Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Girl’s Club

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Deanna, Emma and Bella host a Girl’s Night on Wednesdays which usually includes an ice breaker, a game and a Bible study. Here are some photos of a Dress-Up night. Many of these girls come from difficult home situations. Most are crazy for the wrong kind of attention on the street.  Of the Girl’s Club Deanna taught before we left for furlough last year, many are now single moms. They have not thought things through too well, and in many cases they simply doing what their mom did as a young girl. Is there any way to rescue them, or stop the trend? This is our hope.

Building trusting relationships where their is fun, food, a safe place to ask questions and share stories, and to ask for God’s help is a good place to start.

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Family Days

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Do you ever wish you could have been one of Jesus’ disciples? What if you could have walked this earth with Jesus for three years, asking questions and watching how to do things?
What if God asked you to do this on earth? What if God asked you to spend quality time with a few people, to show them how to think about and work through the tangles of this broken world. He has! For those of us with families, the disciples God has given us are our children. And God is nice enough to give them to us with a clean slate.
When our girls were little I got in the habit of making up “Big Man” bedtime stories. This fictional character had a lot of similar experiences that I did growing up, and he worked through many complex situations. This gave me a way to communicate values and ideas to our girls. As they grew older I read them many books. We listened to audio books while painting pictures or doing road trips. Playing games like Halo and Age of Empires taught us about teamwork, attitudes and short-term wins and losses. Watching movies together gives us an opportunity to talk about life and its complexities, and hopefully shows our children how to fast forward parts of some movies, and walk away from others.
We try to take a Family Day once a week, a sabbath rest from work. This is a challenge for me, as I love to work. This is not my only challenge. Walking with our girls from diapers to children to teen-agers to young adults has been the joy and challenge of my life. My work includes long hours and quite a lot of travel. Having a weekly Family Day whenever possible gives us all something to look forward to.

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Family Day Project

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When we first got back to Brazil last summer the girls bedroom felt really empty. All their lives they had shared a room with Anni and Via, who stayed back in Canada. We decided to start a painting project on the back of the wardrobe to cheer things up. It took us several months of an hour or two a week. It was really fun. We would make tea or coffee, put on some music or visit, and watch the animals appear as we painted. Emma did the big jaguar, Bella did the green parrot on the bottom, I did the red macaw  and we all painted butterflies and flowers. This was our first oil painting, so we learned about that as we went along. We were all surprised at how well it turned out.

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Bella Turns 14!

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Bella turned 14 on November 2! Highlights included Anni and Via waking up and skyping at 5:30 a.m. their time, so they could open gifts together, pão de queijo for breakfast, getting a pomegranate tree with a blossom, and eating cream puffs with our neighbours, among many other special events.

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Sunday Night

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Deanna preached at church last Sunday. It was a great service. There were about 75 people present, which is normal now. The Wilson Family, who are missionaries in Pacajá, a town halfway to Altamira, were here for two days, which was really nice. Marsha played the keyboard on the worship team, and Logan played in the band at the Saturday night Youth Service.
Here are a few random photos of the service.

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The TransAmazon Highway

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I just got back from a bus trip to Altamira. On the way there the Sem Terras (a political movement) had the highway barricaded so we went the long way around the dam. There is paving and road work going on as the Xingu hydro project is underway, but it was still 15 hours getting to Altamira, and 14 hours getting home. On the way home I took the all night bus, as there is no talk of armed robberies and highway bandits.


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Adriano

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Adriano was getting a snack at a store right near our house when a fellow came in to shoot another guy. He missed his target, but accidentally hit Adriano in the leg. Adriano was in the hospital all night before the doctor had time to pull the bullet out, clean the wound, and sew up the wound yesterday morning. Thankfully the bullet stopped at the bone, and did not hit any major nerves or arteries.
Adriano really likes us, and hangs out at the church a lot. He is the only person I have had to escort off the property for exceedingly disruptive behavior during a service. At the next Sunday service he was back, and he managed to sit a little quieter. I feel really sorry for kids like Adriano. He does not know his dad. He lives in a shack with his mom. She has a few kids with different guys. He does not go to school, and cannot read or write. The other day he begged to come to town with me when I went to buy some rope for a project so I got him a motorcycle helmet and we hung out for awhile.
We ask God for mercy, and try to help when we can…like visiting him when he stops a bullet. Deanna gave him a new shirt for a present and some chocolates. He immediately ate two of the chocolates and gave the third one to his mom.

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Church Growth Plan

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To make disciples we need to spend time with people. Forming a church community that eats and studies and plays together is fun, but we have found that these can tend to get ingrown. Over time our language, preferences and inside jokes can make new people feel like outsiders.
Church growth by natural reproduction is really slow.
Church growth by Christians moving over from other churches is complicated.
So how do we attract people who don’t like church?
We are developing another chapter to our work here called CDR. In English, this translates to Center of Regional Development. These are activities designed to meet felt needs in our neighbourhood. Our goal is to build bridges so that church people can hang out with unchurched people. Our hope is that our Christian community and our message will be considered good news.

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Iguana

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This iguana fell out of a palm tree by our church building the other morning. We have quite a few of them around here, from very small to about 5 feet long. This one was about 3 feet long or so. Where we live very few people eat iguanas, though its not completely unheard of. Iguanas like eating the fruit and leaves on the trees on our property. And our dog likes eating the iguanas.