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.

We're Moving!

We're moving to a house in less than two weeks now. It's close to the same price as our apartment, we'll have more space and be able to rent out a room to our new missionary Heather Alkire (coming in June to be part of our work for the next two years), less noise from busy street traffic, less termites and a YARD for our dog Nalah (and for Aubry when she gets a little older). And more space for visitors when y'all want to come see us! We're very excited but with everything happening at church this month: baptism, small groups, team banquet, evangelism series, new bible studies, anniversary service, women's study, english class, youth night, two new babies, visiting mission team, and church building hunting (church is moving in June); We haven't packed a thing yet!!!

Homemade Applesauce-Different Texture!

Confession

Mary Virginia taught the women's spiritual disciplines class yesterday and the topic was confession. It was not a theme that the Brazilian women were used to hearing. Since, catholicism is so big here, the protestant churches try hard not to be like the catholics. And since the abuse of confessionals was one of the major issues that brought on the Protestant Reformation, evangelical churches here are still afraid to talk about confession in the church. Protestant churches in Salvador do not usually have an invitation at the end of the service where people can confess either Christ or their sins or both. Churches in this culture can easily be seen as being full of hipocrits - people trying to be perfect who never expose their own humanity. In fact most evangelical churches (if you're not catholic, they call you evangelical) in the area have lists of rules - things you can and cannot do as a Christian - everything from not shaving your legs to what you eat. Many come to our church asking what our rules are. One of our four identity points that we are teaching our members is that we want to be authentic people. Our church is a hospital for sinners. That the Bible teaches redemption is both an event (baptism) and a process (an ongoing relationship with God). That sin is not breaking one of the rules and not letting anyone know or even a moral or social wrong (although this can be a part of sin). Sin as the Hebrews understood it, is anything that hurts your relationship with God or others. When Jesus told us to love God above all else, and love our neighbor, He was showing us how to live a pure and righteous life here on earth in harmony with our Creator and all those around us. And as Christians when (because we will) we fall short of these two very important things, the first step is admitting it. The second is asking for the forgiveness that God is so ready to give us (1 John 1:9-10). This may need to be just to God but it often needs to be to a trusted brother or sister in Christ (James 5:16), an accountability partner, or perhaps the offended party. We need each other. We need prayers, strength, and support from each other. We need to go to God with and for each other. But always remember that we don't have to talk God into forgiving us, it is He who is working to make us ready to accept His forgiveness.

Jackson and Samuel Together At Last!

Aubry is 7 and 1/2 months old now. Not interested in crawling yet but she's certainly mobile. This is her on the go in her walker - she chases us everywhere in it. She also likes being surrounded by her friends. Don't we all!

Happy Easter!

Baby's First Easter! At church today we took the Lord's Supper around tables. It was a neat service!

Youth Service Project

The youth had a service project this weekend to deliver food to families our church knows who are in need of our help. Each family received a large bag of food and a great big chocolate Easter Egg (as is the tradition here). We were able to help 7 families who are either friends or family of members at our church. One family was very emotional since their father who was just in his mid thirties passed away this week last year. The Mom (an aunt of one of our young professionals, Danielle) has found no steady job and is trying to raise three children now by herself. The other families we visited are also low income families who are either single parent families or are trying to care for at least one family member with a handicap or in many cases both. Our youth learned a lot this past Saturday and we appreciate our supporters who make days like this possible.

Mesias' Baptism

We had another baptism last week. He is an older man named Mesias. Travis had been studying with him but he first came to church as a friend of Ida, our widow at church (we think Mesias may have a crush on her). He was baptized in the ocean after church. It was so great that the Nitoroi team could be there too. They are a mission team in training to go to Niteroi - a city near Rio. They were here visiting us on their survey trip asking some really tough but good questions. We pray for their work as they move to Brazil next October. Please be in prayer for this team as well as for our new brother in Christ here in Salvador!

80's Team Banquet

Wow! It was a night to remember complete with thank-you's, awards, 80's music videos, and, yes, even a moonwalk contest. We are now 8 missionaries celebrating 3 years on the mission field in 2008. What better way to commemorate this than a look at our past. Thank you to Aubry for being so good so Mommy could MC the night! Thank you to Alicia for the decorations and to Matt for help with the awards ceremony and Russ for the improv kareoke! And thank you to God and to my teammates for an incredible 3 years here in Salvador, Brazil.

Samuel Josiah Porter -Welcome To The World!

