Refreshment!

I would like to thank the Continent of Great Cities for the wonderful conference for the missionary women which was held on the first week of november in Maresias, São Paulo. It was good to have a time to reflect about my role in the church, although I am not a "professional" missionary, I found out that I am one by heart. Georgia Freitas did a very good job by organizing this conference for us! Becky Holton was my counsoler, we had really meaninful conversations in our small group. It is wonderful to feel accepted and expected to go! I also thank Juaneyla and Nádia from Viamão for insisting me to go!
I didn't take my camera so when I receive more picture I will put some in my blog to share with you. Unfurtunately on the second day I was bitten by a moskito on the sole of my foot, I had to go to an emergency room and get some medication and couldn't walk for the rest of the week. :(
But anyway, it was fun! At least I walked by the entire sea shore on the first day!
I am glad I had a talk with Dorris Schulz , now I am back with lots of plans for our house church !
Gotta go now! Please keep praying for our challenges down here!
Love,

Waleska

This is my niece Mariah, she only 2 years and half. We love to make cookies together!

She's a great assistant! She loves to help me in the kitchen!

Look, she even break the eggs and add them to the dough! Isn't it cute?

We love to spend time together! I am already practicing to be a mother in the future! :)

Women's retreat

In the end of October we had our yearly women's retreat. It was a blessing to spend time with our sisters in Christ. The topic of the retreat was "women praying".

This is Lorena and I studying the bible together, she's been in the church for more than 20 years, I suppose. I always learn a lot from her.

The retreat was on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Many women could only attend it on Saturday, so on this day we had around fifty women. It was a time for sharing, learning, and renewal! It was also special because it was the first retreat prepared by the Brazilians with a little help from the missionaries! It was a victory. And now they feel more confident, as they can't always depend on missionary work!

This is Nádia, my sister and friend in Christ, she was invited to give a class! She is always there for us, even though we belong to different congragations!

This is my sister and friend Clarice, her class was very good! As she is a doctor at the emergency room in the hospital she could testify how her prayers are answered in such an enviroment of death.

Everybody came home from this retreat spiritually renewed and ready to pass this message on!

News!
Next Year the congration of Viamão and I are preparing a special women's retreat. It will be on May 1st, 2nd and 3rd next year. The difference is that it will be national. We are inviting the women of all the congrations in Brazil. It is supposed to be a big event to reunite the sister in Christ. I would like to invite you to be part of that by donating small gifts to be given as a treat for each day. It can be note pads, pens, lipsticks, etc. Matt and I will be in our Furlough during the months of January and February. If you are interested in contributing somehow, please contact us at 4th avenue church! We really appreciate it!

Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.(1 Peter 4:10)

Couples's meetings!

God has blessed us with many good meetings! We have all been learning a lot from each other. We usually meet at a different home every month to talk about marriage life through the bible. We chat, we eat, we have fun, we strengthen our bonds. The meetings are not only for our house church, all the couples are invited to come, some couples come from far away, like our friends from Viamão! It's been a great blessing working with couples! Please pray for our ministry!

Tholl Circus

Sometimes I take a weekend off and visit my sister and my niece in the country, this last weekend we went to the circus. Isn't my niece really cute? This group started about 15 years ago with very poor kids, some of them didn't even have money to take the bus to go trainning, some were even living on the street. So the director of the show invested on their talent against all odds and difficulties. Now they're pretty famous all over Brasil, their show is kind of expensive, however. They are fully booked until the end of December, they even have a contract with a channel TV. This is an example that everything is possible if we have iniciative, and work hard for our goals.

Here is a link to some of their video presentation on You tube, I hope you enjoy it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfZPpGHCYl0&feature=related

Teaching the Bible!

This is our bible study group. These girls are friends of my sister Patrícia. I met them at my nephew birthday party (which is in this blog below). Then I had the idea of inviting them to study the bible with Matt and I. As I have always wanted my sister to go to the church and she had always refused to, I decided to get to her through her friends, and amazingly they accepted the invitation and Patrícia feels comfortable among them! BINGO! :)
Now, we meet every Saturday, we have a cake or cookies and have a nice time! I wanted to reach my sister, and God gave us 4 more girls. We gave bibles for everyone, they didn't even have a bible, we are teaching from the beginning. Please pray for this ministry. If we can reach at least one of them, it is already a great victory, although it has a great possibility to become a new house church!

Pastor Dreher

Now you can know a little bit more about my roots. I grew up in the Lutheran church. And I was influenced by the minister Carlos Dreher, who on July 20th celebrated 40 years of ministry at the church. He is a very open minded minister willing to know about other religions. He believes that we can all live in harmony in spite of our differences, he has many different friends in the Catholic, Methodist, and Protestant churches. He believes that we are all brothers besides the denomination of the church. That's why when I met Matt I didn't have any kind of prejudice about the Church of Christ and gladly accepted to be part of this family. We thank him for opening the doors of the Lutheran church to celebrate our wedding and give a space for a Church of Christ minister to speak. I thank God that we have people like him in the world leading a community of Christians without any prejudice and willing to accept other people as brothers.
I remember him asking me why I was leaving the Lutheran church for the Church of Christ, then I answered him: I fell in love! So he understood! :)