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.