Baby Sam was born at 8:20 on March 12 - the day we all traveled to Brazil together just 3 years ago. The labor lasted about 6 and half hours. Samuel was 8lbs and 10oz. and about 20 inches long. (3.925 K and 51.5 cm). We were ready for his arrival, especially big brother Kelton, who stayed with us while Randy, Jenn, and Samuel were in the hospital. It was a little strange having two kids for a few days. Now there are 5 team kids. We came to the field with 4, 3 left, and now we're up to 6 including our unborn baby Sass. Samuel and Jackson are just 3 weeks apart while Aubry and Ceara are 9 months apart. It's strange to think of Kelton as the big boy on the team now. Will post a picture of all of our team kids when we can get them all together.

Coming Back from Furlough

Well we’ve been back here in Brazil a month now and I think our bodies are finally adjusted from leaving the cold winter there to coming back to the middle of a hot summer here. It was so good to spend time with you and worship with you during furlough. We wish you could see Aubry’s two new teeth. All the Brazilians say she’d grown so much while we were away. We are glad to be back and back into our ministry here. We had to hit the ground running and here are some of the happenings from this past month back…

Evangelism Series

In Brazil, February (or March depending on when Carnival is that year) is the time for new beginnings. After Carnival is over people come back from summer vacations, school starts back, and people get ready to truly begin their year. We wanted to start off this year with a focus on evangelism. We have over 30 members now who can reach out as well (if not better) than us missionaries. We began an 8 week Sunday School class on training them to teach an evangelistic one on one Bible study with friends and family. The study itself is 8 weeks and the lessons are: Purpose of Life- To Glorify God, O.T. God wants a relationship with His People, What Is Sin, Life of Jesus, Teachings of Jesus, Baptism, Church, and Holy Spirit. After studying the first we had a practice day this past Sunday after church March 2^nd where they paired up and practiced with each other. Our members are becoming more motivated to share God’s word and we recently have three new studies. Please pray for upcoming studies and especially for Messias as he is nearing the end of studying these lessons and says he wants to be baptized when he finishes.

Sermon Series

Also, to begin the year we wanted to define our Identity a little better in a city with so many religions and churches and denominations. Since most churches here lack a sense of community, we decided to focus on our identity as a Family of God. Each week we have emphasized four values: Authenticity, Growth, Invitation, and Healthy Theology. Both the Identity sermon series and our evangelism Sunday School series will take us through to our Anniversary service on April 6^th.

First Pot-luck of the year

Our first potluck of the year was a hit, we had 81 in attendance! This is about 30 more than usual. Our Brazilians love to invite on potluck days!

Baby Jackson Turner Quirey

Baby Jackson Turner was born the same day as the potluck February 17^th at 5:31 pm to his proud parents Russell and Valerie Quirey (for those of you who know Matt Quirey – he is now a first time uncle). J.T. weighed 7lbs and 2oz and was 20 inches long. He is just beautiful. Our team is still awaiting baby Porter in a week or so and we just found out that there is a new baby Sass due in August.

You didn’t know this is what our team meant by growing the church!!!

Women’s Ministry

We’ve had a couple of baby showers recently. We’ve also started our monthly Christian disciplines lessons again. This month Jennifer taught on service. We had a nice luncheon and about 20 women attended. Next month will be Mary Virginia’s lesson on confession.

Youth Back To School Party

We were so proud of our youth at their back to school party. They brought visitors and showed off what they’d learned. We had 25 Brazilian kids. They won prizes of school supplies for answering questions about the devo lessons over the past 4 months. We’ve been studying about God’s work among the men and women of the Old Testament and some of the questions were pretty hard.

The Youth leaders (Matt, Mary Virginia, Randy, Jennifer, and a young Brazilian couple Tennyson and Diana) are spending once a week for 6 weeks together in prayer for the youth ministry. We are praying for God’s guidance, growth, a multi-generational vision committee, and a Brazilian male intern.

New Church Secretaries

We still can’t afford to hire a church secretary so some of our Brazilian women stepped up to the plate! We now have three women volunteering at the church in order to keep the building open and help out at the church (especially with all of the team women being pregnant or with little babies to care for)! Their biggest project lately is mail-outs to all of the visitor cards we have received over the last year in order to invite people to our big church anniversary beginning of April and our English classes that begin the end of this month. Our new volunteers are Luciana, Diana, and Cremilda and we don’t know how we ever got along without them now!