Aubry Before Going Out In The Snow

Furlough (Missouri)

So after three long flights we made it! One of which a baby beside us cried for hours - thank goodness it wasn't ours. Aubry didn't have a meltdown and Pregnant Mommy didn't get really sick until after we reached our final destination. It was a good trip. Thanks to all who prayed for us. Our first two weeks were spent in Missouri with family, friends, and supporters. We had a big Thanksgiving in the church fellowship hall with Matt's family. It was good to do it there since his family is growing and Sienna needed the handicap facilities. (For those of you who don't know Matt's niece was in a terrible car accident recently and lost her foot and part of her leg). We played lots of games, watched Aubry show off, and ate a lot of food. The next day we even got to take Sienna bowling along with Matt's other neice, Lindsey and her husband, Andy. Sienna's first time bowling in a wheel chair and she scored 20 points higher each new game! Also, while in Missouri, Matt preached Sunday morning at Park Hills, we taught the youth class twice, we got to visit Mrs. Dotti Perryman (one of our loyal supporters) in the nursing home, and we visited with other supporters and sent reports out. We celebrated Matt's birthday and our Christmas early with his family. It was all in all a good trip that went by too fast but at least Aubry got to see her first snow! She was afraid to walk on it and made funny faces when she did and the ground went crunch!

Thanksgiving Retreat

Wow! What a great retreat we had with our team this year all made possible by a special contribution from someone in Matt's home church. Thank you. We had a full house as we took our first fun retreat with guests: Travis' parents and Jennifer's friend Tammy. We rented a place for three days just north of the city and had a great time together. Aubry followed Ceara around everywhere and it was hard to get either child out of the swimming pool. On the last day we all made our favorite Thanksgiving dishes. Our team pools together all of the American things we have brought back for this special occasion. Lots of food and lots of fun. Afterwards we had just three short days to get ready for our furlough. Leaving Salvador summer time to land in Missouri winter time.

Happy Halloween!!!

Catch-up Blog

A lot has happened over the last few months since we’ve lost contact with the rest of the world. So sorry we’ve neglected our blog. This is why…

House Guests:
After the LSTers left, we had Heather’s (our intern’s) family staying with us for 2 weeks. The Alkire’s were here during our inaugural Sunday for the new building. They did a lot of preparation work to help us out. During their stay we had another visitor arrive – one of Matt’s friends from college, Diana. Diana is an art therapist who came for vacation but also to help out our new church here. She painted murals, signs, helped with our benevolence lunches, and learned a lot of portuguese in her month stay with us. Two days after the Alkires left (but while Diana was still here) the Mabery’s arrived. The Mabery’s were here for two weeks also. They got to be here for and help with Aubry’s Luau birthday party, a benevolence lunch and plant a mini garden in the back of the church building. It’s a much more inviting place on both sides now. Next, my Mom, Cindy came the week after the Mabery’s and Diana left. It was great! Christmas everyday for Aubry and we actually got two good weeks of sleep. Cindy concluded our 4 month stint of visitors but life did not get boring. Here is what else we’ve been up to during and after all the visits…

Inaugural Service:
Our inaugural service was great! We served coconut and pineapple ice cream afterwards with our inaugural cake. It was a wonderful way to show the community the transformation our presence has already made.

Aubry’s Luau:
It was an exciting, colorful, fun luau at our old apartment building. Aubry had over 63 guests. The menu was popcorn, pizza, crepes, churros, and cotton candy (and birthday cake at the end of course). The decorations were incredible – even had lighted palm trees and hanging globe lights and blow-up monkeys. We played limbo, bobb for apples, pineapple / coconut bowling, hoola-hoop contests, and the congo line! There was never a dull moment and Aubry was the life of the party in her swishy grass skirt. Thanks to both sets of grandparents for making it such a memorable first year birthday party!

Calen (Newest Team Member)
Calen is now two months old. Calen Xavier Sass was born Wednesday, August 27th 2008 9:24pm weighing at 3.210 kilos (7pounds 1 ounce) and a length of 48.5cm (19 inches). The Mabery’s were here during this blessed event and we all took Aubry and Ceara (Calen’s older sister) to the zoo. It was Aubry’s first zoo trip and the girls had the best time together.

