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Places VisitedArea of Ministry: Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sol, Brasil LOCAL CHURCH: Igreja Baptista Vale do Cai, Sao Sabastiao Click here fo an interactive map of the region. Saturday, July 1st
Sunday July 2nd
Monday, July 3rd
Tuesday, July 4th
Wednesday, July 5th
Thursday, July 6th
Friday, July 7th - A DAY OF REST!!!!!!! - Genesis 2:2, 3
Saturday, July 8th
Sunday, July 9th
Monday, July 10th
Tuesday, July 11th
Wednesday, July 12th
Thursday, July 13th
Friday, July 14th
Saturday, July 15th
SS = Sao Sabastiao, SL = Sao Leopoldo, NH = Novo Hamburgo * to be completed as we go
July 16, 2006 July 13, 2006 - Mykel & SteveHi Everyone,Today was another great day seeing God work through us in Brasil. It is humbling and rewarding to put things in God`s hand and watch what happens. we started the day in a downtown school and the kids were extremely excited.Many of them had the look of a kid on Christmas morning. Knowing that we were having that kind of impact on them was very rewarding. we all started the day tired and well; basically on our last leg. I had lost my voice and was dragging. What was amazing was that as the day progressed, myself as well as the rest of the team found new energy.(and for me a voice) the day ended up fantastic. we had some great ministry in the schools as well as a prayer service\good-bye get together at randy`s church in the evening. many of the kids as well as some of the brasilians shared what they had learned since being here. it was such a joy to hear so many say that they truely discovered that prayer was powerful and that they needed to just trust God. Ashley actually came up with a line that i think I will be using for quite some time. she said, what i learned on this trip is that the only one who can define me is God. (not my friends) great words to live by. i have watched this team truely grow spiritually. i cant imagine that it is just a flash in the pan; because we have all truely seen God work. i pray that it will continue when we get back. tommorrow and friday will be long travel days for us all. pray that we will stay strong and patient. you should all truely be proud of the fine young men and women on this team. I am. see you all soon........................mykel Greetings everyone from tomorrow, I'm sorry, but I just had to say that because of the time difference. I'm not really sure what to write because I haven't really asked anyone to compare so I hope you excuse me if I ramble or stream off on tangents. Today we had two full shows in one school and a puppet show at another school. It really amazes me how excited these kids get even if they don't speak our language. These two school the teams from last year visited and so for some of the members on the team it was a good reminder of last year. After lunch and before the second show we had about an hour and a half of down time so we just hung out for a while. We're all just really tired and waiting for our own beds to sleep in. A couple days ago I was helping to try and solve the network problem here at the hotel. I don't speak portuguese and no one that works here speaks english HOWEVER in the world of networks it's all the same language. It was really cool how a common bond and knowledge like that could enable two people to communicate to each other to help each other out. God showed me the parrallel of that today. No matter where you are, no matter what language you speak, or don't speak you always have a common bond with every christian globally and temporally (throughout time.) I've been here in Brasil for almost 2 weeks and I still don't understand anything and no one understands me, but when we worship we share one common language. I can understand and worship with the person sitting next to me not because I know what he's saying but because I know what he's feeling. Why (there's soposed to be a question mark here but the brasilian keyboard is a little funky) I feel the same thing he's feeling, a love and devotion to the the God of all of us, of all time. Well that's my cool little story for this evening, Goodnight. Please pray for our travel. The next few days will be interesting with the amount of little steps we will need to take to get home. Your Brother in Christ, Steve July 12, 2006 July 11, 2006 - Ashley & Donnaok, so... i'll start this e-mail off with a special hello to my parents and to lisa, because they requested that i do that.Today was very good, only it was sad too because it means another day closer to going going home. not to insult anyone, because you are all loved.. but that is just how amazing this trip has been. God has been soooo awesome, and i LOVE watching him work!!! We started off going to Gravatai, where the music team finished teaching recorder, and the kids put on a little concert for us. It's amazing how fast they learn. While they were doing that the puppet team put on three shows for the kids that were coming and going. Unfortunately there was no time for the drama to squeez into those shows.. but we were able to help out never the less. I never get tired of how cute those kids are. Then we did another show at a new school. Those kids were just as cute, and Megan n I had lots of fun improving some dances to the music teams songs. Sometimes i think we might enjoy it more than the kids do. haha. The show went really well i must say. I really want to tell my favorite story. It's not from today, but i'm telling it anyway. Before we left Colleen gave me an evangacube that i carry around in my purse with me. I was feeling kinda guilty though, because there is no time to have long enough conversations with the kids afterwards. So one night at dinner, Megan and Victoria, Randy's daughter, started playing with it. Then i noticed Christiano, our bus driver glancing at it, so i had Victoria (who speaks portugese) call him over so he could see it. Then i asked him if he wanted me to explain it, and he said yes, so of course i did. it was so awesome. anyway, back to today. we ended it going to Porto Alegre to get some pizza. It was sooooooooo good! and fun to watch too, we go after it like animals i swear. haha. i have to say one of the coolest things about this trip is just watching the ways God has brought us together. We've all become soo close. yet another reason i'm sad to see this trip end. I love you and miss you all and cannot wait to see you! love Ashley oi! boa tarde! Brasil is AMAZING! ~i am sure from all the emails you can tell we are having a fantastic time of ministry here. God is revealing Himself more and more each day. Our new prayer has become that we can see Him this clearly at home and worship both - when the sun is shinging down on me and the world is all as it should be- and when we are -walking through the desert place- ... we are in awe of Gods amazing power and provisions and faithfulness to His children. today we continued to press on toward the goal despite fatigue and some minor illnesses. we have received above and beyond all we coud ever ask or imagine as far as energy and strength to carry on through three more shows in grava tai. the children there are beautiful and it is a blessing to be able to share the Love of Christ with them. we have had the privilage of working with Shane and Erin (missionaries) there and they have been welcoming and thankful for our ministry. It is encouraging and humbling to see missionaries that do this 24/7 all through the year as we come for a very short two weeks! it puts the work of the Lord in perspective! Please continue to lift up our missionary brothers and sisters in Christ here! all of the parents back home should be humbled, amazed, and very proud of the work that your children are allowing the Lord to do through them! I am thrilled to be a part of this team and enjoy very much sharing the lessons that I am learning and hearing the lessons that others have learned. The Lord has been working mightly through the prayers of His children! we are in wonderment over the faithfulness of our God! Thank you all for your prayers! We are praying now to finish well.....our work physically in Brasil is ending shortly, but our work for the Lord is never done! It is our prayer to finish His work that He has set up for us beforehand, and to finish it well! despite being tired or whatever else may come in between us delivering the work of the Lord to give HIM all the Glory and Praise He deserves! He has truly created an amazing team and HE has done amazing work through HIS children! See you all soon!! :) Loving Brasil and living in wonderment of Him, Donna PS - happy birthday mom, give everyone a hug and kiss for me...especially D and little girl dog! lou - miss you kiddo :) July 11, 2006 July 10, 2006 - Jess & JerryOi friends and family back in New Jersey!
