12 November 2008
06 November 2008
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.
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.
12 August 2008
01 August 2008
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.
26 July 2008
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.
18 July 2008
15 July 2008
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