What an interesting couple of months it has been! In Icos news... we've been having more at church than usual these past few Sundays around 50 or 60 each week. This is a welcome change from the slowness of summer and carnival when we were only having 20 or 30 in January and February. The rise in attendance started with our welcome back breakfast (many had been traveling because of summer vacation and carnival). We also had a back to school party for the youth and gave away school materials as prizes. There were about 30 of us at the festa and the kids had a great time! English classes started back yesterday and many visitors came to service because of this. Our theology course starts next month. Our women's ministry starts back next week with after service lunch and Bible study. And we have an evangelism day next week to invite everyone to our big Anniversary service this year. It will be the 3rd anniversary of ICOS!
Not only is our church going back to a faster pace but we are too after having our whole household (Matt, Mary and Paisley, Aubry, our intern Heather who lives with us and our babysiter Tatiane) down and out for two weeks because of a terrible virus. It's good to be back to normal.
Team wise, we are happy to have the Porter's back from furlough. They were gone for 2 and a half months. Kelton turned 5 years old while they were gone and Samuel turned one year old on the day they got back. Both kids seem so much bigger! Samuel and Jackson are only a few weeks apart in age and we had a huge Brazilian 1st birthday party for him with a very colorful farm theme. Mary and Valerie being the team life coordinators threw a great St. Patrick's Day Team banquet this past Saturday night. We celebrated completing 4 years on the field together and thanked each other specifically for all of the hard work each teammate has done over the last year.
We had 4 (significant number) family visitors at our 4 year 4 leaf clover party! Cindy Sirmon (Mary's Mom) and Ashton (Mary's cousin) are here to help set up Aubry and Paisley's new rooms and see Salvador and the church work. Cindy and Ashton have a short week stay and much to do and see. They arrived on the same plane as the Porter's. Also arriving on the same day was Travis' sister and husband, Leah and Craig. These two brought some of the decorations for our banquet and plan to stay a month. They arrived just after Alicia's sister Michaela went back home. Ceara will miss her very much.
Happy St. Patty's Day to all! We will try to post some pictures once our visitors leave.
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