Happy 4th Aniversary Church!

ICOS has it's fourth anniversary last weekend. We had a video slide show, lots of people wanting to hold the girls and we went out to eat with several members afterwards. It was a good day.

Chocolate Easter Eggs

I can't believe I haven't gotten these Easter pics out yet but at least it's still April. Well, here they are... We had a great Easter weekend. We taught some of our Brazilian neighbors and church kids how to dye eggs, something they'd never seen before. They had a blast painting and finding them. Here the tradition is to give away beautifully wrapped chocolate eggs (sold at all the stores here). Estefani asked Jennifer at church, "Did you get a chocolate egg this morning?" Jennifer said no and Estefani replied, "Me neither. Maybe I'll get one at Virginia's tonight." Thank goodness I had bought extra chocolate eggs at Bom Preco for the Brazilian kids who came. I didn't realize how important they actually were here and our church kids have had very few Easter's when they actually got a chocolate egg. It was a fun and rewarding Easter. Below are the Easter outfits from the real and the pretend Easter (My-My's packages got stuck in the mail and we had our own second Easter at church two weeks later).

Samuel's 2nd Birthday Party

Yee-haw! We had a great cowboy party at the Porter's today with a lot of church people and some of their neighbors and families from Kelton's school. It was a great time had by all with three-legged races, pin the tail on the horse, chili dogs and lots of American candy. They even had yellow cake and chocolate icing cupcakes (my favorite!). It was a great turn out and there must've been about 60 people (although that's a guess because I didn't count). Happy Birthday Sammy! We had a wonderful time! Aubry especially liked the twizzlers! Her face is still red!

Five Years On The Mission Field

Wow! We've been on the field for 5 years now today. We had our team banquet Thursday night to celebrate. It was a winter theme with Olympics awards for recognizing accomplishments of team members over the last year. This year instead of going out, we had our banquet at church and cooked ourselves. Well... Matt and Heather cooked. Matt made is famous chilli and Heather her wonderful potato soup. Mary V bought a really chique chocolate strawberry cake. Valerie and Mary V and Randy decorated (Matt and Russ contributed with a few snowflakes). Our thank yous to each other were more personal this year and our kids were a little more wild since it was at church. All in all, it was a fun team banquet and it was good to celebrate this big 5 year marker!

My Cute Little Valentines

Sometimes packages take a long long time. Here is Aubry and Paisley wearing their valentines outfits that MyMy sent through the mail.

Today was the last Sunday for the Sass family here in Salvador, Brazil. It was a good day but a very sad day for all. There was lots of crying and prayers and blessings and presents presented. We will miss Travis, Alicia, Ceara, and Calen greatly. (Aubry will especially miss Ceara since these two girls are close in age and best buds). It has been a good five years on the field and it is time for this family to move on. Please keep them in your prayers as well as they head back to Canada.

Crawling

Well, I'm sitting here watching my baby girl crawl. She's getting all around Aubry's room. Both are playing on Aubry's pink carpet. Paisley starts out inch worming - a pace or two lunging forward and then back on all fours for another pace or two. She's gotten to where she can do a few paces at a time now with some elephant walks in between. She also rode in the big girl swing for the first time and had a blast.

Wow! God answers prayer! We had a great Sunday and it seemed like everyone we prayed for by name (together as a team before service) was there. We had a blessing during the worship time for all returning students since school started back this week from the summer months. Tennyson, one of our Brazilian leaders, preached and did a great job. We had 5 youth who all really seemed interested and honest during class time. Matt started a new Sunday school series using 5 evangelistic videos created by Antenor Gonzalves (a famous Church of Christ preacher in the South of Brazil). We had over 20 kids for the back to school party, quite a few people we haven't seen in a while, along with visitors, and almost 60 total for worship. God blessed our day on Sunday and we pray a special prayer of thanksgiving for those that He sent our way. To God be the Glory!

Oh and Paisley got another tooth - that makes 5 now!

