Intro...

Welcome to my 2012 Brasil mission blog! :D Please note, although Brasil is spelled with an "s" in Brasil (and will probably be spelled that way through most of this blog), I spelled it with a "z" in this blog's url (trishasbraziltrip@blogspot.com) because I figure that more Americans will be visiting it than Brasilians. :) Now that that's been explained, Here's an explanation of what/who the VISION team is, and what we were doing in Brasil! VISION is a singing/drama ministry team at San Diego Christian College. Its members audition to join the team at the beginning of the year, then we spend all year learning songs and dramas together twice a week. Usually toward the second semester, we begin to learn songs in the language of the country we are going to, and we perform more often in local churches to raise support. This year we went to Brasil, so we learned several songs in Portuguese, the native language. We were able to utilize these songs along with our dramas (which are silent and set to music, and thus break the language barrier) to present the love of God to the Brasilian people through over 30 performances in four different parts of the country! Our team went through several member changes throughout the year, as a couple of people had to drop out because of work conflicts or financial reasons, and others were brought in to take their place. By the time we got on the plane though, this was our final team roster:

 Mike Alvarez - primary sound equipment man, third year on VISION
Mark-Anthony Beltran - first year
Donny Bueno - first year
Lizzy Byrd - drama trainer, third year
Trish Guinn - second year
Dayna Johnson - first year
Emilie McDonald - this year's student leader, third year on VISION
Chantelle Mckenzie - first year
Rebeka Mellado - first year
Priscilla Norman - second year
Zach Shipley - secondary sound equipment man, first year
Larry Wilson - SDCC Music professor, and VISION leader for all 20 years

 Last year we went to Israel (which you can read about at trishasisraeltrip.blogspot.com), and two years ago the team went to the Ukraine. That's all for the intro! Keep reading for the interesting stuff! :)