Recent Bible Studies and Baptisms:
After our youth retreat, one of the older kids, Leandro age 20, came back wanting to study more about baptism. He and Travis did an eight week study together and during that time, Leandro became very close with the LSTers. So in August Leandro took the plunge!

Leandro is one of the few good male influences in his very large family. Which is why his cousin Gisele age 15 asked Leandro to baptize her after she finished her 2 month study with Mary Virginia. What a great September!

Gisele brought her cousin Viviane to study with Mary Virginia and Heather and Viviane was also baptized into Christ. Which has lead us on a one a month role lately!

Leandro - August
Gisele - September
Viviane - October

Benevolence Lunches
The Benevolence Lunches are still every other Saturday and are going well. We usually have between 50 and 100 come for the free meal. Our church is becoming famous in the community as a church who gives and serves.

Children’s Day
Children’s Day was a hit! Brazilian children’s day is bigger than our Christmas. Lots of games, sugar, and kids running wild! We had a trampoleen, an air castle and a ball pit at the church as part of the festivities after a big lunch together. We had many neighborhood kids come and participate. Aubry had a blast in the ball pit!!! We even had to of our senior citizens ladies, Jaci and Dona Dulce, jump in the air castle!

Theology Course
We began our first theology course at the church building with five students and five church members. Please be in prayer that this course which teaches our evangelistic bible lessons will reach the hearts of the students and will grow when we offer it again.

Youth Lock-In
We had about 20 at our annual youth lock-in. It was a fun time of devotionals, games, and activities. The kids themselves planned their own service project for Christmas. They will be collecting and taking baskets of food to less fortunate families.

New Members Class / Ministry Class
We had 10 students at our new members class and 4 students participate in our ministry class. We are excited about the new members and also about our “old” members becoming more involved in church life through these classes.

Day at the beach

Getting Taller

MK playdate

Funny Faces

We found this video from two months ago and had to share it with the world. She is full of personality that's for sure.

Young Professional Small Group at Our House

Our small group has grown since the Auburn group has been here. The girls have been inviting their readers to come and we have had several visitors. We are trying to get our group of young professional / college age youth to a more regular attendance. Please pray that this group continues to grow in number and in Spirit.

Kathryn and Parks and Rice and Beans

Kathryn and Parks came for 2 weeks to help with the LST campaign, help paint the upstairs of our building, and start up a church-wide service project in our new neighborhood. They worked hard as well and are going to continue supporting a monthly meal outreach for our church to provide our community. We were sad to see them go home but extremely glad they got to come. Aubry and Nalah will definitely miss them too!

Auburn Thursday Night Parties

The English parties have been so much fun this year. Our first party was a 4th of July party, our second a western party, our third was the Auburn party and our fourth was the Christmas party. The Luau next Thursday night is our fifth and final cultural get together to connect our English students with our church members. The missionaries will continue to study the Bible with those English students who have been spiritually interested in the studies.

Auburn Group Arrives – Matt and all the girls!

The same day that the Highland campaign group left, the Auburn LST group arrived. There are 3 girls (Lindsey, Danielle, and Tiffany) and 2 boys (Lucas and Lee) in the group who came to teach English using the Bible – the book of Luke. The girls are staying with us and their first night they got here we blew the main breaker in the house! Poor Matt with 6 girls in the house: 3 LST girls, Heather, me Aubry, and even the dog is a female. He was sure glad to see Kathryn and Parks arrive to have another guy in the house.

First Service in the New Building!!!

We had our first service together in our new building. Antenor Goncalves was our guest speaker that day and our building looked completely transformed – talk about an extreme make-over! Praise God for small miracles and brothers and sisters in Christ!

Youth Retreat - Conquerors or Wanderers?

