December Events:

Matt’s Birthday was a lot of fun and was almost a full fledged Brazilian birthday party with catered sweet and salty mostly fried Brazilian “things,” a prayer in portuguese, about 5 different birthday songs and even live music (our neighbor brought his guitar). The birthday parties here are really big deals. Matt’s wasn’t quite up to par with some of the birthdays that we’ve been to here but it was still an event to remember. One memorable thing that happened was that our digital camera was stolen. Yeah, I know from his own party but it was in the shared room downstairs in our apartment building and anyone (from the complex) could have wandered in and taken it. – Just wanted to let you know why there are not as many pictures on our blogspot. Aside from that it was a successful evening and a good opportunity to build stronger relationships with the neighbors and new friends God has blessed us with here.
God brought us even more American visitors this month: Donna McMillan and Georgia Frietas stayed with the Parkers, the Terri’s (a missionary couple in Porto Alegre, Brazil) stayed with the Porters, and Russell’s parents, brother, and grandmother came for Christmas.
Our team Christmas was wonderful! We all spent the night at the Parkers (the only weekend in December without visitors) and played dirty Santa, read the Christmas story and sang carols. Then Saturday morning we opened our gifts to each other (we drew names) – the children went first of course! A memorable and blessed event!
Just after our “Christmas weekend” together we learned that Mary’s visa was invalid because of a previous visa in her passport that had never been canceled. Amazingly enough, even though she was illegal for a while (and still might be), we could see God working in that situation as well. We were told to go to Recife (a city about 12 hours by car north of here) to the Immigration Department. It just so happens that we have good Brazilian friends we knew from Abilene who are working with the church in Recife. God lead us to experience many different mature Brazilian works in that city, make bonds with the Christians there, and even get the proper “cancel” stamp in Mary’s passport.
God also guided us through another government problem with our taxes. We were being charged for taxes for the year before (when we weren’t even in the country yet). This was a major headache that gave us some good contacts in the end and helped us to pave the way for our teammates who are having the same trouble now.
We held our first small group meeting all in Portuguese. It was just our team but Travis is teaching all of us how to lead these and teach Brazilians to lead them as well. We hope small groups will be a major evangelistic tool, second only to our evangelistic studies. Please, keep praying that God will give us the gift of tongues as we spread His Word.
Negotiations for the building and planning renovations for it began in December. This is one of Matt’s roles on the team so needless to say it consumed what time was left after the above trips and events. God has truly been good in answering this prayer for a place to worship Him that is: in a our target area, on a main street, and big enough for at least 3 years of growth. And believe it or not, it’s located on Holy Spirit Street!
Each team member has different roles. Most ministries have 2 people working together but some just have 1 person. We began presenting our 5 year dreams in each ministry area and our 1st year goals to each other. We also began planning which things we could handle at first – what we were going to start off doing well. God has blessed us with good leadership and training for this preparation time.