February

February brings us back to our regular routine, almost. The kids started school again, the School of the Bible reopened with ten students, and the weather got hot. 90 degrees and 80% humidity was pretty normal for about three weeks, and needless to say, it was hot.

In February we were blessed again by a visitor from the US. Jeff Hicks came. He is Alley's sister's father-in-law, and preaches in Lynwood, Washington. The Christ's Heritage congregation helped support us in 2009, and also supported Francisco and Liduina, enabling them to buy their car. Thanks for the support in the work here!

Brazilian pizza in Jefferson and Priscila Lira's house to welcome Big Jeff

About 500 pounds of food for the needy in Praia Grande

One of the things Jeff came to do in Praia Grande was to deliver some food baskets to needy families. The church in Washington worked a car wash in freezing cold weather in order to raise money for this benevolent need, and the best part was that we got to help make them and deliver them!

The Friday study at Cida's house.

On eof the deliveries we made was to a Bible study on Fridays that meets in the house of one of our visitors whose name is Cida. These new visitors are studying with Francisco and Liduina every week and are very excited. 8 of the food baskets were delivered to the needy in this neighborhood.

Tears of gratitude tell how much they needed the help.

February also saw the beginning of an experiment. I began an English class every Friday night. Sebastian brought four visitors, and three of my School of the Bible students also came, as well as Isabelly and two members from Sao Vicente, Valdir and Marcos. The study is very basic but it is a great way to get members and visitors together to know each other better. I hope it will be one more link with our visitors that will eventually help them become more committed to the Lord.

Jeff practices saying "I am from..." with Isabelly and her friend on the first night of English class

There are moments of planting and moments of harvest in the work. Since God is in control, we never know when exactly they will come, but they do. In February Isabelly, who has studied with Alley for the last year nad also with Liduina, suddenly told us she wanted to be baptized on the 25th of February. We were more than happy to help her to exactly that. Her dad, Carlos, baptized her in the ocean after our small group that meets in their house. I helped because those waves can knock you over if you aren't prepared.

Isabelly's baptism

The witnesses and family

One happy dad!

Lucas told us the next week he was ready. Francisco asked him, "Who is Jesus to you?" Lucas said, "He's my savior." So after the Friday study, we took him down to the water and I baptized him. Big Jeff was happy to help, as the surf was pretty rough that afternoon.

A little nervous, but ready.

Lucas baptized into Jesus Christ in the Atlantic Ocean

We are grateful to all of you for your continued support of the work here. Please keep us in your prayers, these two new babes in Christ, the Friday study which is made up of 15 visitors, the School of the Bible which is studying the Old Testament, and all our members and visitors. We depend on you each day. Thanks for your ongoing spiritual and financial support.

December, January

December and January are always very active months. This year was no exception! Every Christmas the church has a potluck dinner. This year was wonderful. The food was great, and we capped it off with Lime Mousse made by Edson, one of our regular visitors, as well as homemade ice cream, made by myself. It was Mango Lime ice cream, a real exotic treat!

Marcia and some of the congregation

Sebastian serves Cokes with flair

For a change of scenery, we invited the whole congregation and their relatives who were in town to our home for New Year's Eve to stay the night. This is a great blessing, because driving home on New Year's here is a terrible experience. Besides the number of drunk drivers, the traffic is so bad (with 2 million tourists at the coast) that it takes about two hours to go ten miles. So we hole up with the brethren and have a great, peaceful time.

Carlos and Adriana at our house

The guys at the barbecue: Jorge, Carlos, Chris, and Eduardo

The food and fellowship are unequalled

The kids ready for dessert: cake and homemade ice cream!

New Year's Day was also very interesting, as many church members and visiting family stayed over. Traffic was still very bad, so we just hung out and continued to enjoy each other. It did rain, however, and our roof began leaking on our TV. So I got to get on the roof and put my roof tile skills to the test. Fortunately I am getting the hang of roof tiles, and was able to stop the leak. I took a beating in the process, though.

January brought the delivery of Francisco and Liduina's car, which has been a huge help in their ministry. It is a little Renault Clio, and they have been able to about double the number of studies each week because of this blessing. Francisco's leg also hurts far less now. Thanks to all of you who helped with this tool, especially Christ's Heritage in Lynnwood. It is really making a difference for the kingdom here!

The new owners

Look out, world!

Another exciting episode was the termite infestation at the church building. Francisco discovered them nesting in his books, and ripped out all the siding that had been infested. Both our offices were affected. It looks OK now, but at the time it got pretty ugly.

What a mess!

They were in the roof as well.

