What We Did the Last Two Saturdays

The past two Saturdays, I had the chance to attend a CEF seminar on evangelizing and teaching children with three of our church women. I'm so glad they were able to go. The younger two are relatively new in the faith, but are growing tremendously in their spiritual walk and they made a big effort to be able to attend this event.


One of the assignments of the seminar is to witness to two children and turn in a report about the experience. We all have to do this in order to get our certificate for completing the course. I think it was a great assignment because it helped these two women to see how important it is to share their faith with others, and that they can learn to articulate their faith so that a child can understand it. They both gave testimonies during the session today of their experiences and it was so fun to see their joy over giving the gospel to others.


I had given one of them some wordless book bracelets and key chains on the condition that she explain the meaning of the colors to whoever she gave them to. Today, she asked me for more because she has already given them all away. She said one of her teenage nephews who has been baptized at another church was shocked to learn that his baptism didn't save him from his sins. Pray that God will continue to use these women to be a shining light in their families and in their neighborhood.


On a side note here, we are really enjoying having a building to meet in. Even though they are currently in the States on furlough, Christen wrote a great blog, pictures included, of how God worked so many things out for us. Please check it out here.

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.

We're Still Here!

I'm sorry for the lack of blog posts recently. There has been so much going on, and besides that, we were without internet for about three weeks. So I'm going to try to be concise and fill you in on the different things going on around here.

1- We moved out of our rental house on April 28 into our own newly-built home. It's not quite finished, but things are falling into place and we are loving it. Christen wrote a great blog about our move which you can read about here. We are so thankful for all the help we got during our transition from James and Christen, my parents and some of our church people. We couldn't have done it without them. Someday, when things are a little more organized, I will post pictures of the inside of our house. Give you something to look forward to. :) But here's one for now of our main living area: living room, dining room and kitchen all in one.

Mom was SUCH a great help, taking care of the kids (and cooking and cleaning and doing laundry...) so we could pack and move.

Dad worked HARD to help us prepare the yard for grass and to get the garage cleaned out for our first service in our new house.

2- Mother's Day -- we didn't have a special program for the women, but we did have a little gift to give them and the kids sang a little song for them. We are very thankful for these women and the evidence of grace in their lives. Christen and I are doing a weekly study with them on 1Peter and it has been so encouraging to see them learning and growing in their Christian walk.



3- Baptism -- A Baptist church in a neighborhood nearby graciously lent us their facilities for us to hold a Sunday afternoon baptismal service -- our very first one! Four people took this very important step of obedience in identifying with Christ.


David gave a short message on the symbolism of baptism, being careful to explain that baptism does not play a role in our salvation, something that many churches here teach. James performed the baptisms and it was fun to see the people's reactions. Many had never seen baptism by immersion and commented on what a beautiful service it was. It's interesting because there's not much that's beautiful about someone being dunked under water and walking out soaking wet, but the joy on their faces was so obvious as they understood what their baptism meant. Buried with Christ and raised to walk in new life!


4- Church services -- Not too long ago, we moved our Sunday morning Bible study hour to Wednesday nights. The main reason was low attendance on Sunday mornings, and after a month-long trial period of offering the same study on Wednesday nights and having that service be very well attended, we made the change. Sunday mornings we meet for prayer at our house. This has turned out to be a very special time of fellowship with the ones who come as we seek God's help and guidance together. Sunday night services are also held at our house in our garage and this is working out well enough, but please continue to pray for us to find a more suitable meeting place.


Wednesday night Bible studies are currently being held in the homes of different church people. It has been a little tight to fit people in at times, but it always works out.


5- Upcoming transition -- James and Christen are wrapping up their first term here in Brazil. Praise God that everything went smoothly with them leaving their rental house and moving their belongings into a storage space. They are currently staying with us until they leave for furlough on June 6. This means that we will be on our own in ministry responsibilities and we ask that you be praying for us during these next few months.


We are thankful for Agostinho and Cristine, the Brazilian Christian couple God brought to us about a year ago, who will be stepping in to help out with some of the teaching responsibilities.



So I think you're pretty much up-to-date now. Things are happening and God is working. This morning, David is flying out to João Pessoa, the city where we worked our first year here. He was invited to be the speaker for an evangelistic conference at our old church. Please be in prayer for him when he comes to mind.