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Saturday evening the men from our three churches: Esperança, Calvário, and Nova Vida, got together for some fellowship and a challenge from the Word. The topic was missions and the speaker was Brazilian church planter pastor Lucio. He and his wife Claudineia are planting a church in Boituva (Carlinhos and took our class to visit them a few weeks ago) and are leading the way for other Brazilian brothers and sisters in Christ to follow. Eight of our eleven men participated. Sunday afternoon Dawn, Abby, and I went again to Habiteto to minister with the group from Calvário. We had 39 kids who heard the Word and were able to share with us. This weeks "talk-time" brought another interesting story. Natalia told me that a neighbor had cast a spell on her family, threatening to kill several of her family members. Natalia's brother told her that in order to protect her grandmother Natalia needed to fast and pray. A horrendous story but some good advice from her brother. Both Natali...

As I mentioned in my last post, Ben and Dani have been doing some remodeling on their "new to them" house. Here in Brazil that usually means renting a dumpster and filling it with all of the refuse from years gone by. I have been helping with the clean-up, for some reason that seems to be my specialty. Anyway, as many of you know, tile is the "carpet" here in Brazil. Everything is either tiled or bare cement. As you can imagine (or maybe you can't) when you remove tile from floors and walls it makes a huge mess and is also very dangerous. Broken tile is a lot like broken glass. I have little cuts and nicks on my hands and arms as proof. As I looked at the piles and piles of broken tile in every possible square centimeter of the house I thought of how so many of our people here have lives that look like that broken tile. Tile when it's just out of the box is lovely. There are innumerable textures, patterns, and styles to choose from and it can be shiny, or du...

Ben and Dani just bought a new house. Or at least it is new to them. It is in fact their first house and they are really excited about it. But, in the process of their move they are doing a little remodeling. Actually their house looks like a house from New Orleans just after Katrina hit. All of the tile is being removed from both floors and walls. It is really a mess but I am sure that it will look nice in a few weeks.

Well, it was back to Habiteto Sunday afternoon. It was a hot day with temps in the 90s. The heat combined with the dry weather we've had has left everything soiled, everyone sweaty, and most of the kids a tad stale. The dog day heat didn't keep the them away from the afternoon Bible club however; We had forty. After a short opening and a Bible story we have a time where we let the kids talk with us about life in general. Those of you who have worked with kids know that you can learn a lot about a family if you let the kids talk. Often more than you care to know. Just a couple of week ago one little girl came up to me and said, "Man, we had a dead lady in our house the other day and did she ever stink!" I'm not sure what that meant but I didn't ask too many questions either. In "friend" time I had Hallisom , Micom , and Rafael . As the boys were trying to memorize their verses Rafael had many interesting questions. One was, "When was God born?...

Little did Ed and Jan know that when they moved a few weeks ago they were going to create a pastoral avalanche of moves! Ben and Dani just began the process of moving to their first home. Dawn, Abby, and I made an offer on renting a place near the church today. This will allow Davi and Claudia to move into our place. And sometime next week, Shawn and Donna will be moving back to Brazil after nearly two years in the States! It makes my head spin just thinking about all of the boxes, packing tape, sore backs, and excitement. At left is a picture of the house that we will be moving to. It is a four bedroom place about three blocks from the church which will help us to be even that more active in the neighborhood. Ben and Dani's place is just a couple of blocks north of ours. And finally Davi and Claudia will be nearer the church which will facilitate their ministry efforts. Praise the Lord! And thanks to you who have been praying for us.

Two cameras and eight teenagers mixed with several "mysterious" locations, and a time limit, made for a lot of fun last Saturday night at youth group. Ben had the idea of driving around town, taking pictures of different locations from differnt angles, and having the kids try to duplicate them as close as possible. We (Ben and I) were the drivers and we were to say nothing about how to get to the different locations. The kids had to look at the pix on the two cameras and then direct us. I think that my team won! Ben thinks that his team won. Oh well everyone had fun.That's Paulinho with his strange "glasses" at right. And above were (left to right) Ariel, David, Barbara, Rafaela, and me, with Ursinha and Shiba (who seems quite bored with the whole idea. It also looks like both Ariel and Ursinha have the shys). Ben's message that night was "God is Suficient". It is a concept that many of our young believers cannot grasp. The verse they were to memor...

I thought that I would start this week out with a bit of an update on health issues (doesn't that sound interesting!), and ministry moves. My stone is still with me but I'm going to a urologist this week. I'm also going to the dentist to get an x-ray of my jaw. I think that I might have broken it in the fall. Nuff-o-that for now. We have received an offering that combined with some other budget cutting moves should give us enough to make a move. Our move is ministry related in that, as already mentioned in previous updates, our team is scattered through out the city and we need to be closer together. Our house will become the parsonage for Davi and Claudia, and we will rent a house for a year and a half (our next furlough date). Last night we had fifty-two in service and I preached from Matthew 21.18-22. For those familiar with the passage it is interesting to note that figs grow here in Brazil. The fruit comes with the leaves (actually it starts before the foliage). Thus w...