We have moved in!!!! Yesterday evening we managed to move all of our stuff across the gravel area to a new house here on the base. Josiah and Gideon have their own rooms now and the place is, for us, HUGE (3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, dining area, lounge area, kitchen) We don´t really know what to do with all the space!
So...how about this for a contrast: when I took some rubbish out to the street there were 2 young boys waiting there (they were about 6 and 9 yrs old, I guess). After I had put the bags down they started going through it. So here we are, getting a bigger place, while kids long for something interesting just from what we throw out. Please do not take what you have for granted but remember that EVERYTHING you own is only yours because God has enabled you to have it....therefore you have a responsibility to use it for His glory.

I (Dave) had an interesting time on Wednesday in the community. Maarten and I had arranged to visit a local missionary and, as we did not know where he lived, it was thought best that we met on the main road and then walked to his house. However, when he greeted us he asked if we could go with him to the house of someone to pray for them. So we did. The person in question had been recently shot in the back and was unable to walk but could stand. We prayed for him, Maarten gave an encouraging word and then we left. It was a little strange but it did show us the reality of the darker side of this community and it was great to be able to bring the light of Jesus into that darkness at that moment. Getting caught in the drug wars is seen as part of ´life´in the area of the favela which we work in. May God change that!

Today, in our group we introduced the story of palm Sunday, then the children got the chance to act it out. I was privileged to be the donkey. The children were so enthusiastic at laying down their jackets and shawls (one girl was concerned that she had to lay down all of her clothes). Then they waved branches excitedly.
These children are sponges, thirsty to soak up all that we teach.

CELEBRATING MY BIRTHDAY
Many thanks to all who have sent me birthday cards it was really nice to keep receiving them. My day began with breakfast in bed (with Pineapple man) and then we had a lovely day in Ouro Preto.

I also had a delayed celebration with my group, (with another boy who was celebrating his birthday), they dressed us up, me as a princess, and we sang and ate cake. It was really good fun. The children love to celebrate their bithdays and some of them don´t normally celebrate at home.

This week I (Dave) have been spending more time in the community and God has really opened my eyes to see things which I had previously not noticed. For example, there is a run-down park near the top of the favela and we have often walked through there to get to another place, sometimes stopping to pray and we have often seen people smoking drugs there. What we had not previously noticed is that a lot of the children actually buy there drugs there, in the bushes just the other side of a wire fence. So what we decided to do was stand a couple of meters away from the dealers and pray....they did not seem to like that very much as they started making a few negative comments amongst themselves about foreighners being at the park. But last time we went there they were not there!
What we would like is the drug dealing to stop altogether because it literally kills people....many people over the years. However, we would ask for prayer for good relationships with these guys because they are very influential in this community so if they have changed hearts, changed by the love of God, the power of the cross and made new with the blood of Jesus then the people around would really notice. May the Kingdom of God come into this community.
This Saturday the community development team ore organising a pastors breakfast with the intention of enabling the pastors to network together and start praying together for this commnuity. Exciting stuff.

Today, I (Beckie) had to do my group alone, as my co-leader is ill. It was actually a really good experience, and it helped me to realize that my Portuguese continues to improve. It´s good that the children are quite well settled into the routine, but it really hi-lighted the need for working with anger management (in the children). We had a few incidents occur, and I had to be very firm, but on the whole it was a really good experience. Tomorrow a volunteer is going to share about living in Canada, and do an interactive role play type thing. It will be a test to see if my translation ability is up to it. A lot of people in the favela are very unaware of the rest of the world, so it should be good for their knowledge and understanding of the world.

Well, we are still here, sometimes it seems like it is so difficult to keep going, but amoungst all of that there are many blessings. Josiah and Gideon continue to have good (ish) and bad days at school, we continue to have difficulty with their homework, Dave continues to be a bit tired from all of the rushing around with schools, and I am just recovering from another illness, maybe a virus or maybe dengue (very common in this favela spread by mosquitos). However, we will persevere. We have the opportunity to move soon to another larger house (on the same site), which will be really nice. At the moment it needs a lot of work, so I need to be patient with this.