Long Hair, No Hair, Yellow Fingernails and Flowers from Our Garden

Two New Teeth, Headstands, and Sitting Up On Our Own

Late Pictures from Christmas

Back from Furlough

We had a couple of bumpy rides back from furlough but no broken plane this time and God got us back safe and sound. The South American missionary conference we hosted here in Salvador the week after we got back (last week) went really well. It was very uplifting and we strengthened several friendships with other missionaries around the continent. And this past week has been about reconnecting with our team, the Brazilians, and getting readjusted to life and work here. This week we payed bills traveling to many different places to do so (fixing some problems from being gone), got Paisley's vaccines (poor thing has had a fever from them and already had a cough and new teeth coming in), took our do Nalah to the vet (we came home to a skinny balding dog - very sick but now getting better) and visited with several church members as well as held team meetings and some office hours. At the big team meeting at our house we caught up on what's been going on at church while we were gone (a wedding, a baptism, a couple of surgeries, etc.) and then we caught the team up on recruiting and furlough. All in all, it's been a productive, frustrating (with the heat and beaurocracy), and wonderful first week back. Thanks for keeping up with us. We hope everyone had a good New Years and pray God will deepen your faith as you seek after Him.

Nashville Trip

Aubry in her Christmas Rock skirt.
Awww! This was before the baby fight.

The only one without Aubry picking her nose.

Good lookin Family on the steps of the Opryland Hotel.

This is at Bob Evans after church. The cousins finally meet!

Lourdes' Baptism

Meet Lourdes. She was baptized this past Sunday in the ocean in front of our church building. She and her two daughters and her husband have been coming to one of our faith groups now for over two years. Please keep this new Christian in your prayers and especially lift up her husband in prayer as he is not yet a Christian and their marriage needs His healing power.

First Week of Furlough

Grandpa with his two girls.

Reunion with Matt's High School friends.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Our first ceral on Thanksgiving Day.

Aubry in her pigtails posing in the new addition to the Mabery home. The beautiful new dining room and sun room were kept a surprise and were finished just the day before we arrived.

Traveling To The States

Well... after a long, long trip... we made it! It took us about two full 24 hour days. We were on four different planes, 4 hours in a bus, 1 hour in a van, and a lot of running at 4 different airports. Believe me, this is not the best way to travel with two babies. But we're here. Aubry and Mary got here one with strepp and nasea and one with a smoker's cough and fever. But we got here none the less. God got us here safe and in one peice and we are grateful. Who knows what would have happened if they hadn're realized our plane was broken before we took off in Recife, Brazil. Everyone at Flat River Church of Christ was excited to see Matt but disappointed that "the girls" couldn't be there this morning. We look forward to being well and seeing everyone soon.

"Big" Trip / Little Trip

I apologize for being late with many of these pictures and blogs. It has been a little crazy at our house this past month. We're still trying to adjust to life with two instead of one I think. These pictures are from Aubry trip to see the Backyardigans (her favorite cartoon) play. Daddy took Aubry and Valerie took Jackson. They had a great time together. Aubry wore her Uniqua (one of the characters) outfit that she got for her birthday. She could not stop talking about the "Big" Pablo when she got home. It was good for Daddy to spend some time with Aubry before going on his big trip to Sao Paulo for a 5 day conference without us. Paisley got pretty sick while he was gone and Daddy came home sick but all are well now and enjoying life. It's nice to finally have a few weeks of us all being well this summer. Speaking of weather changes, we're looking forward to coming home in a couple of weeks. Aubry explains to everyone she knows about her big trip soon on the airplane in the sky.

Late Pic from October Children's Day Event

This is Jackson on children's day at our church celebration. We had over 60 kids from the community attend the event along with some of their parents. It was a good day. Sorry this picture is so late but I couldn't help but put it up. He's just too cute!

Women's Bible Class

These are pictures from the end of October of our Ladies class after church. This is the day that Mary Virginia spoke about Mary's Extravagant Love. She taught about Mary's alabaster box representing complete surrender to Christ. It was a good class with about 16 ladies in attendance some of whom were English students who came early to participate. I am grateful for all of the women at our church. Many of them constantly who give of themselves for the benefit of the body of Christ. They are all beautiful!

Late Pics from Halloween