A Meeting Place

We are so happy to announce that God has provided the church (IBS) a place to meet! Our church family has been praying for months in specific ways for a place to meet, in a good location, in God's timing according to his will. I confess that I felt as though God had shown us to keep meeting in our home and that I should stop praying and pursuing a rental option. My brother James and I had spent hours looking at possibilities, but they always fell through - one place of which was rented the day before we decided to go for it! But we kept it before the Lord.


So this past Wednesday, one of our converts said he had seen a real nice place, but that it may not be the best location. Little did he know that James and I had just been in that area a couple weeks ago looking ourselves! We went to look at this place yesterday at noon. The owner was there so we went in and immediately the place screamed at me - this is it! The owner shot the price at $150 more than we wanted to pay. I though "so what, everything is negotiable in Brazil." So I went home, prayed and called Agostinho, who has helped us greatly in our ministry here. He came over and we went together to speak to the owner again. After a bit of negotiation, Agostinho was able to talk the guy down to the price we wanted to spend! Thank You, Lord!


Please pray with us that God would use this place for His glory and bring many to repentance and faith. We don't want to get comfortable, as our desire is to buy land and build. But this will definitely be a big help as we get started. Thank you all who pray for us, but please don't stop.

"Until Soon"

For the past two years, we have been blessed to work as a team in ministry with David's brother and sister-in-law, James and Christen. I don't know how we would have done much without them. God knew we would need each other in a brand new place, starting a brand new work. There's no price that can be put on having someone close by to work with, laugh with, talk to, share burdens with, encourage you when you're down, help when things are harder than usual, share birthdays and Sunday dinner with ... Everyone should have friends like that in their lives.

This Monday we said "goodbye" to them at the airport as they left for furlough in the States. We will miss them greatly during these next 8 months, but such is the life of a missionary -- always saying goodbye, it seems. One of the church women here pointed out that they will be back, so instead of saying "goodbye" she said, "até breve", which translated literally is "until soon."

Jer and Gabe

Juliana and Hannah

At the airport

A little farewell party after the service Sunday night

Enjoying Brazilian pizza one last time

Sisters and Coffee

I love my sisters. I have three of them. It's been over three years since I've seen them. For a while after we were all grown and married, we all lived in the same city. One of our favorite things to do was to spend an evening at a coffee shop, flipping through books and magazines, talking and laughing our heads off, and drinking fancy coffee drinks. I miss my sisters a lot and I miss those fun nights talking and laughing over coffee.

My sisters and I a few months before I left for Brazil.

For the past four months, Christen (my sister-in-law) and I have been having a weekly Bible study with our little group of church women. Since this was Christen's last study with us before leaving for furlough on Monday, we decided it would be fun to take the women to a coffee shop and do our study there. The women were so excited because they had never been to one before. Plus, it was a chance to get away without any of our kids and THAT doesn't happen very often.




It was so fun to introduce them to cappuccino and whipped cream. We had a great time and laughed a lot over our delicious drinks.



We were able to do our Bible study because even though we were sitting outside and the place was pretty crowded, our tables were in a back corner and there weren't very many distractions. I think we were all challenged and convicted about sins we need to be putting off, and to be longing for the pure spiritual milk, which is God's Word.




Not to sound corny, but I am thankful for this new group of sisters God has placed in my life. None of us are biologically related, but because of the blood of Jesus, we have God as our Father, and that is a family bond that will last forever.