I wanted to take a moment to introduce you to Emilia. Emilia is our house helper who helps all of us keep this house running amidst the business of language learning.

Emilia comes at 7:30a Monday through Friday and leaves somewhere around 4-4:30p with an hour and a half for lunch break. Emilia helps keep the house clean, helps with the laundry, sometimes makes us tortillas (called apas here) and pizza, and helps care for the girls while we’re in language school. Obviously Emilia does not do all of these things every day, since Matt and I work hard around here too. hehe. But she is certainly CRAZY helpful in picking up where we have yet to get to some chores.

My favorite thing about Emilia, though, has nothing to do with chores or cooking. My favorite thing about Emilia is her gentle and kind heart, encouraging all of us in our Portuguese learning. Emilia will often take the time to identify objects or actions in our home to aid in our learning. Emilia speaks no English, but patiently encourages all of us to learn, even little Eden. She’s also sweet to happily receive our mime actions and butchered Portuguese with shared joy. She even acts things out to help us understand her. She’s a trooper!

And while the language and culture barrier certainly has it’s challenges for the younger kiddos, Emilia stoops down to them, smiles a lot and is quick to run and scoop them up whenever they fall or get a bump. You don’t need language to see her heart. And I love how she goes around and gives each of the girls a hug before leaving each day.

Emilia is quick to praise any effort the girls make in speaking Portuguese (smiling and celebrating Eden’s “obagaga” instead of “obrigada”) and so patiently extending her arms to have them “help” her in her work. Few things are more precious than watching her wring out soapy towels while the girls “skate” the downstairs floor joyfully to princess music, help little hands to kneed apa dough, or patiently wait on a rambunctious six year old to mount the step-ladder and fumble the clips to hang the next piece of laundry on the line. She is patient. She is gentle. She cares for us all so.

-Thankful, grateful and blessed by our dear Emilia.