taking our nephew and niece to the zoo!

While Matt and I don't have any kids, sometimes we practice with our nephew and niece, their names are Cassiano and Mariah! They're three years old, and they demand a lot of work!

They like to dress up in costumes, Cassiano is wearing a Batman outfit, he believes he can fly! He ran the through the entire Zoo and he tried to jump the fences ... he gave us a lot of work!

I think I had never seen a Giraffe before! The kids were very impressed by the size of its neck!

Cassiano loves to watch " The Ice Age" he recognized the elephant he said it looked like the mammoth from the movie, I just wondered where he got this vocabulary! :) Look at Matt! Doesn't he look good? He was born to be an Uncle! :)

Mariah went to the Zoo dressed like Snow White! She is very calm and obedient, I think I could take care of two or three girls like her!

These are my two sisters, Carlota with Mariah, and Patrícia. Yes, we took their moms to enjoy the day with us! :)

Cassiano ran so much that he was sweting a lot, it was difficult top catch him!

They were an extra attraction at the zoo with their outfits!

We finished our day at the port of Porto Alegre, we were allowed to visit a real ship. It was quite an experience for them!

That was the end of our adventure! Matt and I just love to spend time with them, especially talking to them. We have great conversations! :)

That's all folks!

Love,

Waleska

English Party!

Yesterday we had one more English party. It is a way to help the missionaries to meet new people by inviting my students to participate! I really like these parties, we eat good food, we play games and chat only in English. It is really fun! Kevin and Benay were very generous to offer their house! :) May God Always provide the things they need, they really know how to share!

These are Luisa, and her sister Ligia, with her friend Maria in the middle. I have gone to Ligia and Luisa's house twice a week for about a year. We talk about almost everything in class, they are only teenager, but we are really good friends. Sometimes their friend Maria visit our classes!:)

There you can see Martje in front of the fireplace, she is my student from Germany. Next to her you see Briena, my student from the US. Yeah, that's right, sometimes she visits Martje's classes and do some English exercises with us!

On the left there is Ricardo, he brought his daughter Bruna and her friends from the military school! Ricardo is a big fan of our English parties, he has even offered his house for the next one!

This is Nicole, on the left, Martje's mother, my German friend!We try to meet for a coffee, but we are both very busy. At least we could chat a little at the english party! She is talking to Cesar's mom in the middle and her friend on the right.

This is Bruna, Ricardo's daughter playing wii with Cesar! We all had lots of fun! I hope we can develope good relationships for the church!

Mariah and Cassiano`s birthday!

These are my two sisters, Patricia and Carlota.. They both had their babies at the same time with two weeks apart. Matt and I helped to have a party for Mariah and Cassiano together.

This is our nephew Cassiano enjoying his first bike!

This is Matt helping our niece Mariah to get ready for her party!

And there you can see them celebrating their 3rd birthday!

I love birthday parties, I feel like a child in the middle of so many candies! hehehe! :)

Matt and I are practicing to be parents with our little niece and nephew, so let's see what the future brings for us...

more about my students!

Hi, this is Martje! She has been studying English with me for about two months. She is very special because she comes from a missionary family (Evangelical Free Church). Martje and her family came from Germany when she was about 8 years old. She is now more Brazilian than German. She is 13 years old, very cute, and also pretty tall for her age. We are going to start to get-together with other English students to practice English and play games, she can be a great Christian influence to my other students! Well, that`s a little example about what I do during the day. I spend my days going from home to home teaching English and searching for opportunities to influence people with Christianity! Please pray for my activities! :)

News from Porto Alegre!

This week our house church went to the park, we worshipped there.

We shared popcorn! We with our brothers and sisters!

It was a different experience to take the Bible to the park! After all, God does not want to be locked in a building, he is part of our life and we want to testify his word!

Remember Flavia? Our former secretary has just graduated and she is selling real estate now! We want to bring her back to the church, but it is difficult, because her job requires her to work on the weekends! :(

We also like to meet our church members for a meal. Here we are at Joao and Clarisse's house. They have a new house church at their home, we try to meet as often as we can to support each other spiritually. In the picture, you can also see Luzia and Daniel with their son Mateus! It was a happy celebration because they were divorced, and now they are back together! Luzia has prayed for this for almost five years and she has never given up! :)

April Update - Easter Retreat

On April 10, 11,12 we had an Easter Retreat with all the house-churches, we had a great time, we had classes for women ministered by Nadia Diogo from the church of Viamao. Here are some pictures of this class! I can also introduce you my sisters in Christ!

And in the next picture, there is Raquel, Ines' daughter! We are great friends!

In the picture below, you can see Ines, she knows a lot about the word, and I always learn something from her!

On the left you can see Priscila, Rui Diogo's sister. She is the most ingenuous and innocent person I have ever met. I love her sweetness! :)

And this is my good friend Lorena. She is always calm. we have good conversations about family, children, etc!

And here you can see the entire group of women who attended the class. We talked about how to be light to others! I can already see a lot of light in their eyes! May God give us wisdom do pass it on!

April Update!

Hi, after a long time without writing anything due to our long two-month fourlough through the USA I took a while to get back to my normal life, and get back to my work that I love. The Salgado family is one of the first families we visited after furlough. Alex and Jennifer were doing house church there before they left to the US. So we visited them because we miss them and also to check on how they are doing. They decided to go to a church building near their house because they can have more activities for their teenager girls. We understand that house churches are not applicable for every family, and there is also the fact that they moved away from Porto Alegre and it is difficult for the other members of our house-church to visit them more often. We will continue to support them with our visits and prayes. They will always be our dear brothers and sisters in Christ!

This is our house church. This one was on April 4th, three days after my birthday. I had a great surprise, Marzo and Lu (our best man and woman in our wedding) came to see us. I served cake and tea, and we praised the Lord and had the Lord`s supper together.

We also visited Luzia along with our friends Joao and Clarice, and they got me a surprise for my birthday. After dinner we had a delicious cake and happy birthday. I'm not used to being surprised like that. I'm always the one who prepares the surprises! So that was good!
By the way, Joao and Clarice started a house church in the military base where they live. They are starting with a another couple. Isn't it wonderful?

Luzia is congregating with a new Church of Christ building with another team of missionaries. She also prefers a building because she wants her son, Mateus, to have Sunday School with other kids. We keep in contact and pray for each other! In fact she is getting back together with her ex-husband Daniel. That's an answer to our prayers!

This is my oldest friend Blanka. She used to be my Portuguese student. Last year we celebrated our birthday together drinking champagne and eating cake. My birthday is on April 1st and hers on April 4th. Her family says she is becoming senile, she is not speaking anything but "yah". But when she saw me again, she started speaking. She said my name, and when I gave her flowers for her birthday she said: "very nice" . That was a very touching moment for me, she did not say anything else, but she held my hand strong and wouldn't let me go. I talked with her a lot, I know she could understand me, I could see it in her eyes. She is now 96 years old. It's strange to say that I don't see her as my granmother but as my friend, when we celebrated our birthday together last year I didn't feel any age difference between us!

Well, this is a little about my short life of 32 years old!