.

During the first hour and a half after the wedding, the "Architecs" served a variety of meat, cheese, and even vegetable pizzas. At our table we had a pizza with tuna and onions, another with zucchini and cheese, a very common one with pepperoni, and an uncommon one that had sliced hot dogs and shoestring potatoes. They were all good. Later in the evening, the "Architecs" began passing around sweet pizzas, which included a pizza with strawberries and chocolate sauce, a banana pizza sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, and a Romeo and Juliet pizza, which has cheese and guava jam.

While we were busy enjoying the pizza, Daniel and Sabrina took a lot of pictures,...















....walked around the room greeting people, and then Daniel had to sell a tie.

It is customary at Brazilian weddings for the groom's buddies to gang up on him, put an old tie around his neck and lead him around the room asking the male guests for donations. When a guest makes a donation, the groom's buddies cheer loudly and give the guest a piece of the groom's tie.

You should have heard all the wild cheering and clapping that went on when on when Ben donated a ten dollar bill!

Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Gardner

And that folks is the end of my pictures! Daniel and Sabrina are away on their honeymoon in Campos do Jordão, which is a pretty tourist city nestled among the hills not so very far from Jundiaí. The rest of us, with the help of coke, chocolate, and the alphabet game, traveled all night to come home. :)

Holiday Pictures

Surprise!

Our holidays where looking like they were going to be rather ordinary days. Sometimes we do that - simply work through holidays, since we don't have any family gatherings to attend and since our work is always backed up. I was tentatively planning to clean the refrigerator and do some laundry today... until Daniel surprised us by traveling nine hours to drop in for a visit! 

Mexican Train Dominoes

Since Daniel was in the house, we declared the day a holiday and and pulled out a variety of table games.  Dad as usual won most of them. :) 

Head Cook and Head Dishwasher

Joy, with a little help from the rest of us, fixed a special meal.

Head Turkey Carver

Even David helped out in the kitchen!

Let the meal begin!

We all enjoyed Joy's cooking and a good long time to talk (and of course being Gardners we had to share a few lame jokes!).

Finishing up Dishes

Following the meal, we all helped with the dishes and cleanup. Well, most of us helped...Daniel randomly gave hugs and succeeded in getting in the way. :)

Bitsy and a Bone

Even Bitsy helped clean up some leftovers. :)

Mom and her notebook

Our gifts this year were notebooks and pens, each one carefully chosen to fit the receiver's personality and needs. 

















Dad's notebook has Snoopy on it, because he often gets a chuckle out of the Peanuts comic strip.

Along with a doggie themed notebook, I received  a special card from my only "niece", who is Joy's cat, Sundae. The card reads as follows: "Mewy Christmus fwum sooper sekret admywer.    - santas littel helpurr"

Joy's notebook was kitty themed and considering that quite a few of her birthday cards this year were decorated with cats, I wonder if kitties are pushing cows out of her life and mind???  :)

Instead of a notebook, Daniel was given an agenda. He immediately started planning his nap times for next year...

David's notebook was definitely the uniquest one of all. On it's cover it says "I Learn by Osmosis". In between the words, you will notice there is a Garfield that has books tied to his head, arms, feet, etc...

No holiday is complete without special desserts. Our day has been full of a very special Stollen, which is similar to a fruit cake. Sabrina (Daniel's bride-to-be) made the Stollen and Daniel brought it with him. We also had to suffer through some brown sugar spice cake which we made.

This evening we gathered around the piano and sang a few hymns, before Daniel hurried off to catch a bus back to São José dos Campos and the rest of us prepared to crawl into bed.

A Special Service and A Saint

Friday, October 12th, was for us one of those days where you throw yourself out of bed early, hit the floor running and don’t stop until late that night. There were even several times scattered throughout the day that we had to push ourselves to greater speeds to keep up with all the work that needed doing. All this busyness began earlier in the year, when Dad and David noticed that September, October and November each held an extended holiday weekend. It was then that the idea to have a special service and invite the ten or twelve churches in our area to it began. The men decided that September 7^th, Independence Day weekend for Brazilians, would be the special day, and preparations began!

