Cassi and Valmira

We have two new Christians with us. Cassi age 27 and her Mom, Valmira were recently baptized! They are blessings to our church. Cassi has brought 6 new people to our church since she started coming three weeks ago.

Introducing Our New Puppy Nala

After talking about it for a long time, my parents finally bought me -Momma Lou's orders before she left. I am a beautiful carmel colored Cocker Spaniel with specks of white on my nose and chest. I smile when I run (even though I look funny doing it) and I enjoy being with people (I guess that's good since my parents have people coming over all the time). I am 3 months old and spoiled rotten already because I love being held and everyone likes holding me. Two days after I came home, I went on our team retreat where I was overwhelmed with new smells, sights and sounds. The Parker's brought their new 2 month old poodle, Cha Cha as well and we played ferociously together. I, Nala, also had my first visit to the beach where I ran from the water, let the kids burry me in the sand (it was cooler that way), and I brought everyone something I found called seaweed (strange stuff). I had been in a cage for almost two months at the pet store before Mom and Dad got me, so my legs were weak and I was not used to so much activity. So even though I had to take many knaps, I held up pretty well on the retreat and made my parents proud. I am a very happy dog and my new family loves me!!! Love to all, Nala

Surrounded by Women

We are having "saudades" from family (which means we are missing them greatly). My Mom, MommaLou, Aunt Angie, and Aunt Darlene arrived in Salvador a few weeks ago. MommaLou and Aunt Angie got to stay a week and Mom and Aunt Darlene stayed two! We had a wonderful time together. Matt and Mary both did a great deal of translating while the women shopped, shopped, and shopped! They also got to see us in action while they were here. Aunt Angie was and encouragement to the team as she shared at staff meeting what God has been doing in their Delaware Campus Ministry lately. Mom helped out on youth night by being part of a mini drama skit for the lesson. MommaLou went with Mary to one of her evangelistic studies. And Aunt Darlene led everyone to Hiper (owned by Wal-Mart) to buy clothes and shoes for benevolence at our church. All in all it was a wonderful time of family and ministry and we'll be missing them until November when we come home.

Shingles and more

My husband has been suffering from the shingles these past two weeks. It is a mild case on his face. The swelling has gone down, the sores are healing nicely but there is still pain along that same nerve. Please pray for Matt's health as well has the health of our team as Springtime approaches.

Vacation

We have received some advice lately to make sure and take some time to rest and have fun. This was following encouragement that we are doing a great job with all of the work we have been doing lately. Well, we want everyone to know that we are getting the rest and relaxation that we need. Following the Brazilian/American youth camp, we took a week to travel through some of the wilder parts of Brazil.

We left São Paulo on Friday and flew to the town of Foz de Iguaçu on the border of Brazil and Argentina. We arrived in the airport and set up our tours and meals for the entire stay. From our base camp just outside the park on the Brazil side we spent two days exploring the national parks around the waterfalls (three Portuguese words: cataratas, cascatas, cachoeiras). These falls are the largest in the world in the aspect of water volume. They are beautiful. Our day in the Brazilian park was sunny, and Mary Virginia was in heaven with all of the rainbows we saw. That day we slept in and left for lunch inside the park at noon. We ate, and then walked off our buffet lunch on the trails leading us to the most spectacular panoramic view of the falls you can find. From there we left the park and went to an aviary that is very close to the entrance to the park. It was fun seeing many species of birds found all over the world. We also saw reptiles and multicolored butterflies and hummingbirds.

The second day at the falls we spent an overcast day in the Argentina park. We rode a train from the park entrance to the trail center. From there we hiked the lower two of the three trail systems, and made our way to a motor boat launch. We took the boat right up to the waterfalls and got drenched. Then we went on a great ride down the river over some rapids and disembarked to hike up a hill trail. We had to eat our nice lunch that day in soaked clothes, but it tasted great. It was a buffet as well, but different from any buffet we had had for a long time. We couldn't believe how different it was from the Brazilian one we had the day before. Almost all buffets are exactly the same in Brazil. We then hiked the upper trail in the park which takes hikers right up to the edge of the Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat). It is amaizing being right over the fall and seeing thousands of gallons of water going over every minute.