We had a full house at youth retreat this year (literally). We took the campaign group with us to a town about an hour away and all stayed together in a big house with 12 bedrooms. We had 23 total Brazilian kids almost all of whom we’ve been studying the Bible with on Friday nights for a while now. The theme was Kadesh and whether these kids will be conquerors or wanderers. One of the Highland youth went home and was baptized afterwards and one of our Brazilian kids came back from the retreat wanting to study more one on one about baptism. A special thank you to the Brimingham and Maynard families for making this youth retreat possible. Their contribution secured us the place for the retreat.

VBS

The campaign group put on two afternoon VBS’s. One was in the neighborhood where we have one of our biggest weekly church small groups. And the other was in the neighborhood near the new church building at the apartment complex of the Sasses. Both were major successes and the campaigners even went back later to play soccer with some of those kids.

Highland Campaign

We don’t know how we would have moved out of our old buiding and into our new building without the campaign group from Highland coming to help us. They came in the middle of June and did everything from cleaning and painting and packing and unpacking to VBS and youth retreat. It was also good to have Phyllis and Antenor with us (a missionary couple from the South of Brazil) who taught a couples class and did a lot of translation work and errands. We worked the entire campaign group very hard and were blessed by their presence, encouragement, and hard labor.

Aubry Talking and Walking

Fun with Hippo

Aubry began to crawl really well at 9 months after we got back from the States. Since then she's gotten stronger and more interactive.

Aubry Crawling

Heather’s Arrived! – Two Year Intern and Roommate

Heather is our new apprentice and just moved in with us this week. She will be living with us for 2 years. She and Aubry are already great roommates and friends. Her main ministry will be with the children of our church. She has just graduated from Abilene Christian University in Elementary Education and was our children’s ministry intern for the summer last year. Her Portuguese is already almost as good as ours. We’re excited about her life and work here and hope she decides to stay longer. Stay tuned to find out about the campaign from her church that arrived today and the youth retreat we are all preparing for next weekend!

Meet Mariana – Blind Bible Student

Mariana is a blind 22 year old girl that Mary Virginia is studying the Bible with right now. She was baptized at 17 and loves the Lord but has had no church family for a while now. Handicap people here are much less independent than those in our culture. There is a Christian family who comes to our church that has a car and has committed to bringing her on Sundays now. I haven’t learned all of her faith story yet but I love studying God’s word with her because she is so hungry for it and depends on those who will read it to her. I wish my hunger and thirst for God and His Word were as great as hers. She has no Braille Bible (even though she can read Braille) because Portuguese Bibles are so expensive. If you would like to make a special contribution toward Mariana’s Braille Bible I may be able to buy a little at a time or if you know of a better way to buy something like this please, let us know.

Saturday Work Days at the Building

Tomorrow will be our 4th Saturday in a row to work at our new building. As many of you already know we have a new building now! This building used to be a strip club so it needs a lot of work to turn it from being a tool of Satan to now being a tool of God. What a great symbol of redemption for our community when we finally finish! The building is one neighborhood over from where we were, still in front of the beach (even more so), much more visible, and right in front of a residential area (unlike the commercial area we were in). It is also a more usable space. This new building offers much more ventilation and therefore cooler usable class rooms. The sign is up now and many things were moved from the old building to the new one these past two Saturdays. We’ve had between 20 and 40 workers or so from church each Saturday. {And on a side note: remember Lorena the lawyer, the second convert we had almost two years ago? She has been a huge help in securing our new place and easing out of the old one. Not sure how we would have done this without her. Thank you for those of you who prayed for her spiritual journey as a new Christian.} There is still much work to be done and we’re not sure we’ll be ready but the most important thing is to pray that our members are spiritually ready for this big move. Many new Christians much come a little further in order to get there, some even have to take two buses now instead of one which will be a sacrifice for them financially. Thanks for your support of this work! Be excited about what all God is doing in this work.

Monkeys in the House!

Lately, we've been having more monkeys come in the breakfast room looking for fruit. We had a team day last week and Russ' Mom Debbie and Jennifer fed them bananas from our deck so this week they've been looking for more. When you catch them they screach real loud with surprise and then run out the window. Watch out for Nalah monkeys!