Hey Hi guys, i miss you guys and i cant wait to see you when i get home. i hope everyhting is going well. and mom dont work to hard, a good mother like you desrves rest. P.s. e-mail me at my own email, ask Justine for it. July 10, 2006 July 9, 2006 - Stacey & KaitlynOi gente! I hope everybody is having a good time back in the states. We are having an awesome time here. I can not believe that it has been a week already! This time last week we were getting ready for our first show! Wow! Time flies! We've been so busy. We've been able to minister to the people of Brasil through our shows, our recorder, piano, and puppet classes at night, and througjh our soccer ministry yesterday, and through conversations with kids. It has been such an amazing trip and God has taught us so much and we have seen God work through us each and everyday. I especially was in awe of God with our puppet class that we held at night this past week. At the beginning of the week, we had no clue what we were doing or what to do. We had puppets, a room, and kids who didn't speak english. We began by teching the basics about puppets, however, this only took us about 30 minutes to cover. We had to teach every night. We didn't know what to do at first. Finally, we came up with an idea to write a short puppet show for the kids to learn. We had to get it recorded and translated and have the scripts written out ASAP since we wanted to preform it on saturday night. The translation and everything took longer than we had hoped for and we didn't have the show recorded until thursday night. This left us with 2 days to get ready. At first, I really didn't believe it could be done. During practice on thursday, a few people from our team who weren't doing anything prayed for our puppet group. I cannot even express to you how well thursday's training went. Last night, we had our concert and the puppet show went so well! I am in awe of the power of prayer and how well things worked out. I am so proud of the puppet team and pray that they will continue that puppet ministry after we leave. Today was more or less a day of rest and fun for us. We needed it though. We started out our day by leading the church service at Randy's church. It is such a blessing to be able to worship one God, together in two languages. After church, we ate lunch at the place where we ate pizza on tuesday night, but for some reason they don't serve pizza at lunch. So as usual, we ate buffet style for lunch and as usual, it was muito bom (very good). After lunch, we headed over to the "feita" to do some shopping. :) It is similiar to a flea market and many of us bought some nice sourveniers. It is one of the only times that we have to buy souveniers. Like last year, there were also these clowns on stilts and men dressed in "robot", "tin man"-like costumes there that would stand completely still until you put money in their buckets. Then they would move and wave at you. I can't imagine having that job. I would get so stiff and probably fall over. They barely ever blinked either. It is quite a talent. Right now we have about 2 hours to just relax at the hotel. This is the first time all week! At 7 pm we are leaving for dinner at the food court at Bourbon's (a large supermarket and mall type thing). We are all so thankful for this much needed day of rest. Please continue to pray for strength as we enter our second week here, continued unity as a team, our health, and of course for our ministry. Pray that we will be effective and that we will keep our focus on our ultimate goal. See you all soon! In Chirst, Stacey Brinkofski
Hi! Brasil is amazing!This past week has been absolutely unbelievable! The way God is able to use us is just incredible. Performing shows, eating delicious brasilian food, teaching lessons, and playing soccer have been so exciting and fun. I love Brasil! It is so sad to know that we only have a couple days left! I wish we could stay longer, but I do miss everybody back home! Yesterday was soccer\basketball day. The girls played soccer in a tournament. It was great discovering that only two of us actually had really played soccer before! But it was still really fun! Even though we never won a game, we still had a great time! We did score two goals though, both by Alyssa. (I had both assists) Lara played goalie. Yes, we had the ballerina play goalie. She was amazing. Everybody, even the brasilians, cheered when she made this gravity-defying save. We played the champions and only lost by one. But as we've concluded, cement ground, mini goals, and small fields, don't work for us. Today was a relaxing day. We led worship at the church in the morning, and then went shopping in a flea market. There were these people pretending to be statues, and when you put money in a bucket they would move around. They were really good at staying still. It was fun leading worship because some of it was in Porteguese, some in English, and some in Swahili. It is the most beautiful sound hearing everyone singing in a different language, and yet all singing to our God. At the moment we are in the middle of a hour and a half break before dinner and shopping at Bourbons. July 09, 2006 |
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