We slept well that night, and the next morning left early to catch our flight to Cuiabá, our gateway to the Pantanal, the largest wetland in the world, roughly the size of France. Our first night there was spent in Chapada dos Guimarães, a place that looks like Arizona. That night we borrowed a car from one of the employees of the pousada where we were staying and drove to the Bride's Veil waterfall in the national park there. It was pretty (especially at sunset) and tall. The next morning we left early to rapel down another waterfall. We each descended twice, and then to get it all in we left for the City of Rocks, a place that has been through a lot of wind corrosion. It was pretty, but what Matt was excited about that day was seeing the Red and Blue macaws flying around the valley there. They always fly in couples because they partner for life. We saw quite a few, and the only thing that would make it better would be to have been there at sunset.

We then left the chapada for Poconé by bus and ended up at a fazenda, or ranch, right in the Pantanal. We did a few things there we have never done before. Matt rode a horse, for example, right up to a river full of alligators. We hiked one afternoon and saw lots of wildlife. We went on a night safari and saw nocturnal mammals. Then, on our last day there, we went fishing. WeI have been fishing before, but not in a river full of piranha. We had never fished with steak to catch fish. And, yes, we were catching the piranha, and keeping them. We didn't get to eat our catch, but we did have some the night before in a stew that they make with the daily catch. On the way back, we fed a couple of friendly alligators from the boat.

That night, we took a bus back to Cuiabá and caught our flight back to Salvador. It was nice to be home, but we enjoyed every minute of our time together on our vacation, and it was a little hard to come back.

Talent Show

The LSTers have had an activity every Wednesday night at the church building to bring their English/ Bible students and our church frequenters together to get to know one another. This past Wednesday night (before the baptism) we had our last Wednesday night event which was a "Show de Talento!" One of our teens, Andre, played "We are the Champions" on the guitar while his cousin, Irla, sang, one of the English students did a Brazilian dance, and a Father and his two children did a drama skit. However, most of the show was put on by the North Americans who told the story of Jesus through song. It was a memorable night and we had an even greater attendance (over 50 people) than at the previous weekly events. The LST group had to say goodbye to many of their readers. Alicia, one of the Canadian LST members, said, "I have made stronger friendships here in 6 weeks than I can make at home in 3 or 4 years because here we began our friendships talking about God and matters of the heart." The LST ers will be sorely missed by our Mission Team as well. They are leaving us a lot of follow up work to do!(*) Bernard, Alicia, Kreston, Ashley, Logan, Christy and Candace have truly been an encouragement to the work here. May God be with them as they travel home on Monday and afterwards as well as they continue their journey with Him.

Our Second Baptism

Matt did his first baptism tonight! Mary's friend, Lorena Ferreira, decided to give her life to Christ and was baptized in our apartment pool at 9:30 tonight. Lorena is a lawyer studying to be a Judge. She is single and in her late twenties and she and Mary have been studying the Bible together since late April. This has been a long awaited answer to prayer. Please keep our new sister in your talks with God.

Empty Nest

Matt said last week after Paul, our intern, left, "I think I'm suffering from Empty Nest Syndrome." Today we spent time in staff meeting evaluating how our first internship went. Paul stayed with us for the summer as he was tasked in many different directions in our baby church. Paul's Mom is American and his Dad is Brazilian so it was wonderful having a truly bilingual worker with us for a little while. Paul's goal was to get a glimpse of what a mission team at this stage looks like. He did a little of everything from preaching to youth lock-in to children's time in worship to small groups to one-on-one Bible studies to evangelistic movie nights and even helped advertise for our LST campaign before they came. Paul was truly a blessing to have and we hope he comes back.

First Youth Lock-in

After our church opened, we began spending time with two different sets of youth. One was the Amaralina (a neighborhood near the church) family, Jaci's neices, nephews and their friends (about 7 kids) whom we have been studying the Bible with for a while now. The other was the Rio Vermelho family - two teenagers and their two friends - Randy and Jennifer have been leading a small gruop during the week with this household. The night of our lock-in these two groups really came together! Many of them had not even met before. It was a break-through for our youth program here and a really special night. God is working in the hearts of these teenagers to build bridges where there were none and create a hunger for learning His Word.

You can view a slideshow of pictures from the lock-in here. Just click on a photo to read its description.

Let’s Start Talking

A group from Canada arrived a few weeks ago to start our first North American campaign here for LST – a program which teaches conversation English using the gospel of Luke. The Canadian team consists of 6 teachers who study one-on-one with Brazilians signed up for the class. They are teaching an average now of 60 sessions per week (some are students who come twice a week) and there are still new students signing up for the classes every day. There has been so much interest in a beginner class (since many who have come were not yet advanced enough in their language) that one of the teachers began one on Sunday and had over 30 students! This is a great opportunity for the community to become familiar with us and to teach the Good News to many who tipically would not volunteer to listen. Please be in prayer for this work. There are still more spaces open for students, so pray that those are filled soon and that God will touch the hearts of those who are coming!

