Santa Claus Comes to the Mall

We took our two nieces to see Santa Claus. Yep they do that in Brazil too. Every year we take our nieces to go see Santa. Sarah and Ester always get their letters ready and handing them over to Santa is the first thing they do, even before they sit on his lap. I shot two pictures of them with Santa that I thought everyone might enjoy. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! God bless!

(Below Ester With Santa Claus)

(Below Sarah With Santa)

The Judgment of Christmas

The Judgement of Christmas was the name of the play that was held on December 16th at the Palmas Church. The Christmas service was held early because many people travel during this time of year, sort of like summer vacation in the USA. We enjoyed seeing the true meaning of Christmas declared the winner. It really is an interesting play in a time, especially in the USA, that you can't even say Merry Christmas to someone without wondering what their reaction may be. Many witnesses presented their case as to why they were the true meaning of Christmas, Santa Claus (Papai Noel), Christmas Dinner, The Church, A poor boy who was told the true meaning of Christmas, and of course the store manager who gave his 10% discount speech to the court. In the end it came out that Christmas is a time to remember that God sent His Son, Jesus into the world for each and everyone of us. A Christmas cantata sang at the beginning of the service, and a small nativity scene entered in to the last part of the play. Two dance/choreography teams danced, one being the "Blessing of God" the children's dance team, and the women's dance team Lilly of the Valley.

Please enjoy the pictures below. Remember you can click on them to see a bigger version of the picture.

Santa Claus Shot Down In Rio

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

A chopper carrying Santa Claus was shot down over the Nova Mare slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Sunday, according to a Reuters report. It was en route to a children's party when it was fired on from below.

No one was hurt, according to the Reuters report.

Click here to read the full story on Yahoo

Rio's Nova Mare section, one of the city's 700-plus slums, is an area know for rampant drug trafficking. Police do not patrol these areas regularly but rather raid them from time-to-time with armored vehicles or helicopters. Brazilian authorities say the shooting was likely a case of mistaken identity.

The brave Santa later returned to the Nova Mare region — this time by car — to distribute the gifts.

Wedding Celebrated December 1, 2007

We told you about the engagement party and service that was held at the church for Júlio Cesar and Layane, so we just have to show you at least two pictures from the wedding. What a beautiful evening it was at the church. We usually don´t use suits or long dresses here because of the heat, but this gave us a good reason to use them. We saw people in suits that I never thought I would see, but everyone gave it their best and had a great time. Congratulations Júlinho and Layane!

Natinha with two of her sisters and two nieces.

Baptism

A baptism was held on 11/25/2007 for the Good News Bible Church of Palmas, Tocantins.

Baptized were Idaelton, Jucemir, e Nelsa.

It was a time of celebration and remembrance of what Christ has done for us all.

Pictures of the baptism follow.

NELSA

IDAELTON

JUCEMIR

Idaelton before the baptism

Congratulations and blessings after baptism.

Candidates for baptism.

After the baptism with Pastors Mike and Ernesto

Congratulations and blessing after baptism.

Things Are Happenning!

Just because we have been quiet recently doesn't mean things haven't been happening here in Brazil! The contrary! When we are quiet that typically means lots of things are happening at the same time!

The elementary (Juniors) of the church in Santo Amaro, Palmas had a day outing in June! It was a great day! Many of the adults that would be responsible were afraid that the children would not listen, but that did not happen! We had a great day on the beach by the lake here in Palmas. We threw the American football but that quickly turned to football (soccer)! One of the other fears was the infestation of piranhas on this beach, but the kids braved the waters and not one was bitten on their toes! Since then the local goverment had installed a metal screen to keep the piranhas out of the swimming area. Click on the pictures for a larger version.


The juniors Sunday School department also had a pie in the face contest where squared off against each other answering questions on the book of Ruth! It was fun for everyone that participted, and tasty too!



We saw Julio Cesar become engaged to Layane at the Santo Amaro church, they have marked their wedding for December. In Brazil it is not uncommon to have an engagement party and have a special service at church to celebrate the engagement.



