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.

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!