Vacation, Mother's Day, Crawling

Well, our vacation went very well. This was the first time we’ve taken our vacation stateside. Thanks to Larry and Claire Owens and MommaLou and DaddyBob, we got to bring Aubry to Alabama so she could spend mother’s day weekend with all of her grandparents and great grandparents while Matt and I, thanks to Dad, went west and spent a week in Lake Tahoe and Yosimite Park. We didn’t expect it to be so cold in May but it was beautiful nonetheless and we enjoyed the many hikes. Meanwhile, Aubry went to the Grand Ole Opry! It was our first time apart for so long - thank goodness for cell phones. She grew more hair while we were away and started crawling and pulling up when we got back!

I know I usually post on Mondays. These past two weeks have been especially busy. Haven't taken many pictures or had time for much of anything lately. We finally have all of the boxes unpacked (except for maybe one or two in the office)! Still don't have everything where I want it or much on the walls yet but everything's out there. Last week our team had a team retreat - we stayed here but we took time out for working through some things. It was good to have the Heidrichs with us to help us do that. Please be in prayer for our team and the changes we need to make to become stronger in our walks and ministry together here on the mission field. Also, pray I can get this place feeling a little more like home before we leave for our vacation next week! Yeah for time off (of work and house projects)!!!

We're in our new house!

There's a tree in the middle of our house!

Here is Matt with the owner signing the rent contract.

Team Worship Day After Anniversary

We have a tradition now with our team of doing our own worship together in English after each anniversary of the church. It's another chance to thank God together for what He has done and is doing in our work here. We also got to take some good pics of the team kids together! Ceara is trying to hug Aubry in one of the above pictures.

Lunch at the Beach with Visitors

The Friday before our Anniversary Service, We spent some time with Randy's family. His parents and brother Eddie are here visiting Randy, Jennifer, Kelton, and of course, baby Samuel. Aubry had a great time at the beach this time and kept giving us the "what's this?" face at the water, waves, and especially the sand.

New Christian Sharing Jesus With Another Seeker

Mesias (left) was just baptized two Sundays ago and is seen here talking with Alberto (right), a young University graduate who has just started studying the Bible with Travis. Mesias is a great addition to our church and an encouragement to others - including Alberto here who came alone and didn't know hardly anyone. It was neat to see people such as these interacting and sharing Jesus with each other during our 2nd year Anniversary Service. Please, pray for both of these men on their journey with God.

Finally The Whole Team Together at Anniversary Service!

Your Best For God

Our church is not usually a formal church (being on the beach and all). But for anniversary service we had many visitors who dressed their family in the best that they had (even though most of them don't have much). It brought tears to Valerie's eyes as she showed me these families. Here is one little boy who was excited to be there. During kids' time it was many of the dressed up visiting kids who said, "Shhhhh! We're trying to hear the story" to our own church kids. We were blown away by the receptiveness of everyone this Sunday.

Anniversary Sunday!!!

All I can say is Wow! God really brought people to us for our Anniversary Sunday. We had over 150 in attendance and the energy in the worship service was incredible. We actually ran out of food afterwards because we had only planned on 120 at the most. (Although I think everyone who wanted cake got some - beautiful cake! 2nd and 4rth pictures) God was thinking bigger than we were. He always is I'm sure. We have about 30 members plus there were about 20 Christians from other churches of Christ in the area; which means we had over 100 visitors! All of our members and frequenters brought their families and friends. It was so encouraging to be introduced to so many people by our members. Three of our own neighbors came! And we had many English students who came to our church service for the first time! Randy's family is here visiting and his father (who got to lead a translated prayer during the service) said, "I couldn't understand a word of what was going on but I could see all the Brazilian participation and Brazilians even taking ownership and leadership in many things. It was a true congregation." Please be praying for open hearts for all those visitors who attended. We have much follow-up work to do and can use your help in prayer. There is an evangelism day after church the next two Sundays where all of the members are going to take an active role in the follow-up work from this event. Thank you for all of the prayer that went into this day - it was our biggest so far! Please be in prayer for our upcoming move as well. Our church must change locations in June but we think we have found the right place and there is quite a story behind it so stay tuned.