Also in June we had a special day in Sunday school with the primary department! The children had their June Festival party which included a corn dish that is very sweet, sort of looks like mush to me, but tastes really good. The children normally dress up like hillbillies during this month of June in the schools and such places. Square dancing is one part of the parties. While the Catholic church celebrates this party to catholic saints, we celebrated the month of June and explained that we were not celebrating these saints! It was a fun time for the children and they enjoyed dressing up!
June 24th God blessed us with six people completing the discipleship course of the church. This is for anyone that wants to participate, but usually for new believers. There were actually seven people, but only six were present when we had the certificate presentation.

Taquari Outreach

Please be in prayer for the outreach and church planting program in Taquari! A neighborhood in Palmas. We have been working in evangelizing the neighborhood but still have a lot more work in front of us. We hope to have a visit from two of our seminary students in Bahia either at the end of this month or in July. This visit will allow them to see the area and also get a better idea if this is where God is calling them in their pastoral ministry. We would like to see one of these pastors living in the neighborhood allowing for more friendships and contacts to be made which is very important in planting a new church. Pray that God would speak to the heart of each of these men and that their decision can be God's decision. Also pray that God would open doors in this neighborhood.

Two twins learning how to read at Friday tutoring sessions.

This year saw us begin a new tutoring program at the church in Taquari with children of the neighborhood, since it is a free service to the neighborhood we hope that people can see that the church is interested in helping their community.

Family that is attending Taquari church plant to left of Natinha (Natinha in Center).

We also saw our first couple begin attending services on a regular basis. The church has had visitors come and go, but this family decided they would stay and attend services with us. They have been a great support to this ministry. Last week they announced that they would be moving to another city sometime before the end of this year, this saddened us but we rejoiced with them in the hope of a better life in the other state. Pray that God would form a core group for this church.

Thank you.

A lot of times we get a lot of cards, especially at Christmas and near our Birthdays. We usually can't respond back because of the amount. So it is nice to have this form of saying thank you. We want to say thank you to everyone who expressed their sympathy toward us in the loss of our child. Your prayers and encouraging words were and are very important to us. Never think that we don't read cards and letters that we get just because we do not respond back to you. If we responded back to every card, letter or email that we get we wouldn't get any work done down here and I know you don't want that.

So once again thank you for your kinds words and support and God bless.

Mike and Natinha

CAMP 2007!

CAMP 2007!

Wild boar that wandered in to camp. Actually he is not so wild just escaped from his pen and is now living loose. (But try to catch him)

Every year people in the church look forward to our camping program. This year was no different people were anticipating the Carnival holiday to arrive so that our church could go camp on a small farmette. This year with the help of the Shippensburg Church of God we were able to rent something a little nicer. The plan was for a group of people to come from the Shippensburg church but that was not possible this year. We thank them for their help in renting this facility.

God is so good! We prayed a lot that it would not rain on us at camp. This has been the most rain that people have ever seen during the rainy season here. To give you an example since January 24th to February 26th we had one day where it didn't rain. We camped within the city practically this year on a nice property that we rented. The only place that we heard of that it did not rain during the day in Palmas, are you ready for this, was where we were camping! It poured during the night time and was sunny during the day. But meanwhile... where the Carnvial celebration was taking place it just poured buckets of water down on the festivities. God takes care of his servants!

I invite you to take a look at some of the pictures below to get an idea of what happened during our camping celebration. God bless!

A little bit of God's word never hurt anyone, as a matter of fact a lot of God's word wouldn't hurt either! We actually met for praise, worship, prayer, and study six different times during camp!



The children took advantage of a small playground that was available to them almost all day long, when they were not in the pool they were here.

Our coreography/dance team also performed one evening.

We baptized Edinaldo and Antonhia both accepted Christ last year. Naldo accepted Christ at last years camp making an already special baptism even more special.





Our special evening this year was the night of the hill billy. If you see someone dressed like you dress please don't be offended, it was all in good fun.


More miscellaneous photos follow if you haven't had enough already.






Nice group shot of all the camp participants, and a sunset to fnish it all up.

Camp 2008 will be here before we know it!