Brazilian / American Youth Camp

Matt, Mary, Jennifer Porter, our intern Paul and our visitor (hopefully next year’s children’s ministry intern) Heather all went to the south of Brazil for a week of Brazilian/ American youth camp. We offered ourselves as odds and ends laborers: helping with the directory, filling up water balloons, decorating for the dinners, etc. There was a campaign group from Abilene, Texas of about 40 who came to put on this camp for 60 Brazilian campers, 25 of whom were non-Christians. The draw for the non-Christian kids to come to Bible camp was a chance to practice their English and have cross-cultural interaction with American teenagers – a pretty good evangelistic tool. For Jennifer, Mary and Matt who work with the youth in our city, there were some short term and long term goals reached on this trip.
The short term was to bring back some Brazilian games, songs, devo ideas, ect. to use with the kids here. Also, to receive some translation practice, strengthen the bonds between one of the teams’ sponsoring churches, and talk to some of the older Brazilian Christians in the South about possible internships in Salvador in the near future - We have 2 really good possibilities for this coming year: Jefferson (Paul’s – this year’s intern’s - cousin) and a guy named Gusto, both whom everyone loved at camp and work well with youth and teaching English using the Bible! Another short term goal was talking with the speaker of the camp about his evangelistic / teaching ideas for a coffee house night at the church. Coffee houses are just starting to become a new attraction here in Salvador and it would be a great and informal way to reach the 20 somethings that live in our buildings.
The long term goals were more observation oriented. We wanted to see what an American youth campaign that size looked like as well as get an idea for future (way future) youth camp / retreat ideas. Also, we wanted show our support for the Southern churches since their leaders (Paul and his parents especially) have already contributed to our settling in here and beginning the work.
We received a little from the camp along the way that we did not anticipate… new friendships. Mary and Matt got to spend much time in prayer with the American adults who came. Since there are no older Christians from our own culture at our church, we have not had much opportunity to be mentored to ourselves. It was a wonderful time to share and grow and receive spiritual food which we had been craving.

Our First Baptism!

Words cannot describe it! We had our first baptism! Gicilene was baptized tonight at our apartment pool. Believe it or not, it was very cold. It is winter here (not quite the same as winter there but cold water non-the-less). Despite being cold on the outside, Gicilene was just glowing afterwards. Mary and Sonia were too along with the rest of the team. We are so thankful that God brought Gicilene our way and that He has begun to add to our number. After the hugs and songs died down some, Randy said, “I think we (the team) may be as (if not more) excited than Gicilene and Sonia. We have all been waiting for this day for so long.”

We had many non-Christians present as well including several of our teenage boys that we have been studying the Bible with for a long time. Please pray that this will be an incentive for them now that they have seen first hand what baptism is and means. Please also pray that we can give Gicilene the support and new Christian care that she needs during this busy LST campaign that begins next week. May God give our team enough time and energy to kick off a great campaign, bring new people in, and still take care of the many people that we already have coming each Sunday and Friday night.

Learning How To Love Others

Gicilene and Sonia are two of our most faithful attenders. They have come ever since the second Sunday. Gicilene, a struggling single parent, has been hurt by a church before. She has not been to a church in two years and is not a Christian. Gicilene was brought to our worship service by her friend and neighbor, Sonia. Sonia went to the Assembly of God church down the street but found out about our church when someone she met at a bus stop gave her the visitor packet they had from our inaugural service. Recently, Sonia has come to a crossroads decision. She has continued to come to Igreja de Cristo O Salvador because Gicilene will not go to any other church and Sonia loves her enough to want her to come to Christ. However, after 2 months now she misses her old church family. “Should I go back or should I stay?” is the question Sonia has been asking herself and praying about.
We have been in prayer as well and this past Thursday we got an answer. We have been showing the Brazil world cup soccer games at the church as a way to bring people in and build community in our church. Sonia and Gicilene are big soccer fans (everyone here is). During half time Sonia told Mary that she has made a decision. She said that she has been praying about how to grow in her relationship with God and she realized that she needs to learn how to love better. After much prayer she decided that our church is the best place to learn that. What a compliment! If there is one thing that we want to portray as a church, it’s how to love. She and Gicilene have now accepted a Bible study. Please be in prayer for these two sweet women.

