Happenings

In my last update I mentioned that Jackson had earned the Student of the Year award. That night at graduation it was announced that he had also earned the academic excellence(equivalent to the valedictorian) award as well! So, needless to say (though I'll say it anyway) we are very proud of our son-in-law! Our trip home from Curitiba with all of Ann and Jackson's worldly possessions in a small trailer went well. We thanked the Lord for Shawn and his willingness to help with that move. Ann, Jackson, and Gabriel will be living with us for a few months until their move to the States. Pray for us as we adjust to our new living arrangement. We think that it will be fun. Please pray that this thought continues to be a reality in the coming days. So far so good. Saturday our teens participated in the quarterly youth rally which includes our three churches, Hope, Calvary, and New Life. For the first time that I can remember we had more teens than Calvary Baptist! We praise the Lord for our recent growth spurt. Ben has been doing a great job of leading this growing group and God is blessing. Sunday morning saw Carlinhos and I looking for students for our Juniors class. We have been really low recently with our core group having graduated to the Youth Group. We had no one on Sunday. I suggested that we go and get them, (the two kids that we'd had the week before) and so that is what we did. We arrived at Isly's house and asked her why she hadn't come to Sunday school? “I didn't have any clothes to wear.” Isly has no father, her alcoholic mother died just a year ago and she has very few clothes to wear, so she wasn't making up this excuse. Carlinhos immediately remembered that there were a bunch of clothes left over from a recent garage sale and offered to bring some to her that afternoon. He did and Isly was in church that night! Pray for her salvation. Sunday afternoon was the children's special presentation at Habiteto and the kids did a great job. During the presentation Micom gave his testimony. It was wonderful to hear his simple explanation of how the Lord has begun to work in his young life. There were several parents there to hear the special music, testimonies, and a message from the Word. Pray for continued growth and protection for these young ones. Pray too for wisdom as to our next steps with regards to this ministry. About a year ago Carlinhos started a soccer “ministry” on Friday nights at the church. It struggled for months with few participants. Recently, however, it has exploded and for the last few weeks there have been nearly as many on Monday nights as there have been on Sunday! This last Monday saw around 40 playing. Shawn gave a devotional for the second week in a row and the Lord blessed with several hands raised for salvation (see video). Three talked afterwards to Shawn, Jackson, and Davi, two of those accepted Christ! Praise the Lord for His blessing and Carlinhos' persistence. We are gearing up for our Cantata which will be preformed on December 16. Pray for those preparations and pray for visitors. We want to see God use this special event to spread His Gospel message to the people of our neighborhood.