i am, in fact, alive and well in brazil! december turned out to be much more of a whirlwind than i anticipated and january with back to back volunteer teams was here before i knew it! i appreciate so much your faithfulness in prayer even without an update during these two months!
december...
brought so many blessings along with the super intense heat! all along i expected that dreaded bout of homesickness to hit at christmas...what i didn't expect was how little it would seem like christmas around here! if i were in a cold, snowy place that decorates the town as we do at home i would have been consistently homesick. my brazilian friends kept me busy from christmas eve right through my birthday week with their traditions and of course...beach trips! it seemed like a totally different kind of experience rather than 'christmas without my family' and for that, i was really, really grateful!
new years eve with my friends!
january...
brought two volunteer teams of college students...in other words: one busy month! a team from union university arrived on the 5th with an old friend from jackson, 2 of my west jackson girls, and CHUCKY! we were able to sleep at my church, which made for a whole bunch of really late but really fun nights that i had been needing! during their 2 weeks here they painted some rooms at CADI and did a VBS at CADI and a VBS for my church...we kept busy! this team, though, was awesome-every single one of the college students and leader had such a great servant attitude and an immediate love for the kids, especially in frei damião; which of course, blessed me so much! and the kids loved them! while i haven't been homesick and i really love it here, being with them was refreshing...good for my soul! it was hard for me to see them go!
finally, the union team got a beach day and it was enjoyed by all!
the second team was from impact360 and they were also really great! i stayed with them at the camp as well and had a really great time getting to know them and hanging out with the ministries they were supporting and getting involved with! i really love having teams-its fun to jump into ministry with another group of people and see how God works in snap shots-and then i get to return to regular life!
which is exactly what i'm doing right now! i am now looking at how to best organize my last 6 months here in brazil so that i can be as effective as possible with that time...yes only 6 more months! i can hardly believe it, myself!
if you can be in prayer for these next few weeks to start off with energy and motivation and of course, purposeful organization! also, i've renewed my visa and am waiting to hear that it was approved (given my luck with the visa process, lets go ahead and pray a little for that, too!)
if you're reading this, then i appreciate
God bless you, today!
beijos!
