Something happened on the way to the orphanage!

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 have told me that Ana Luiza has been a delight to have in the home. “She is very quiet, loves to be at home and we love to have her around.” Bartira added.

A few weeks ago Ana went to a friends house and shared a “dream” that she has for her family. The friend related Ana's dream to her dad Paulo, “She wants to see her whole family in church with her!” the friend told Paulo. He was touched.

As God would have it, on Tuesday night I was going to make a visit on a friend that Ana had brought to Sunday school with her and so I stopped by the bakery to get the address from Paulo. It was then that he shared Ana's statement with me. I told him, “I think that God is using your daughter to get your attention!” He agreed.

Here is a bit of a funny twist to this whole story. The morning of our first VBS meeting back in January, in fact just 20 minutes before the opening session, a lady walked up to me and said, “my grand son was wondering if he could use your parking lot to fly his kite?” I was a bit exasperated with her question because we were about to start our biggest kid's ministry effort of the year in just 20 minutes, and this lady has the gall to ask if her grandson could use the very place where all of our cool games would be being played!

“NO!” nearly escaped my loose lips, but instead I heard myself saying, “Well, we are going to be starting a really fun activity for the kids in just 20 minutes and if your grandson would like to participate we would love to have him.” She said, “No, he just wants to fly his kite. He is really shy and doesn't want to be a part of your VBS.”

Can you believe THAT! Rotten kid!

Anyway, I again heard my self say, “Sure, (clenched tongue) he can use our parking lot, but he needs to realize that we will be using it for our really cool games in just about a half an hour.”

I went in not believing what I had just allowed to happen. But it wasn't long before I realized that both grandma and Junior, her grandson had both come in to the church and were listening to the Bible story of the day! We later learned that grandma is a Mormon who is looking for a new religion.
Here's the twist, Junior and grandma came back the next day too! He was awarded a prize for bring the most visitors that day. And, one of the visitors that he brought was Ana Luiza! Is that interesting or what! Will there be a tremendously happy ending to this very intricate story? Why don't you and I pray to that end. For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8.38.

This is a picture of the kids at Kids Club last Saturday. Pray for this weeks club meeting!