Today I (Dave) went on some family visits. This is often something I do on a Tuesday afternoon with the other leaders of my group if I have nothing to prepare for the next session, like a bible study or similar.
Do you think your house is too small? One of the houses we visited had just one room. In it there was a cooker, fridge, sink, some shelving units and a single bed....as well as a big TV. It measured about 12 feet x 12 feet (not the TV)..really small...and 4 people lived there. There was no bathroom. The boy in my group whose 'family' it was seemed content and is one of those children who is nearly always smiling. Even now I do not really know what to write about this house because thinking about it makes me lost for words...

Today has been a long day for me (Dave). I was up at 6.30am to clean the swimming pool and this can take up to 2 hours. Then, after a quick breakfast, Beckie, Josiah, Gideon and I went out to church. Most of the churches here only have evening services so finding a morning service has been really difficult for us but we did manage to find one! The church is called Igreja Batista Da Lagoinha and has one of the largest congregations in Brazil. At last count, it has a membership in excess of 37,000 people. Anyway, it has 5 services every Sunday and is famous in Brazil. And yeah...it was BIG...like a stadium (see picture). We were a little unsure of exactly how to get there, thankfully the bus driver was helpful and stopped the bus at the right stop for us. We expected to see it when we got off, but couldn't so we asked a man with a Bible where it was, sadly he was deaf and didn't understand, but it turned out it was the church he was going to, so we followed. Beckie really liked the service, it really reminded her of the Portuguese service in Dereham, lots of enthusiasm.
After the service we had a rather long wait at a bus stop, then a very bumpy ride across the city, a winding walk up the hill and were back in time for a late left-over lunch at 1:45.
Afternoon work began at 2pm - cleaning the kitchen and dining area and preparing for our 'Parents service'.
At 3pm the service started with prayer and worship and then I preached on "How to be a Good Parent"...what a huge subject...for about 50 mins. It seemed to go well as I have now been invited to speak at a church in the city about missions. Thankyou all for your prayers about that. In case you were wondering, I preached in English. Everyone was really pleased with the turn-out of parents, because it was more than double the previous numbers. Oh, and no rain!!!

Firstly, the weather (how British are we?)....last weekend we had temperatures of about 39 degrees, this weekend it is 19 degrees and 10 at night!!!!! (BRRRRR!!!), not to mention the giant hail last week. We thought only England had crazy weather.
Onto slightly more important stuff, tomorrow (Sunday 21st) is our parents service, all of the parents of children from the groups have been invited and Dave is going to do the talk, we are praying it won't rain as no-body comes out in the rain. We'll let you know how it goes......

Posted by Josiah:

Yesterday in the afternoon it... well... started hailing. It is probably the closest thing to snow that we will ever see in Brazil.

Me and my brother were sitting, doing our school work when we heard strange noises on our tiles, our reaction was that someone was throwing stones at our roof. Gideon went out to investagate and was hit on the head by a large hailstone. I then picked one from the foor and measured it, it was 1.5cm long!!!

I (Beckie), was very encouraged by my group today. I was giving Bible study, and was really struggling to find the right words in Portuguese. My co-leader was helping me and the boys were listening intently. Towards the end I felt like I muddled things up and wasn't being very clear, so I asked Felipe to explain the bits that weren't clear. One of the boys was obviously aware of what I was saying and he said to me, "but you told everything right." I took this as a big compliment by him.
So, I will plod on learning Portuguese, hopefully learning to use the verb tenses more automatically, and soon I hope to be able to express things better. However, I'm glad to have these opportunities to try with what I know already and have these encouraging words from my group.

Time sure flies!!!!! One of the good things is it won't be long until Grandma and Grandad come and visit. We keep getting excited about different things we want to show them, particularly some great eating places and some of the greasy burger bars.
The DTS teams have left on outreach trips now. One team is travelling to 2 places close by and working with Churches, the other is travelling right up to the Northeast (which is often named 'Brazilian Africa'). The Northeast will be a big challenge, there is a lot of poverty, drought, despair and need. The team have collected a lot of donations (clothes, toys and money to buy foods) and because of transporting the donations they will be travelling 50 hrs by bus, because they cannot take them on a plane. I really admire their desire to bless these people and the sacrifice they are making. Our boys were also blessed, as the team had to sort through all of the donations and check everything was suitable to take (being unable to waste precious space on unsuitable clothing/toys). So, when they decided that the lego bag had pieces that were too small and would probably get lost, and thought it was better to give it to Josiah and Gideon, our boys were thrilled. They were very happy at how God had replaced their stolen lego. It really helps them to see how He is at work in lots of little ways. Josiah and Gideon also wanted to use their tithe (they had been saving it for a while, uncertain as to where it should go) from their pocket money to help fund the transport to the Northeast. They were certain they had done the right thing when they discovered that what they had given was EXACTLY what they were lacking. It all helps to make us sure He will provide everything we need, we don't have to continually make back up plans in case God doesn't deliver.

This week has been busy, we have begun with our new Portuguese tutor, learning about the many different conjugations of verbs is amazingly difficult. We have also been given lots of homework to help us get used to using the totally irregular verbs. At times it begins to make sense, other times we just can't put words together, but I'm sure that it's all going in.
We are beginning to build good relationships with others in our 'discipleship group' (small groups of workers in YWAM who get together each week, to discuss how they are doing, encourage one another, discuss topics and pray together). Our groups has new foreign workers and this week we were able to really encourage one of us who had had a difficult time this week.