Our days in Brazil are numbered...

Well, our days in Brazil are dwindling quickly. Since the last update to this blog many events have taken place. Pastor Steve, Debbie, and Siara gave Emerson and Virgina´s daughter a gallon of pink paint for her bedroom. She loved it. Siara and Emerson painted the room.

We went to another couples house for dinner. Carlos and Leila had us over for Brazilian BBQ that was great.

Carlos and Leila´s son, Beto, has been a huge blessing to our team.

Our Mission trip has been one of many facets. Our main mission is Teaching English to the students at the school, but we have had many activities, both ministerial and social in nature, take place which has facilitated the forming of many important relationships for future trips and opportunities.

This week was saddened by the departure of Pastor Steve, Debbie and Siara. All of you in the states are being blessed though. So that´s ok for now. We look forward to our reunion with them.

Dave and Dee went to and spoke at a Church planting seminar on Friday night the 14th. Dave used a couple of skits to demonstrate teamwork and delegation, two very important characteristics for a leader to posess when running a church.

On the 15th we left for Peruibe, Sao Paulo.

We arrived in the morning and the women gave there testimonies to a small church in town. I will continue the update a little later...

Week 2 in Review

After our English class was up and rolling we began to receive invitations to have dinner and fellowship at people´s homes.

On Thursday July 5, 2007...

Marcos and Tania welcomed us into their home for dinner. We enjoyed spending the night with them and their family. Their daughter Stephanie knows english so she was our main interpreter this night. It was a great night of fellowship, testimonies, and incredible food. (and Cafe´)

Below you will see a picture of what happens when you visit a foreign country and eat all they have put in front of you. At the far right is a picture of the team stuck in an elevator after finshing dinner at Marcos and Tania´s. Cramped quarters, No response to emergency phone and it was starting to get hot.

On Sunday July 8, 2007...

We woke up, went to church to teach sunday school, Tiwana gave her testimony to English students and we sung 2 songs in English. We then headed to Sergio´s sisters house in the county side for lunch. Sergio, pictured 3rd from left in first picture, is one of individuals who has been translating and driving our team to and from different events. We enjoyed a fantastic assortment of bbq´d meat and Brazilian dishes. Later on that evening we went to church in downtown Votorantin.

Pastor Steve gave a message in the church that evening, Afonso and Jusarra had baby David dedicated by Pastor Carlos, and the team was invited to sing a worships son in English. Afterward we went to dinner...huh, go figure. More pictures to come.

Week 1 in review continued.

See photo's from week 1 below.

Greetings friends and family,

Wow! what a week. We have been going, going, going... The Brazilian people have welcomed us with open arms and continue to do so. Our class is going very well. We have many videos to post to youtube, but it's just finding the time to do so. We have tried to arrange a time each day for me to update the blog, so hopefully, now that we are in more of a routine the updates will be more consistent. Thank you for your continued prayers. So, now that we have been in class about a week we are starting to really see some results. Our class begins at 8:30am and ends at 4:30pm Tuesday through Friday and half day on Saturday. By Popular demand we have started an additional class that meets Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday mornings. People in both classes who had no English experience are beginning to have basic English conversations with the teachers. We even had one student, who has had some English experience, act out a skit of bringing someone to salvation in English. We have all of the students giving a very brief testimony. We are planning on uploading all of them to youtube soon. I will have a link on the blog to view them. Outside of the class, God has also been at work creating relationships with many pastors, church leaders, missionaries and ministries. There is a very huge need for missionaries here, short and long term. The people are after Gods heart. As the word of the Lord says, They will know us by our love for eachother, and just like at valley, these people get it. I will try to post pictures within the blogs most of the time, but just know that the pictures in our album are in Chronological order, or at least close, so hopefully they will tell a story too. We have really seen God move during our stay. Our team has continued to grow closer and closer. Opening each day with a morning devotion, testimony, or teaching. We love all of you. Thank you again for all of your prayers and support while we are away. In his Name

Unforseen Events...

Siara falls through roof!

On Saturday Morning as we were being assigned our quarters at the school we learned of a most unfortunate event. Before you begin to worry, know that the injury was serious, but Siara is ok. She had been visiting the upper quarters of the school and saw the view from the window. She decided that she would be able to get a better view if she climbed out of the open window onto the rooftop. As she was walking on the roof it gave way and down she went. She fell approximately 10-12 feet to the cement floor below. She suffered a broken arm and has had surgery to repair it. She stayed in the hospital overnight and was released. All is very well.

Missionary classes.

We held two classes for the missionaries who have graduated the school. As part of their curriculum they are going to Rio de Janeiro to minister to the attendees of the Pan American Games. We were able to answer questions dealing with everything from Ministering to people on the street to family dynamics on the mission field.


Church in Brazil!

We have had the honor of experiencing the way church is done here in Brazil. We attended our first Sunday Night church service in Sorocaba, a city about the size of Colorado Springs, where we were brought forward and introduced. Dave was able to share for a few minutes about his vision of the teams purpose while we are here.

Sao Paulo, Abba Ministries (Street Children)

After about a 2 hour drive we met up with the director of Abba Ministries, which focuses on getting children off of the streets of Sao Paulo. He took us on a tour of Abba's facilites and introduced us to the volunteers and the children living in the homes. We spent several hours with him and had a traditional Brazilian lunch before we parted company. This ministry is definitely in need of short and long-term volunteers.After lunch we walked the city streets of downtown Sao Paulo, the 2nd largest city in the world.Here we witnessed many homeless people and "street" children. It was sad to see some of these children sniffing glue. The children that we saw looked to be about 10 years old. From there our driver, Marcos, who is a Brazilian Military Policeman, took us to a military air base and we were given a tour of the rescue operation facilities.

English Class begins

Finally the time has come to begin teaching the english class. Right now we have 19 students. Some of them have some english experience and others have none(Video's to come). They all LOVE Jesus and are so excited to learn english. We have also been asked to head up a Night time course for those who are unable to attend the day class. This course will be entirely taught out of the Bible.