Living room where the Prudente
church meets

One of the first steps necessary to putting this plan into action was to find a building to rent for the day. The Prudente church rents a house and holds services in the living room. Holding a special service there with several visiting churches is simply unworkable, so David began looking for alternatives. Thankfully Presidente Prudente offers a nice variety of what they call “Salão de Festas”, these are buildings which are built for the sole purpose of being rented out for birthday parties, wedding receptions, etc… A salão de festa usually has one large rectangular room, at least two bathrooms, and a kitchen. Unfortunately, September 7^th is such a big holiday that the vast majority of these places were already rented. After quite a bit of in depth searching, David did find a salão which would suit the purpose, and he quickly reserved it for the special service. Dad was traveling quite a bit at the time, so he began inviting churches verbally and Mom, Joy and I began getting together with the three ladies at church to plan a time of fellowship for after the service.

September 7th service

Our plans and preparations came to an abrupt halt in the last half of August, when David called the owner of the salão to confirm our reservation. She simply informed David that she had decided to rent the salão to someone else on September 7^th. Now what? A few more phone calls confirmed that there were no more salãos available for Independence Day, and Dad had already invited the churches in Bataguassu, Jaciporã, Ourinhos, and Bauru! The men eventually came to the decision to go ahead and hold the special service on September 7^th in our garage with the churches that had already been invited, and Lord willing on October 12^th we would have another special service with all the churches on the original list. A little over thirty people from five different churches were present for the September 7^th service, and the Lord blessed in many ways.

Immediately following the September 7^th service, planning was resumed for the special service on October 12^th. The men of the church found a very nice salão to rent, invited Pr. Waldir Ferro from São Paulo to preach and also put in a reservation for one hundred and fifteen chairs. The women finalized the plans for the refreshments following the service.

The Salão

The days leading up to October 12^th were extra hot. A few folks worried that the four wall fans at the salão wouldn’t be enough to keep a large group of people cool, but the big day began with a good hard rain which cooled things off. Unfortunately the rain turned the section of dirt road in front of the salão into a soft sticky red mud, which soon caked multiple sets of shoes and car tires as our family and a few of the church folks gathered to clean up the salão and wipe off all the chairs.

Maria Aparecida

While the cleaning and setting up of the salão was going on, I had to make a run to the grocery store. Thankfully it was not quite 9 a.m. and the holiday shoppers still hadn’t turned out to clog all the aisles and make long lines at the checkouts. I was able to purchase what I needed and hopped in the car for the short trip back to the salão. A few blocks from the grocery store I became stuck in a very long line of traffic. The line stretched as far as I could see in both directions and contained cars of all sizes and even a few trucks. Each vehicle had a bunch of blue and white balloons taped to it’s roof, and the majority of the drivers were leaning on their horns as they moved up the road. As I crawled along in the middle of the line, I tried to think what the celebration was all about. An important birthday? The newspaper hadn’t mentioned anything about it. A political rally? No, elections are over for this year. Then I noticed the car in front of me had a bumper sticker in honor of Maria Aparecida, Brazil’s patron saint, and I remembered that this was a holiday dedicated to her.

Cathedral in Aparecida do Norte

Maria Aparecida translated means “Mary that Appeared”. The widely accepted story about Aparecida says that many years ago during a time of severe drought, some poor fishermen pulled up their nets one night and the statue of a lady rolled into the bottom of their boat. One of the fishermen took the lady to his humble home. He and his family soon discovered that if they prayed to the lady, she would answer and would even do miracles. The idol’s fame grew and she went from the fisherman’s home to a small chapel in the city. She supposedly continued to answer prayers and heal a number of diseases. A few years later she was made Brazil’s patron saint, and now the original idol is said to reside in the cathedral built for her in the city of Aparecida do Norte.

A special mass in the cathedral

Twenty some years ago our family traveled a few hours to visit this cathedral. The city of Aparecida do Norte is very poor and dirty, and tourists must be especially careful with their belongings due to the abundant pickpockets. The cathedral is very big with lots of arches and high ceilings, but the memories that are most vivid in my mind are of two large rooms.

The Candle Room

One room is empty except for wide cement shelves running all around it and down the middle. On these shelves Catholics burn candles, and it is said that as long as their candle is burning there are prayers going up for them and their needs.

Ceiling covered with pictures

The second room is called the Miracle Room. This room is full of pictures and objects that have been left as a way of expressing thankfulness for a request granted or a miracle of some sort. Many of the pictures that have collected over the years have been glued to the ceiling of the room.

