One Nice Long Weekend

As it happens our weekends are sometimes much busier than our weeks. We find that it is much easier to fellowship with folks and strengthen relationships when we aren't all "working". What better time to do that than a weekend? This weekend was pretty long, yet very good. Most people include Friday in the weekend so that is where I will start with this post.

Friday I went to lunch with Tiago. Tiago (James in English) and I have become pretty good buds. We really enjoy each other's company (see this post), so it wasn't something out of the ordinary for him to want to have lunch. I did think that something might be up because he "wanted to talk". "Wanting to talk" is always code for something serious is going on in my life! So, Tiago came by the house and picked me up. We went to this pretty good buffet and were just having causal conversation when he hit me with a bomb - "I'm leaving for Australia on June 9th". What?! He wants to go to Australia to study English and work for several months. He expects to be back in Porto Alegre sometime in December of this year. He didn't want to say anything until he knew for sure that things were going to work out. He has his passport and just got his visa so it was time to share the big news. Then he hit me with a super bomb!!! "Before I go to Australia I want to be baptized". Awesome! I can't tell you how pumped I was (and still am) about this. He is telling me all this in the middle of the restaurant. I seriously took his confession right there at the table in front of the food. It was great! I asked him if he wanted to study regularly after he is baptized and then he hit me with "I am leaving on Wednesday for my hometown and won't be back until right before I leave for Australia". What craziness! All I can say is that his heart has been touched and he is ready to live for Jesus. I have more to say about this, but I will wait a couple of days and dedicate a post entirely to his story.

Friday night Jennifer and I ended up having Tiago and his girlfriend, Lili over for supper. It was a great time of fellowship and food.

Saturday started off with us going up to the CASA for a class that Jennifer teaches. She has been teaching the teenage girls of our church family a study on the book "Just Like Jesus" by Max Lucado. This is a really good book and a really good study. Please keep this study, the young girls involved and Jennifer as the facilitator in your prayers.

I went along to help watch Elisa with our good friend Rute. Elisa has really had a hard time being left with other people. She is going through a stage where that just really scares her. I ended up taking her home after only an hour so that she could take a nap and get ready for a play date.

Saturday afternoon we went over to the apartment of some old neighbors. We hadn't seen them in about a year and a half (since they moved out of our old apartment building). They called us out of the blue on Thursday and wanted to visit. We were very grateful that they remembered us and wanted to renew our friendships. We had tried to reach them several times over the last year without success. Eduardo and Fernanda are their names and they are really fun. They have 2 kids, Mariana and Marcelo. We were over at their apartment for about 3 hours on Saturday and we all had a great time. Jennifer and I got caught up with our old friends and Elisa got caught up with Marcelo and his really cool toys! All we heard from her for those 3 hours was "OOHHHHH! TOOYYYSSSS!" She was in heaven!

Saturday early evening: we got Elisa home in time to eat supper and get ready for bed (which is around 7pm). Bronwyn Blume arrived about that time to babysit, then we got ourselves ready to go over to Matt and Waleska's apartment for a couple's ministry meeting. Once a month Matt and Waleska lead a study at their apartment for married couples. The subjects are designed to help grow and strengthen the relationship that you have with your spouse. In March the subject was communication. This month was the first of 2 studies on dealing with finances as a couple. The second study will be toward the end of May. I think we got home around 10:30 or 11pm last night, but is was worth it. It was a blessing to encourage one another with such a difficult subject. Please keep the marriages of our church family and the Couple's Ministry in your prayers.

Today (Sunday) we started the day off by getting ready to receive the Lima family for lunch. This family has been a party of our church body from the beginning. They are Lauro, Lorena, Gabrieli, Lucas & Gabrieli's boyfriend Guilherme (William). Lauro makes pretty tasty food and recently started his own business. We made a deal with them that if we bought all the food they could make it! They happily agreed! So, we feasted on some amazing churrasco (Brazilian bbq) and salad and garlic bread, etc. It was great! They are some of our favorite people here in Porto Alegre, so even without the food it is always fun being with them. We are grateful to have such wonderful, tender-hearted people like the Lima clan in our church family.

Grillin' the meat! Yummm!

Here is one picture with Jennifer and one with me just to prove that we were both there!

You can't blame Lucas for taking the time to let the meat settle!

After a few hours with the Lima family we got ready for our church's once-a-month Celebration. The last Sunday of every month all of the house churches get together for a big gathering. There is always singing and some form of lesson. We share the Lord's Supper together and sometimes have some kind of a meal. After our time of worship people usually hang around and visit with each other. There is always strong fellowship in the Celebration gatherings. Today, instead of a meal, we had a baby shower. There is a girl in our church family, Daniela, who is expecting a baby. We threw a simple bash for her with cake and presents. Please keep her and the baby in your prayers. Their entire family needs prayers for strength and wisdom.

This picture is of Paul Morrow bringing us a word from Psalm 23 during our Celebration.

Here is Daniela opening some of her presents at the baby shower. By the way, it's a girl!

After the Celebration and baby shower started winding down we headed home to try and relax a little. Elisa is already down for the night and Jennifer and I are sitting at our computers. This wasn't necessarily a typical weekend, but it wasn't out of the ordinary either. It was simply one nice long weekend.