Stories From the Amazon - Starting an Equestrian Center

In my early twenties I came to a turning point in my life. I felt like I had two paths to choose from as far as which direction to go with life in general and as I prayed about what to do and asked God for clear direction I felt like either one was a path He would bless and allow me to walk on. My first choice was to go to Veterinary college and become a vet. Now in Brazil, to get into college is different from getting into college here in the United States. You have to know what degree you want to pursue and which college you want to attend and then you go take a long college entrance test for that degree and if you pass you are allowed to go to that college for that subject. Before this turning point I had spent about a month or so in Rio de Janeiro with some missionary friends of ours and I saw in the newspaper that a college there was offering this test and one of their degrees was Veterinary Medicine. I had up to that point never really considered trying to get into college in Brazil, partly because I had never studied in the Brazilian school system and there are parts of it that are quite different from the American school system. However, I was bored and thought to myself, why not? I'd just go take the test and be able to see what it was like and how hard it might be and if I even had a chance of passing. So when the results came out a few weeks later, much to my astonishment I had passed. Unfortunately at this point in life I wasn't at the said turning point crisis of my life and since this missionary family lived on the other side of the country from my hometown and I didn't think I could make it work to attend that college, I didn't actually finish the application process. This is one of my many big regrets in life. However, like every regret, I have to remind myself that I wouldn't be where I am right now if it hadn't been for those choices made. Instead I learned how travel around the big huge city of Rio on the public transportation and see the tourist sights. It made me feel pretty important to be able to figure that out. I'm sure God had his angels pulling their hair out trying to keep me safe though, now, looking back. Each morning I would ask my missionary friend which bus to take to go see whatever I'd want to see and then which busses brought me back to where she lived. It was kind of thrilling to be successful at travelling that bus system by myself and not getting lost and actually managing to find my way back home at the end of each day. The temperatures were blistering hot at that time of year in Rio and I spent quite a lot of time enjoying the beaches too. Finally my time in Rio was up and I went back home to northern Brazil. I kind of muddled around and tried to figure out what to do with my life. At that time I had my young stallion that I was training and working with and a lot of the old ranchers would watch me ride and noticed that I wasn't just a cute girl riding her horse, but that I actually knew how to ride and train. They started asking me to teach their daughters, girlfriends, wives how to ride also. Then the owner of one of the local western type shops offered to help me as much as possible and send students my way if I would open an equestrian center. I considered the amount of effort and cost that it would take to start something like that, the need for a barn and arena and good lesson horses. I also considered trying to get into other vet schools and how that might be a better path for me. But I couldn't decide which path I wanted to take so finally I prayed and felt like I should knock on all the possible doors and see which one opened up for me. I applied to 2 more vet colleges and travelled to two more towns to take the test and didn't pass on either one of those. So the work began to start the equestrian center. I had a little bit of money so I hired a guy to build an 8 stall brick barn and we started digging post holes to build an arena. A few good horses were purchased for a good price and kids began to show up out there for lessons. Pretty soon I was teaching a half dozen kids or more each day and putting on barrel races and playday competitions for the kids. I had about a dozen really good reliable lesson horses. I started boarding horses and training horses for other people also to help pay the bills. It was a busy but very good life.