Amazonian Giant Centipede

This is what I'm going to tell you about in this post:

It's called an Amazonian Giant Centipede and if this photo makes you queasy, you certainly don't want to watch the links to the videos I've posted.

If you read Jonah and Andy's page you've already seen this and know that it was in our bed.  The reason I'm putting it on our main blog page is because it has become something of an issue in our lives this week.  One of these centipedes climbed out from under Jonah's bed and right up his leg on Saturday.  They move fast and we had to turn the room upside down to locate and finally kill it.

I saved it in a container and took it to church to see if anyone knew what it was.  Someone told me it's a lacraia (Portuguese for centipede).  I did some research on the Internet and was happy to find no confirmed cases of death by giant centipede.  I will allow you to watch the videos if you would like to know more about some of the creatures living around and apparently in our house - if you would like to know how to more specifically pray for our protection.  We would sure appreciate it.

I will tell you that these centipedes are carnivorous - eating birds, bats, lizards, tarantulas, and mice - and highly toxic.  See for yourself:

video of a centipede eating a tarantula

video of centipede eating a mouse

I even found a discussion forum for people who own these as pets (I kid you not) and handle them on a regular basis.  

Party for English Students

Last night the church celebrated its Let's Start Talking (LST) students by throwing them a party. It was also a birthday party for our LST girl Cris Carpenter, whose full-time job it is to read the Bible with these eager language students .  Many of them regularly attend a Wednesday morning Bible class that John teaches as well as a monthly English church service.  Take a look at the party photo album here.     

And Then There Were Four

Grandma left for the States this weekend.  We sure do miss her.  She has been with us through this entire transition and it has made it much easier on us all - especially the grandsons.  We hope she will have a good visit with the family in Colorado and return to us very soon.  

My Brother's Visit

My brother came to visit and he just left on Saturday. He was only here for a week but we packed a lot into those seven days. If you're thinking about coming to visit or you're just curious how we treat our visitors, you can check out my brother's vacation photos here.