The Luggage is In The House! Praise God!!

Hello again from Brazil....

It is almost midnight here as we have had such a busy and wonderful day. We all started the day with some amazing breakfast from Rita filled with all different kinds of fruits I can't even pronounce!! We started with a song, 'This is the day' and then sat around and had fellowship with our Brazilian family and friends. Phil had to go early to the doctor to get blood work as his toe is not healing as quickly as expected.

Barry, Jim, Phil and I walked over to the church to do some measurements for the cabinets that we are going to build. Upon return we went in many different directions. Barry, Jim and Phil went to order the tools and lumber for our project. Betty and Charlotte sat down and started preparing a list for the tea tomorrow night. Recipes to make, things to buy, etc.

Joe, Mike and I walked back to the church and started a project with Samaritan's Purse boxes. Over 6000 boxes were stuck in customs in Brazil for a very long time. Just recently Phil was able to get all of the boxes. Because of the length of time, the boxes needed to be individually opened, cleaned and put back together. As we started 2 boys were at the church and decided to help us. I couldn't begin to tell you how to spell their names, but they were 10 and 12 I believe. What an amazing blessing it was for us to see these guys want to spend their time serving God this way. Amazing! We worked on these for a couple of hours until lunch time and then all of us met back at Phil and Rita's for a fabulous lunch. The food here is so good. Lots of meats and different fruit drinks!

After lunch, we sat down at the table and called the airline about our luggage. After a few attempts and failures, Phil contacted a American Airlines customer service agent from Fort Worth, Texas and she went above and beyond to get us information. And....yep!!! We got our luggage!!!!!! Praise God!! It all arrived about 6pm.

After that Betty and Charlotte drove to the store and bought foods and stuff for the tea. From what I hear it was an experience shopping at a Brazilian market. I think the lines on Friday's are the busiest so they were out for many hours. Jim, Barry and Phil went to pick up the materials for the cabinets. Phil and Jim drove back in one car and went shopping for other things and Jim quickly learned that bargaining is a way of life at many shops. and Barry and Patrocino (the shop owner) stayed at the shop for awhile and Patrocino was able to cut to what Barry needed even though niether spoke each other's language. I am amazed at Phil's great gift of evangelism and hospitality, because everywhere he traveled today he invited everyone he saw to the tea and bbq for tomorrow.

As for Mike, Joe and I we went back to the church and worked on the boxes. Along the walk the boys saw us and joined us again. This time a young lady, Juliette I believe, joined us too. It is a different experience trying to do things with other people when you don't know each other's language. As we went along the kids were great. They realized our language barrier, so they started pointing out different things in the box and telling us what they meant in Portuguese. We started telling them what they were in English and all of us just had a great time laughing, joking and learning. Well, as we were separating bad candy from the good, word spread and over time we ended up having over 20 different kids between elementary and high school age show up! It was loud, chaotic, and extremely fun! Those kids got us so pumped to keep going and made this task so enjoyable and helped me remember what we are here for. Not to build, paint, or load but to listen, teach and fellowship with all of Brazil.

Around 8ish we wrapped up what became our party like atmosphere and headed back to the house for some great pizza. The ladies arrived a few minutes later from the store. Yesterday, when we thought the night was done we ended up going to a birthday/anniversary party. And just like yesterday, as I thought the night was wrapping up, about 10-15 young adults came over and we ended up playing a couple of hours of basketball. That is what you have as an attachment. Some weak attempts of Joe and I trying to keep up with these great players. One minor thing for me was the confusion because they would call out the score in Portuguese and I would have no idea!!! We had such a great time!

We wrapped up the night with a team meeting and Phil shared some amazing strories of the power of Christ and Samaritan's Purse stories. We ended with a song and now most are in bed and I am on my way.

Below are a couple of prayer requests for you to continue to pray for. Thank you for your prayers and being a part of this incredible journey!

Tune in tomorrow!!

Ron

Prayer requests:

• Phil's toe, for wisdom for the doctors to figure out what is wrong
• Charlotte's ankle
• Joe's ribs (might of strained something reaching for that ball on the picture!! We've put him on the injured reserve for now!!)
• That we would be at the center of God's will That God would speak through us over the next few days of Church and gathering
• That many would come to know Christ!