Winding down

Our time here is coming to a quick end! We head back for the United States on Thursday morning! Our time has gone quick at times, slow at others, but we are about ready to be home! It has been such a learning, challenging, and growing time in our lives. We are so thankful for being down here. Wonderful to see God working. We have three more days of hard work and then get to go home. This week is English Camp which is basically a full day of VBS for the school children that we plan out. It should be lots of fun, games, singing, and learning! Pray for Paul as he gets to speak to the children about faith, grace, and obedience.

We successfully finished the school semester two weeks ago and were able to enjoy some down time this last week. They had an end of the year program all about the World Cup this last Wednesday! They introduced all the teams playing and had lots of choreographed songs. It was a neat production. They put a lot of effort into decorating the school and it looked great. Hopefully we will get some photos up once we get back to the States.

We have been watching all of the Brazil and US games. I have said that it is more fun to watch the United States play because Brazil has been winning so easily. The United States make the games exciting! :) You never know what's gonna happen, especially with that one goal in the last minutes of the Algeria game. Anyway, sad to see the United States are out, but we are still proud of them!

There are, I think, 14 Americans here now. Their reasons for coming range from putting on a conference on counseling, to planting a church in Recife, to helping with English Camp and Medical Missions, and to encourage the Brazilians in some other church planting opportunities. It is really nice having so many people to talk to and share with. Plus we now get three meals a day so Paul and I feel pampered after being used to only have lunch cooked for us. We have had some great discussions with our new friends!

Pray for us as we finish up our time here. Pray for English Camp that the students would hear and receive the gospel spoken at camp and that we can show them the love of Christ. Pray for our safe travels home and for God's provision as we look for employment. And if it be God's will, pray that we are allowed to bring Bencao (our puppy) home with us.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and financial support, it means so much to us. May God be praised as he works through you and us to reveal his grace and glory.

Two Things

First, the success of Glory Soccer. We are continuing to help with the soccer ministry that Jon Wright started here two months ago. We consistently have around 40 boys each Saturday come to play soccer and then also come in the evening for a youth group type event. The ministry is finally established and is really beginning to have an impact. Just this last weekend we started a curriculum about who Jesus Christ is and how to give your life to him. Plus some of the teens who have been coming to soccer came to church this last Sunday. It made me so excited to see them there and their desire to learn about who God is. I praise God for leading these teens to us and giving us the abilities to teach them about Christ. Novinho has been doing a great job leading up the program: organizing the soccer part and putting on the youth group activities. Continue to join us in prayer about this ministry. I feel like the harvest is plentiful and ripe in this field. Pray that we may be responsible and hard working harvesters to bring these teens to Christ.

Secondly, Paul and I did not meet our initial goals of support raising when we first came to Brazil. We feel as if God is providing us manna like he did to the Israelites wandering in the desert. He only gives us enough food for one day at a time and no more. Which makes us fully rely on him for our every day's need. Oh how the Lord grows us! We are coming upon a time when we have needs again and do not have the funds to meet them. Specifically we need help for when we will return to the United States. If you would like to support us, there is a new, very easy way to do so. You can go to http://tinyurl.com/28zen9e and give money online. Again, we are so thankful for all your prayers and support; you all mean so much to us!!!

Ahh, Freedom in Adventure!

That is exactly right. There is something about going on an adventure that is tiring for the body and yet revitalizing for your spirit. You may have seen a large hill (mountain for us in Indiana) in some of our past pictures. It is covered in trees and can be seen from our apartment window. Since we´ve been here, Ruth and I have wanted to walk to and climb to the top where you can see out all around the area; and also visit a fairly old church located on the very top. Since we had a holiday on Thursday Ruth, Novinho, and I all took that challenge. It was winding roads for about 30 minutes and then we hit the countryside. There are rolling hills of sugar cane fields absolutely everywhere. It looks like Northwest Indiana or Southern Illinois, but instead of corn it´s sugar cane. For the majority of the time we found ourselves walking down large dirt roads eyeing our destination. During this time we got to build upon our friendship with Novinho. It is always interesting playing charades, randomly looking up words in Portuguese, and spitting out what little Portuguese (English for Novinho) we know; it was also really fun.

One of the best parts was being away from people. For three months, there has been nothing but people, cars, trucks, motorcycles, kids, and animals everywhere. We are constantly at the Alcance, or in Carpina. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this, but there was such a sense of peace and freedom being out away from people in the glory of God´s creation. This was really felt when we made it to the bottom of the tree line or the top of the fields: if you will. Around the middle of the hill top there is a road and fence line that encircles the hill. After a quick rest, we took a walk around. It was so cool being able to see all the surrounding hill country, the local towns, and different plants and insects that inhabit the countryside. The view was definitely picturesque. Plus it was quiet! No honking cars or blaring music, but only peace and quiet.

Then, we decided to be dangerous. (Not really) Novinho seemed to be a bit dramatic in thinking there was going to be men with guns guarding the church and cell phone tower beyond the locked gate.(ugly) Despite the possibly unwarranted fears, we jumped the fence and up we went. This walk wasn´t bad but the foliage was gorgeous. We saw a giant bamboo tree, of which neither one of us had ever seen before. There were large fruit trees and bushes and plants everywhere. It was so overgrown that we actually couldn´t see out to the surrounding area. What we could see was the church. It seemed to be a classic old church, but nothing too awe inspiring. What really caught our attention was the ENORMOUS birds staring down at us. Big giant black birds watching always reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock´s ``Birds``. (Thanks Hitchcock) They may have been watching because we were taking some of their food. Beside the church was a fruit tree. It was so ripe that fruit was dropping from the sky. They looked like little apricots and are called caja. We gathered a large bag of it in order to make juice later. Like most fruit here, it was so sweet that it was almost too tart. (if that makes sense?) None-the-less, it was delicious.

After we gathered the fruit the descent began. Like most long walks, the way back was much more silent. We were pretty tired by the end but refreshed at the same time. All in all, we were gone for only 4 1/2 hours. Again, it was just so nice to be outside in the country and enjoying nature. It makes us look forward to the next time we get to go climb a mountain in Colorado!! Who wants to join? :-)