April 26th Couple`s meeting!

This time, I didn`t take any pictures because I forgot to recharge my batteries. I feel bad because I like to give an illustrated report about our work here in Brasil!

Anyway, I chose the picture above to represent the couples! We had a great time in our apartment last saturday. We talked abou finances using the bible as our guide. It was very rewarding , everybody participated and shared experiences. It is also a great opportunities some for Christian women with non-Christian husbands. They go to these meeting just to please their wives and they ended up enjoying, participating, and interacting with other members. These men don`t like to go to the worships, at the same time they don`t refuse a couple`s meeting!

Now, I see that preparing these meetings is more important than I thought!

Please, keep praying for our working here! We are doing our best to serve our brothers in Christ!

Another birthday girl!

April is a month when many special people have birthdays. This is Grace and she is turning 21. I actually saw her growing up, more than that, I feel part of what she became. I met her when she was 14 years old. I was her English teacher at a language center. Yes, I used to work with teenagers, they kind of liked me; some of them, including Grace, even went to my wedding! I feel special about Grace because we identify with each other, she had her difficult times during adolescence, and one day she came and said to me that during her classes with me she could escape from her troubles, the English classes were a motive for her to overcome her difficulties. So I realized that I wasn't just teaching, I was making a difference in her life. We had a play in English "Romeo and Juliet" and she was my Juliet, as sweet as she can be, as a student she was my proud and joy, as her English is also perfect!,
To my surprise she is following my steps, she was approved at the federal university, and she is studying languages, the same course and university I went to. In 2005 we had a program at the church called LST (Let`s start talking) for teenagers. I invited all the teenagers of the language center, including Grace, she was charmed by bible studies in English, and by the people she met. She made good friends, she visited some missionaries in the US. And she was finally baptized last year!

This is her mom, Ivoli! She is also coming to one of our house churches, she and her husband haven't decided yet about being baptized, but Grace already did the first step! As a teacher and evangelist I feel that my mission is accomplished with Grace!

Ah! She also wants to be a teacher and work with English, just like me! Maybe we can work together sometime!

The message that I get from this story is that every act is important, I try to be the most patient teacher I can be, and work with love, maybe I can influence my students with my example!

I thank God for Grace`s life! She makes me want to do more and continue my mission next to Matt!

Kids` ministry

These are our only two kids in our kids class, Joao and Mateus! The teacher is Branda Signoretti, she is always willing to help us, although she works full time in a bank, doing a post-graduation course, and she is also the mother of two teenage guys, Guilherme and Wagner, she finds time to think of the others! She is serving the lord according to her gift. She will be teaching the bible for Joao, we have a nice book that he can follow. It is like having a private class, as she is using my office!
The teenagers in our group take turns to entertain Mateus while we have the message. They use my dinning room for drawing and playing with bible related toys! Please pray for this ministry.

We are all trying to get envolved and serve one another! Branda said that she is doing this because Matt and Joao Spencer are giving a special attention to her two sons., they were raised in the church and still haven`t decided on their baptism yet (One more thing to pray about)!

My birthday!

I would like to share with you a special day that I had, it is my birthday. It was 10 days ago, April 1st, yes, that's right, April fool's day, at least it is a difficult date to forget! :)
I had not planned anything special, and wasn't expecting anything either. Just a normal working day. Also because my husband went on a silent retreat with other ministers, I could not be that selfish and not let him go, after all love is letting the other person be happy, love is selflessness!
Anyway, I worked in the morning and during my break I went to Skype to talk to my parents-in-law. I think they were looking forward to talking to me! We opened the presents together! They had sent me a box of presents through mail. It was actually nice to be able to share my happiness with them through the technology of internet where we are able to see and talk at real time. That was my first surprise of the day!


These are the flowers that Matt sent to me in the afternoon! He also called me in secret breaking the regulations of the silent retreat. Isn't that special?

This is my other special surprise! In the afternoon I went to teach Portuguese to my oldest student and friend, Blanka Muller, her birthday was on April 4th. Her maid and she had prepared a table with specialties and a cake to celebrate our birthday!
It was really special that she did this for me. I was celebrating my 31 years and she was turning 95. I wish we weren`t so far apart in terms of age. We have lots of things in common!
Then, as classical, we finished our afternoon with a nice glass of fine champagne! God Bless our lives! :)

Then I went to a mini amusement park in the shopping center and played with my nephew Cassiano. We had a very good time!
I really play like a kid. I love to play video games but I don't usually have time for that kind of fun!
This is my younger sister Patricia, she is the mother of Cassiano!

