Permanent Brazilian Residents

I have more to post about the work here in Porto Alegre in the coming days, but for now I thought that I would share a little bit of good news...

After living in Brazil for nearly 4 years we finally received our ID cards stating our Brazilian Residency. It is pretty cool to have accomplished this. Every 6 months (or sometimes more often) for the last 4 years we have gone to the Federal Police to renew our temporary residency while awaiting our permanent residency. It is almost like we have been on probation for the last few years.

Last week our "permanent" temporary cards were to expire so we went in to see if our permanent cards had come in. We have been in the waiting process for these particular cards for 2 years. Well, they came!!!

What this means is:

• We are free to come and go without a visa in our Passports.
• We can get jobs here if we needed to (Brazilian earned income).
• We don't have to go back to the Federal Police for anything until August of 2017 (that's 9 years)!
  
• Even if we move back to the states at some point, we still have residency in Brazil (as long as we renew these new cards every 9 years).

I am sure that there are more positives, but I am too tired to care right now and they are probably things that I wouldn't take advantage of anyway. I just thought that I would share this little bit of positive news with the few people who read this blog.

Carnaval

If you watched our video presentation in the post below you saw where we were planning on doing a series of activities during the Carnaval weekend. The last two years we have taken our church family to a camp ground of sorts outside of the city to escape the atmosphere of Carnaval. This year we decided to focus on being a family within our community. We had activities starting on Saturday, February 2nd, through Tuesday, February 5th (the day of Carnaval).

Day 1:

On Saturday some of our church family went to a beach that is south of the city. The beach is on the lake that Porto Alegre rests on, but was an hour and a half away. We really didn't know if we were going to be able to go because it had rained quite a bit leading up to Saturday. We had everyone on "stand-by" waiting to see what the weather was going to be like Saturday morning. We made the call to go ahead and make the journey to the beach. Jennifer and I had to leave a little late because a certain someone (Elisa) needed a nap. When we finally got to our destination it was pouring rain. The other 25+ church members that went out there were just standing in the rain. It was a sad sight! There was no where to take cover from the rain, so you either stayed in the car or stood in the rain. Fortunately, after about 45 minutes the rain stopped and we were able to get some burgers on the grill. We ended up having a fun time with our church family.

Rain or shine it is hard to keep young people out of the water!

Benay and Jennifer sought shelter from the rain in the Blume's van while they made the hamburger patties.

Spencer and I worked on grilling burgers for the group. We had 30 mouths to feed!

Here is some of our group enjoying the few minutes of sunshine that we had at the beach.

Day 2:

On Sunday we had a celebration service at the athletic club where all the house churches come together on the last Sunday of each month. We had a wonderful worship time together. Matt brought a lesson, encouraging us to take care of each other as Christians. After our time of worship we had chicken prepared on the grill. There was a great time of fellowship and some games played. It was a wonderful experience in which many took part. The best part (in my opinion) is that we had almost 10 visitors! It really was a great day!

Worshiping together as a family should!

Daniel did a fantastic job with the chicken! It was tasty!

Days 3 and 4:

On Monday and Tuesday we went out to the small town of Cachoeirinha (cash-o-e-rEE-nya) to do a service project. This was the first time that our church family was going out into the community to work on something that didn't directly effect us. What I mean is, our service projects in the past have all been about fixing up our building or doing something for our church family. This time we were going to a poor neighborhood to help out a government run daycare center. We have a contact at the daycare that let us know that there was a lot of work that needed to be done, but that there weren't any funds to make it happen. So, Jennifer, one of our members and I went out to see what needed to be done and what kind of materials we needed to buy. We decided that we needed to work on all the interior walls of the daycare. We deal with a lot of problems that come as a result of humidity in Porto Alegre. One of those problems is when the walls get damp on the inside and start to deteriorate. This was a big issue at the daycare. We got as many people together from our church family as we could these two days to peel paint off the walls, lay dry wall and cement and then paint. It was a lot of work, but we managed to get it done. I am really proud of everyone who went out to help. I believe that we were a light in a difficult place to live. We have some church members who live down the street from the daycare. We pray that this service to the community will open doors for our members, Claudio and Rute, to share Jesus with the lost in Cachoeirinha.

The group: trying to get organized!

This is the majority of the group that helped on Monday and Tuesday out at the daycare center. I was very encouraged by all the selfless work that was put into making that a better place for the community. Great work, guys! I'm proud of you!

The Chácara Study - Continued

Yesterday we had our first official study at the Chácara. It was an incredible experience. The men there know all about fighting temptation and evil desires. They are already starting to understand that sex is something to be honored. It is a gift from the Lord that is only meant for a husband and his wife. Like drugs and alcohol it has the ability to drown you in addiction. The guys had tons of questions and they were very open and shared a lot about some of their experiences and what the streets of the city are like here in Porto Alegre.

There are a lot of sad facts about sexual sin. I had heard horrible stories about 11 and 12 year old prostitutes here in Porto Alegre when we first moved here. I also remember an article that was published in the newspaper that talked about fathers taking their young sons (12 or 13 years old) to prostitutes so that when they had a girlfriend they would know what they were doing when it came to sex. That made me sick. The guys at the Chácara were telling me during the study yesterday that there are girls who will do anything for R$5 (less than $3) to feed their drug addictions. That really made me tear up. How is it that people are so willing to give their bodies up like that? There are a lot of things that I don't understand about the world. I don't understand the chains that can hold a person down like that. Only the love of Christ can penetrate something so dreadful, but how do we share Jesus with someone who is so sick with addiction that they don't know right from wrong anymore - or ever care about right and wrong.

I am seeing with fresh eyes that the Lord calls us to pray for and be advocates of Jesus to all people - addicts and prostitutes need Jesus too.

Well, back to the study. We had a great time of discussion about the first 3 chapters of the book we are reading, "Every Man's Battle". Then we broke up into our accountability groups for more discussion and prayer through a few verses of scripture. The guys read and prayed through Romans 13:13 (freedom from sin in Christ), Philippians 2:1-3 (fellowship with brothers in Christ), Psalms 143:7-9 (the Lord is our shelter and strength) and I Peter 3:7 (showing love and respect for women will bless our prayer life). We then met back together to close out our time in a group prayer.

I could tell as I looked in on the accountability groups that it was a blessed time for the men. Here are a few pictures of some of the groups for you to get an idea of what they look like.