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You can see the wall I talked about in my update note. That is Ariel on the left and Abby on the right. The wall is quite a work of art isn't it! This is a picture of Marcia, Eduardo, Edson, Sabrina, and Tadeu's first appearance at Hope. Aren't they cute! Alexandre from Calvary invited me to watch a special presentation at the Habiteto work on Sunday. This is the group of kids that participated in the choir. They are also a part of the newly started Sunday School class. This is a recent picture of Abby and Gabe. I thought that I'd include it too!

This week Dawn and I have spent some time at Foz do Iguaçu. It is the largest and, I think, the most beautiful falls in the world. We traveled there with Ron and Heather Wandel from Macomb Baptist Church. They are doing a several country South American tour and we supplied the Brazil leg of that tour. In my expertise of being a travel agent I booked four seats on a "Luxury" bus. O MY what a trip that was. We left on the 15 hour voyage Sunday night at 10:00. It wasn't long into the trip that I (seated just a window's thickness from the driver) realized that he had smokers cough BIG time. About three hours later, around 2:00 am I noticed that he was making another funny noise. He was slapping himself in the face to keep himself awake!!!!!!!!! (This pic is not really the bus but it give you an idea of how we felt!) Funny how, when your in a situation like that, you don't really know what to do. I should have kindly gotten up and entered his compartment, conversed wit...

I was reading in Nehemiah 9 just a couple of days ago and was stopped at verse one. The verse mentions "sackcloth". 1Now in the twenty and fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackclothes, and earth upon them. I've read that verse I don't know how many times before in my life without stopping to think about "sackclothes" and dirt on the head. What stopped me this time is that the Lord has been working in my life in the area of prayer recently; gut wrenching, crying, pleading, prayer. I want to see God move in a Penticostal way (3000 saved that is... I already speak in tongues...PORTUGUESE that is!) I want to see Him work in a big way in our neighborhood. The other reason that I was stopped in my Bible reading tracks is that I am preparing a message for Sunday night on that exact subject, Prayer. So, I had Dawn pick up some sackcloth while she was in town this morning and I am having her sew me up a sackcloth T...

This is a short post to let you all know that I thank you for your prayers for our ministry. We are seeing God work out some intersting details in His perfect plan for Hope Baptist Church. Some of these will be a part of a future blog. But, for now, thank you for being concerned for us and our ministry! Our second week of kids club saw our number increase from nine to 16! Praise the Lord of the harvest. We hope to soon have some news of the Holy Spirit's work in these kids lives. Just yesterday a couple of them were saying to me, "Can't we please please learn more verses!!!!" Their motives were not the purest (they earn points for each verse) but it was sweet to hear them asking! Mike

Now here is an interesting story in the making that I want you to know about a be praying for. I told you about Ana Luiza the other day (she is pictured about two or three blogs below). She started coming to Sunday school because she visited our church during VBS and liked it. Ana was born into an abusive home. Her mother often beat her and made her beg for money on the streets. Somehow her case came into the judicial system and the ruling judge suggested that she be taken from her birth mother. Research was done and a distant relative in Sorocaba was discovered. A subsequent call was made to Paulo and Bartira. Paulo and his wife are bakers. They have three children, all grown and gone. One lives in the States, one in Japan, and one in Sao Paulo. So, when the call came about adopting a little seven year old girl it was quite a shock. “We thought about it a lot and in the end came to the decision that it was something that we needed to do!” Paulo recently told me. He and Bartira both ha...