August 2008

Greetings once again from the southern Sao Paulo coast. God is blessing our work here.



We had quite a scare a fwe days ago with Alley's mom, Liduina. She felt chest pain and numbness in her arm, so went to the emergency room and they told her she had had a heart attack. Alley called one of the members of the church who is a cardiologist and he told us to bring Liduina immediately to Bauru (3 1/2 hours from Sao Paulo) so he could perform an angiogram. We lef the kids with

Francisco, Liduina, and Kyle

Uncle Jefferson and Aunt Priscila and drove to Bauru, where Kyle put us up in his own home and drove Alley, Francisco, and Liduina to the hospital the next day. When it was all finished, we were all very relieved to learn that she had not had a heart attack, and that her arteries were clean as a whistle. No blockage at all. Plus we were so encouraged by the visit with Kyle, who is one of the leaders in the congregation in Bauru, that we came home completely refreshed and renewed. We know many of you were praying for Liduina, and we thank you.

Here we are with some of our new Bibles

Southwest, our sponsoring congregation, has VBS every year and this year they took up a collection for US! We were needing Bibles for the church, for the School of the Bible, and for our personal use as well. So they sent an amazing $1361.08 for us to spend on Bibles. What a blessing! We were able to buy 60 NIV Bibles, plus 10 children's Bibles and some very valuable study tools. I can't describe how thankful I am for the help. I have already used the 2 Bible Diccionaries, commentary, concordance, Chronological Bible, study Bible, and I even gave my last School of the Bible class with my parallel Bible so I could follow along with my students, whether they were reading from the Almeida or NIV translations. Thanks to all who helped! You have truly given us the best investment money can buy. May they serve to establish a solid foundation for the spiritual temple that is the Church here in Brazil.

Last month I was invited by one of the students of the School of the Bible to speak to his small house church. They had a special meeting on a Friday night, and I spoke for about an hour and a half about the family.

Alley and I working in our somewhat improvised home office. Shortly after this picture was taken, our internet stopped working due to an error #691, and remained inoperational for a month and a half.
Stephanie continues with her fascination for both handbags and Hello kitty. And pink. Jonathan is quite the boy now, wanting to "play rough" with dad and play outside with Lucy (our Rottweiller). Now that construction has been reduced to finishing and interior work, the outside is finally, almost, clean, and he has more room to move.









Thanks to the folks who sent us the box of treats! Stephanie loves the Princess video. They both loved the dinosaur books. Your care for us is exceptional and makes us feel like we are not that far from home, after all.

Many thanks to all of you for your prayers, letters, boxes, phone calls, and prayers. Yes, I meant to say that twice. May God bless you for your support of His work here in Praia Grande. May He bless us to work hard and fearlessly make use of each opportunity to represent Christ to everyone here in Brazil.