After recovering from the termite invasion, we had another invasion. The church building was robbed for the third time, and we lost our crackers and juice for the Lord's Supper again, as well as two fans, a small radio, and the wooden door in back was smashed and had to be replaced. We are thankful nobody was hurt and that our loss wasn't too severe, although it is pretty discouraging. We feel sometimes like all we do to keep things working here gets knocked down and we spend a lot of energy putting it back together. But God has protected us faithfully up until now, and for that we are grateful. This time it just confirmed our desire to look for a safer location in a better part of town. Please pray for that search.

January brought another wonderful opportunity for Alley and I. We were invited to speak at the youth camp in Argentina. So we packed up the kids and took a trip back to Buenos Aires. It took a few days for my Spanish to return, but seeing all our old friends and faithful brothers and sisters helped a lot. The church there is doing well. There are several new members, including some youth that we had reached out to but that never came while we were there. We spent a week visitng with old friends and church members, talking about our life, and sharing thier struggles. It was very good for us to see that so many of the people we worked with are still faithful and struggling to live out their faith with fear and trembling. There will always be struggles, but most of them are still struggling alongside the Lord, and for that we are very happy.

Jonathan loved the airplane trip

Stephanie too!

Rosa, Alley, and Walter

Alley, Hugo and Judit Fuente, and Juan and Nilda Fuente

Worship with the Villa Urquiza conregation

Alley and Priscilla Lorre

Alley and Jonathan with the Celis family: Daniel, Shirley, Lizbeth, and Kathy.

In preparation for camp, Jairo and I went to El Mana, the church's land in Tigre, where I had buried a time capsule three and a half years earlier. With a little effort, we dug it up and took it back to civilization to open it during camp.

Jairo Diaz digging up the time capsule in El Mana, Tigre

What satisfaction

My job at camp was to teach four lessons on apologetics, which I adapted from the book "I don't have enough faith to be an Athiest" I love apologetics, so it was a pleasure to present to the camp all the reasons we have to believe God's Word. I think God blessed our efforts during the week. I will always love youth ministry.

Chris's class on the evidence of a Designer

Alley led a group in the team sports activities

After camp, which was in Tandil, there were 2 baptisms. One was one fo the campers from Villa Urquiza, the older brother of one of the girls we reached out to while wer were in Argentina. Please pray for the ongoign work in Villa Urquiza and the other congregations in Buenos Aires as well. The Word truly is effective, and the church there continues to grow even after us Americans have all left. This is good, as the Church belongs to Christ and not to us.

Going home

We are very thankful for the opportunity to revisit the work in Buenos Aires. We know that wherever God takes us, He will carry on what He used us to begin in every place. The Church belongs to the Lord, and we trust Him to carry on after our role in a certain place has ended.
We know He has used all of you through prayer and support, and we are thankful that you were a part of the establishment of the congregation in Villa Urquiza and all that we did there. May He reward you richly for your faith and unselfish giving.

November

November brought us a fantastic chance to go visit the Capitol of Brazil, Brasilia. Alley's brother and sister-in-law are working there with the church, so we took some vacation time to get to know that city. It was truly a wonderful and interesting trip. We both love history, and enjoyed getting to that part of Brazil's past. Brasilia is quite unique, as a city that was planned and entirely built in about five years.


We were also very blessed to receive Paul Hinds and Dan Goodyear, elders from Southwest. They came to see the work firsthand and also spoke to the congregation and guests in a week-long seminar. The themes of the week were Servanthood, the Word, Every Member is a Minister, Not under Law but under Grace, and Eldership. These two humble men made a deep impression on the hearts of the church here. Members to this day still ask about Paul and Dan, and even some of the visitors from the School of the Bible send them a vicarious hug now and then. Not only was it a tremendous boost to the church, but to Alley and the kids and Francisco and Liduina also. We were blessed by the men's study time, visitations, and even mealtime as times to be encouraged by these older brothers in the faith. Thanks to you both, and to Southwest for sending them.

Men's morning devo at the waterfall

Sebastian and Gilda made us a cake.

The kids painted while the adults talked

November 15th was our first congregational meeting. We took the chance to talk about our building contract and finances. This was the first time ever we had a congregational meeting, and thie first time ever that they saw the church finances. There's not much to tell about the numbers, but it was a great opportunity to begin a tradition of transparency and accountability in the congregation.
Ready for the congregational meeting

Many members commented afterward that they liked that leadership style. Brazilian church leaders typically don't let anyone know about that sort of thing. One decision that came out of the meeting was to look at the possibility of renting in another location for security reasons. Our current contract expires in August, and we are looking into the possibility.

November was a great month. Encouragement came in many forms. We just thank you all for your continued prayers for us and the church here.