Later, another suprise! My sister Carlota came from the countryside to have dinner with us. She brought her daughter Mariah to complete my happiness!
We had pizza to celebrate, we talked, we laughed, we had fun! It had been a while since the last time we got together!

Aren't they cuuuuuuute! They were my best presents, my goddaughter and godson!

But it was not over! Next day Matt was back and he took me to my favorite restaurant: Dado Garden. There we planned our next adventure together: our trip to Iguaçu Falls to celebrate our two-year-anniversary! To be continued...

So that was my day, it might be a fool's day for some, but I had lots of love!

God bless you all. Keep praying for our mission in Brazil!

Encouragement at the women`s meeting in Viamao!

Hi, It is me again visiting other congregations of the Church of Christ! This time I went to a women`s meeting in Viamao. There were about 30 women, which is a real blessing!
It was very encouraging, every presence is valuable for this group, I felt welcomed and accepted there! I was able to observe the way Juaneylla and Nadia (the missionaries there) prepare everything, so I can bring this to my group. Everything Juaneylla and Nadia do is with love, that`s why they are so succesful. That's the example I'm following!
We had the pleasure to have Janete Parker (from Texas) as our speaker and Juaneylla was glad to translate the class, she did great! :)
This is Nadia, leading the songs! She is a very special friend for me! I thank God for having them in my life!

One of the comments that Janete said was that she was impressed with the diversity of the group, I mean there were women from different social class and races. And we are all together for one purpose, Jesus!

I learned a lot today, at the same time I felt encouraged by this meeting, I realized that my presence there was also encouraging for those ladies! :)

Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. 1 Corinthians 12:27

Couple's meeting March 8th

Here we are again, discussing with couples about how to communicate. This was our first couples meeting of 2008. I think we were the ones who learned the most! The topic of the meeting was comunication! So we started with an practical example: have you ever played wireless phone as a child? That's what we did as adults, and we were terrible, everytime we pass on a message we change words and consequently the meaning!
We shared experiences and ideas based on the Bible! e.g.: 1 Peter 3:7, Ephesians 4:26-27 and 29-30, Proverbs 18.2, and Ephisians 4:15 and 25 .
We had a great time chatting about these topics, then we had a meal and spent some time together! It is a great pleasure to open my apartment for God's purpose, everybody seemed to be comfortable and felt home. I love the home environment!
Above you can see Regis and Conceição Signoretti (left couch), they're moving to their new house soon, and they offered to open it and inaugurate in the next couple's meeting. It is a way to thank God for this new acomplishment of their lives! Next couple's meeting will be on April 26th!

Please pray for this ministry, Matt and I felt discouraged during the week of the meeting, I almost gave up this ministry, but thanks to my husband and the joy of people from the team of Viamão bringing me words of wisdom I kept on. I thank God sending "Angels" to keep me standing!
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. Ephisians 4.29

More plans for 2008!!!

Yes, that`s right! I'm starting a newspaper for the church, I don't know when it is going to be ready, but I have good intentions to unite our ideas. I want to include a message (from my husband, of course!!!), what's going on in the house churches, social projects, classifieds, personnals, comics, sudoku, interview of members of the church, praye, and things like that! I don't have much experience, so Juaneila and Mark White from the team of Viamao are helping me, they're good friends, and they are always there for me! :) If you have any suggestions I would be glad to know, any help is welcome! I just don't know how I find time to do these things...:) It might be God providing everything I need to serve and glorify him!

This is Luzia! She comes to our house church! She has just adopted Mateus. This is a picture of her getting a blessing for her son. He is her first son, he is two years old, just a cute little boy, but very active! :) As we don't have any children in our house church, except for Joca, Clarice's and Joao's son (they're our best friends that Matt talks about on his blog). Their son goes to the Blumes house church because he would be the only child here. So in order to keep these families coming to my house, I decided to have a children`s worship in another room in my house, so while Matt leads the adult group, I could be with the children telling stories while playing with them. What I remember most about my childhood in the Lutheran church was my time at the children's worship where my mom was the teacher; it was a really meaningful experience for me, and I want to pass this on to the children in our church. I see how God has given this fruit in my life; because of this Christian base in my life I accepeted to take the challenge to marry a Christian minister. Therefore, I would like you to pray for me, it is difficult for me to find time and the necessary help for that, I hope God can send me the right person. I will need to search for appropriate material to start. Right now, I have Mateus, 2 years old and Joca 8 years old . That will be a big challenge as children are much smarter nowadays thanks to the technology.