New Car, Brothers Visit, Youth Nights, Birthday Party, Winter Intern

What a month this past one has been. We had a visitor Thomas Phillips (Bethany Forester’s brother) at the beginning of May. We bought a car – a green Toyota Corolla! One of the few automatics we found here. It’s 6 years old but it has been well taken care of. We got the car just in time to pick up Mary’s brothers Spencer and Brannon from the airport. Spencer’s birthday and Mary’s are a week apart so we celebrated them together after our youth event last Friday. We had 19 at the devotional. It was a good turnout for us and we made 2 trips taking everyone home in the new cars (Randy and Jennifer Porter just bought one too). Our first intern arrived yesterday, Paul Goncalves. His dad is a well-known Brazilian Church of Christ preacher in the South of Brazil and his mom is Amercian. So, it’s really good that our first intern is fluent in English and Portuguese. We’re not sure how much we have to teach him at this point in the work (since he grew up on the mission field); but I’m sure God has a few things in store to teach us all these next few months.

Happy Mothers' Day

Thank you Mom and Miss Cindy for all of the love that you give us, for all the caring, all the hugs, all the things that mothers are for their kids. You are two of our most favorite people in the world. Today is the day that we honor you, not just for what you do, but also (and more importantly) for who you are. Motherhood is not necissarily the penacle of womanhood, but we are glad that we were both blessed with women who are so good at being everying you are, teachers, people who are willing to do what is right, and people who helped to raise us to be the children of God we are today.
In honor of the two of you, I did something quite spontanious that will always remind Mary and I of the two of you. We love you.













Ok, it isn't real. It was part of an advertisement we did for our church on mothers' day here drawn on by Keith with washable marker.

Routine?

Is work in God's kingdom ever routine? I am trying to make it so, at least for me. It seems to be working, but I have been through this before. Weeks begin to look alike. Before it was a schedule of Portuguese classes. Now it happens to be a weekly schedule of meetings and activities. I can look forward to Tuesday beginning with morning classes with my language teacher, Jaci, then to head off to a meeting with the men of our mission team to guide our spiritual focus for our church. Tuesday nights leads us into our small group meeting at our apartment. Wednesday, I wake up to get ready and then head to our staff meeting, a time when we can look at what we are doing and ask, how can we help that to go better, after a time of worshipping God together as a church staff. Thursday is again Portuguese class in the morning. Friday mornings comes our rehearsal for Sunday morning worship and then a meeting of the sermon writing team. Friday nights are always youth activities. And of course Sunday mornings at 8:30, we all meet at the building to pray and then lead the worship service.

Actually, it is my humanity that is calling out, "make my week something I can get used to!" Really, it would be best not to be routine, but to always keep things fresh. I know that whatever routine we are in now won't last. That is fine. I look forward being more invovled in people's lives, and I think that is what leads to chaos rather than the order of a routine. It is always good to have something to look forward to grounding me in relation to the clock part of the space time continuum, but it is also a blessing to be able to say that if we get to the point where every day really is the same, then we may need to look at shaking things up a bit so that we do not stagnate. So, while my nature yearns for things to be steady, my nurture tells me that they can not become overy so to the exclusion of progression. Still, the urge is pretty strong.

After Inaugural and the 1st Youth Event

We have had two good worship services since inaugural. The first service (after inaugural) we had 24 in attendance. This was a little disappointing after filling our auditorium the week before but expected. I asked one visitor, Ida, how she found out about the church. Ida replied that she had been praying for a church near her home to be able to attend but she didn't know that God would open one for her!!! For Easter Sunday, our second service after inaugural, we had 47 people. Ida came back with a poem about our church and all of our kids from Amaralina came with their families.

The second youth event went well too. There were 10 of us hunting Easter eggs and putting the parts of the verses together that were hidden inside the plastic eggs. Matt played the main role in Randy's drama skit about being stuck in the box of sin and that only Jesus can pull us out, making us new creations and giving us new life in him. We are still praying that they will take these messages to heart and want to be baptized soon.

3 Things In Common

Our first youth event went better than expected! We had 35 people total. Some of the kids from other churches here in Salvador were there and about 8 of our own teens (the ones we have been studying the Bible with), plus 2 more unchurched visitors. Anderson (one of our kids) was so excited by the end that he started going around trying to figure out which of the others would be at church Sunday morning. We ate pizza, played get to know you games, sang, and learned about the 3 most important things we have in common: God made us in His image, God loves us, and God is constantly seeking after us. We also made bracelets that coincided with the colors of the points in the lesson. When we told Claudio as he was leaving that he could bring friends the next week, his face lit up. Please pray that at this next event we’ll still have some kids in town (as many families here travel on Easter) and that the teens will have open hearts when it comes to learning about a NEW LIFE in Christ.