Wax Replicas

A variety of braces and wax replicas of body parts are also left in the Miracle Room to represent cures that have taken place.  A selection of these braces and replicas have been hung on the walls or strung on wires near the ceiling.

Ramp leading up to the cathedral

Every year, especially around October 12^th, people make pilgrimages to Aparecida do Norte and the cathedral. Some simply drive or ride the bus there, but a few have made a promise to walk there in order to obtain special grace or an answer to their prayers. Just a few days before Daniel traveled in for the special service here in Prudente, he was walking to work along a road that he doesn’t usually take and he noticed that there were a good number of other people walking the same route. A few minutes later he noticed that a bus would pull up beside these people at regular intervals and offer them water or a piece of fruit. Daniel ended up falling into step with a man, and he asked him where he was going. The man replied that he was walking to Aparecida’s cathedral.

The salão beginning to fill up

Now let’s get back to the special service that took place in Prudente. The setting up of the salão was all finished around 10:30 a.m., and we all headed home for lunch and a shower before returning to the salão at 2:30 p.m. The service was actually scheduled to begin at 4 p.m., but a couple of the churches had informed us that they would be arriving early. They did arrive early! It was about 1:30 that the first phone call came saying, “We are in town, where is the salão?”, and many more similar calls followed. The salão was situated on a main road, but for some reason everyone’s GPS systems took them across town. Daniel and David stayed busy giving people verbal directions.

Seventy-two people from eleven different churches came in the end, and the Lord blessed in each aspect of the service. Many Brazilians enjoy singing out and some of them love to sing parts so one of the special joys of getting multiple churches together is the singing of hymns. This time was no exception. It was a real joy to sing one hymn after another with the seventy-two different voices, and when the song leader called out number sixty, “Coroai”, I decided to try and capture the first verse on my camera. The quality of the resulting video isn’t very good, but I’ll go ahead and post it here anyway.

The October 12th service officially begins!

Pr. Waldir Ferro stepped up to the pulpit, after the song service, and began to preach a very edifying message about faithfulness. The first part of the message dealt with man’s inbred unfaithfulness and God’s unwavering faithfulness to Himself, His attributes and His Word. This first part took almost an hour to preach, and after a short break with a hymn, Pr. Waldir preached for another hour and a bit about how we can grow in our faithfulness to the Lord.

"Preaching too much = No Brownies"

Pr. Waldir pastored the church in Sud Menucci for a good number of years and now he is pastoring Bethel Baptist Church in São Paulo. Both churches really appreciate his ministry but they do lovingly tease him about his very thorough and long messages. Earlier this year, Pr. Waldir and his family were visiting in Sud Menucci at the same time that Dad and Joy were there. Pr. Waldir loves brownies and he kept hinting that it would sure be nice to have some before he left. Well, several of the young ladies got together and promised to make brownies, but if he wanted some of them he couldn’t preach too long. That evening as usual he preached over an hour. The young ladies eventually gave him as many brownies as he could eat, but first they snapped a picture of him holding a poster which says, “Preaching too much = No Brownies”. :)

Esfihas are triangles of dough that are stuffed
and then baked

The special service here in Prudente was drawing to a close around 7:30 or 8:00 p.m., and we three Gardner ladies with the three ladies from the Prudente church hurried to serve the snack before the visiting churches began their trips back home. For all of you who are wondering, we served simple ham and cheese sandwiches, esfihas filled with chicken and beef, and for dessert there were homemade cakes. Sisters Jocelene and Isabel made orange cakes, our family provide coconut cakes, and Sis. Lucilene made corn cake. 

Daniel and David - Two very tired, but happy boys

Most of the brethren were heading to the highway and home by 9:30 p.m. The folks from Prudente stayed a little later to clean up the salão so that the keys could be returned to the owner yet that night.

Note: During our visit to Aparecida’s cathedral, we did take pictures. However, I can’t find them anywhere, so the pictures in this post related to Maria Aparecida and the cathedral were taken by others. Here are the sources for anyone who is interested:

The cathedral picture – gelzart.blogspot.com

Inside the cathedral - aquiturismo.blogspot.com

The picture of the idol –  marketplace.secondlife.com

The candle room picture – fotosdobrasil.fot.br

Picture of the miracle room – fotosdobrasil.fot.br

Pictures glued to the ceiling - asnovidades.com.br

The picture of the esfihas is from: flavorsofbrazil.blogspot.com