Late Thursday Night....

11:30 p.m. Local Time (5:30 p.m. PST)

(Addendum to my prior report!)

We had a very full day today! And I thought that we were done after the wonderful lunch!

After lunch, we walked over to the church, Igreja Batiata Pinheiropolis, their church in Caruaru. It is just a short 3 block walk from their house to the church. They had some people from their church painting the front - a new addition that Lou & Fay had begun. They have painted the front (white washed, the matching color will come later) so that it will match the old building - better than having an unfinished wall in honor of this weekend's celebration of the 14th anniversary of the church. We had a tour of the church facilities. The addition still has unfinished rooms (dirt floors, some window missing and unfinished walls), but they are using some of the rooms already for Sunday School classes.

We then met with Marcos & Vania who live next to the church in what used to be Lou & Fay Warkentien's home. Marcos is their music minister and he pulled out his guitar for us and we sang some praise songs together. He also sang some songs he had written himself. We saw a beautiful mural that the Warkentien's supporting church from Seattle had recently painted. This beautiful mural is the backdrop to the pool in which they perform baptisms. We will be having one of our ladies' teas in this courtyard.

Leaving the church and music minister's house, we returned to Phil & Rita's house. On the way back, we just stopped in at the house of one of their neighbors - Juao and Ceci, who have two daughters, Julia, 12, and Gabriella, 6. We spent a wonderful time getting acquainted with them as Phil translated for us. Ceci is a new Christian who just accepted the Lord a few months ago. Their older daughter recited this week's Bible verse Acts 9:15 in Portuguese for our group. We enjoyed a time of fellowship, singing....and of course more food! Cookies, coffee and grape juice.....but grape juice so full of flavor that you would not believe it unless you have tasted it! Juao went to his room and pulled out 4 sets of his clothes for the guys so that they would have a change of clothes. He and his wife insisted that we return many times during our stay for a time of fellowship and share a meal or two at their house.

We then went back to Phil & Rita's house for a "light" dinner - some wonderful soup (carrots & squash?) and delicious ham and cheese sandwiches on small french rolls. After more fellowship, Phil did make a run to the drugstore with Ron and Jim. Rita took some of us to her friend, Edla's house to celebrate her birthday (8/13) and her twenty-fifth anniversary (8/12) with her husband, Jilson. There were people coming and going, some 30 or so. Among the guests was Dr. Fatima, who has been a good friend of the Warkentiens and active member of their church. Dr. Fatima does ask for prayers for a special (unspoken) request.

After MORE food and some more delicious juices, we had some more time of fellowship and singing. The Brazilians LOVE to socialize and do it in style - everyone is laughing and having a wonderful time.

We slowly drifted back in groups to the house and some of our team members are fast asleep....the night owls are still awake!

Tomorrow will be a day of preparation of the church for the celebration of 14 years as a church. We will have a report for you on that, hopefully tomorrow.

Continue to pray for the safe arrival of our luggage, which contains all of our supplies for the teas, to mention a FEW items we are missing!

We thank you all for your prayers and are enjoying the wonderful fellowship with the warm Brazilian people.

God bless you all and thank you for your prayers.

Betty Griset