A Much Anticipated Beginning

After our inaugural service yesterday, a visitor from Tulsa stated, “You must be very happy. I know you have been anticipating this day for a long time.” I am not sure if that was an intentional understatement or a blatant statement of observation, but it is altogether true. It was a very emotional morning for our family, beginning with a gift of beautiful flowers to the church from Mary Virginia’s family (Rick, Cindy, Spencer, and Brannon) in the name of her great grandmother, Little Momma. With a capacity crowd of around 350, the auditorium, which has no AC and no windows was steamy, but we are working on that problem. We expect that we had about 100 unchurched visitors; people with whom we have begun to build relationships and lead to the most important relationship with Christ. The worship service was dynamic with a great time of singing praises, wonderful blessings and messages both from guest and team speakers and prayers. Matt’s emotion heightened during the children’s worship time when the little ones were singing in Portuguese, “Can you whisper in God’s ear, something sweet he wants to hear? I love you...” God’s love for us has been so apparent in the last couple of weeks of preparation for this event, as has the love of God’s people, in all of the sponsoring and supporting churches of the Salvador mission team. And in a very public way, we were allowed to show our love for God and for the people of Salvador, finally. The reception following the service was a great time to converse with our visitors, including our realtor, Helena, and her family, our usual taxi driver, Roberto, and his family, and Jaci, our Portuguese teacher, and 25 members of her family. Now, it is just the beginning, and we have much more learning to do as we are also beginning the process of teaching others of the goodness of God’s grace and the life He calls us to in His son, Jesus Christ. We are thankful to everyone who has helped make this beginning a reality. Thank you for your prayers, and please remember to continue praying for us.

Two Weddings and Two Funerals

Never again will I wonder why there are so many nice dress shops here. We went to our first Brazilian wedding (a few weeks ago now) for our friends from the Bonoco church. Mary wore a pink and black dress that she had worn at her Bridesmaid’s luncheon before our wedding. Matt wore kaki’s and a button up long sleeve shirt (no tie). We arrived like any good American couple would – half an hour before the invitation time – and were the only ones there. When people started showing up about 15 minutes after the invitation time, the men were dressed like Matt (like they were going to church in the States) and the women were dressed in sequins and chiffon (like they were going to prom). The wedding actually started about an hour and 15 minutes after the invitation time and we sat at the same tables and chairs during the wedding that we were in for the reception. Everything was decorated in peach – no sorry – salmon (a very popular color here).

Within the same two weeks our brother in Christ, Otavio, lost his mother (who lived beside them) and his brother (who had lived above them). His mother died of cancer and there were many at her funeral. It was a sad time for Otavio and his family but she had been sick for a while and it was not unexpected. Otavio’s brother on the other hand died just 2 weeks after his mother in a tragic public accident. Otavio and 2 of his brothers are lifeguards on the beaches here. His brother Odivaldo was swimming out to help someone and a boat ran him over and drove off. (This happened the day after Fat Tuesday and it is assumed that the driver of the boat was drunk.) It was all over the radio and the funeral was televised. It was a beautiful Catholic service with the pall bearers all wearing life guard shirts and there was enormous turn out. Funerals here are always the day after because there is no embalming. They do everything at once and at the same place: the visitation, the service, and the burial are all in different parts of the cemetery. This makes for a very intense and somber day. Otavio especially was heart broken because he is the only one of his family who is a Christian, the rest of his family are non-practicing Catholics who dabble in spiritism. Because we and the Porters wanted to show our support of our brother and his wife and daughter, we decided to cook for them… for more details on this interesting culture story see the Porter’s most recent blog.

The second wedding we went to was for Jaci’s son, Douglas. Mary wore the same dress to this wedding and this time she was a little over-dressed. Not sure how we’re supposed to tell the difference yet in the wedding invitations. This wedding was less formal and a little more animated. The reception this time was not at the same place but was at the family’s house (where we hold our Bible studies). It was, interestingly enough, a pot-luck reception. We brought American brownies for them to try (Mary’s Grandmother sends us mixes). We left early because Matt’s allergies were acting up and the bride fixed us a plate to take with us. Gotta love Brazilian hospitality!