A week on an island!

A few weeks ago, our family had the opportunity to go with Asas de Socorro (similar to Mission Aviation Fellowship)  to help with a ministry and social action  trip to an island about 3 hours away from Belem.  I will try to high light some of our activities.

It really was not as glamorous at it may sound.  We (our family minus Rachel), 6 people stayed in one bedroom of a 4 room house.  There was another volunteer in the Living room. While another volunteer took the second bedroom and the kitchen was empty.  The home owners slept out back in their shed/storage room.

Joel was involved in the evangelism aspect of the trip.  Rebekah and I (Charlotte) helped our pastor’s wife and other volunteers with the children’s ministry.  We helped get the materials ready and then went and helped each day with the children.  We also had time to get to know the kids.  By the time we left after 6 days, everyone knew Abigail and Joshua’s name.  Joshua has asked more than once if he could go back and play with his new friends.

Boat Ride across the river

There were 3 dentists that went with us to  treat the people.  This brought a lot of people to  the school where we were working. They set up portable dental chairs in the one room school house.

The room is ready for the patients.

Each day we would gather with the children for a bible story.  They also learned some new songs and a bible verse for the week.

Rebekah helping teach the kids a new song.

Each night we had a movie to attract the kids to our gospel presentation.  One night Joel put on his clown outfit along with 3 others and they shared about God’s love.

The evangelical clowns

Here are some pictures of Joshua, Abigail and Sarah and Rebekah playing with the kids in the Community.  They had a great time.  This was the first time I (Charlotte) have had an opportunity to go out and be with the river people that we will be working with.  I think I left a little piece of my heart with all these precious children.  I wished there was more that I could do for them.  Please pray for the community of Algodalzinho.

Joshua and his new friends

A group of girls followed Sarah up into this tree. They would play there for hours.

Abigail and this little girl played so well together. They were so cute holding hands and walking around together.

The final day that we were there, the kids did not have a bible story time and they all gathered at the school building.  The older kids played volleyball but we did not have anything to do with the younger children.  So Rebekah decided to play games with them.  The funny thing was they wanted Rebekah to stand right there next to them and watch them play.  For over an hour they all played hop scotch.

Rebekah helping the kids play

We left with mixed emotions.  We enjoyed our time there and had fallen in love with the people but we were ready to get home and see Rachel who had stayed at home in order to attend school.

Please pray for this community of Algodoalzinho.  There is no evangelical church in this community.  Please pray that God would bring a national leader that would be willing to  lead the services in this community.

NOTE:  If you would like to see more of our pictures from this trip you can see them on our dropshots account  http://www.dropshots.com/joelcharlotte ( Aug 31st – Sept 5th)

A week of ministry

Please pray for our family next week as we go to a river community for a week of ministry. Everyone in the family except Rachel will be on this trip. Please pray for Rachel as she stays at AVA to attend school this week. Also pray for our family as we join with the Brazilians team as we minister in this remote community. Pray that the Holy Spirit will go before us as we share the love of Christ with the people in the area.

Thank you so much for keeping up with our family! We will post pictures as soon as we return.

Summer is now over!!

August 9th was our last day of Summer.  Rachel started to school on Monday, August 10.  Joshua started to Brazilian school August 3rd and Rebekah and Sarah started back to homeschooling the Monday, July 27th.

We had such a wonderful summer but just like always it went way too fast.  We started off this summer by going to our Regional Prayer retreat at a beach about 3 hours from Belém.  Other missionaries from the Amazon Basin joined us for 4 days and nights of fellowship and Bible study.  A church brought a small team from Alabama to lead the praise and worship and a bible study each day.  They also brought a small group to lead the children in VBS.  The kids really enjoyed the activities.  It was nice to get away from the day to day activities and focus on our Lord.

We also learned about the changes that are taking place with in  the IMB.  Some are very clear and we understand what the changes will be but others are still unclear.  But we were encouraged that the vision of the IMB is still to reach the lost for Christ in all regions of the world.

While Joel, Charlotte, Sarah, Joshua and Abigail  were at the beach Rachel and Rebekah were attending a camp for the IMB MKs (Missionary Kids).  They were in Brasilia (the National Capital) which is south of here and it is their winter right now.  So they enjoyed the cool weather for a change. A team from Florida came to lead their week of Camp.   They were treated to some American food while there.  They were able to go to the Mall which had many types of American restaurants which was a treat because we only have 3 American restaurants here in Belém.

We (except Rachel & Rebekah) were able to return just in time to celebrate the 4th of July with American friends at MICEB.  They have a pool on their campus we celebrated with a cook out and pool party.

Since this post is getting long I will continue it on a new post.

The week ahead

We are leaving today, Tuesday the 30th to attend our prayer retreat with the other IMB missionaries from Northern Brasil. We will be there until July 4th when we will return to Belem. Rachel and Rebekah are going to fly to Brasilia (the Capital of Brasil) for a MK camp with other IMB missionary kids.

Please pray for us as we travel and as Rachel and Rebekah are away from the family. Please pray that they Lord will use this time away to strengthen us and renew us as week continue to learn the language and develop our ministry.

Joshua’s Birthday

It is really hard to believe that Joshua is now 5 years old.  A lot of our friends said that when he was born (having three older sisters to mother him) that he would not walk or talk until he was 4.  But even though he is a little spoiled, he is not rotten.  He has turned out to walk and talk for himself.  For those who have not seen him lately, boy can he talk.

Joel and I had decided  that we were not going to have big birthdays this year for the kids but Joshua just did not understand it.  He started talking about his birthday, after he attended a party for a little boy from church.  So we decided that we would give him a birthday party.  He wanted the theme to be “Spiderman”.  We made this a family project.

In the process we discovered that Rachel is an excellent cake decorator.  I made two cakes and Rebekah made the icing and Rachel decorated the cake.

Rachel and Joshua and the SpiderMan cake before the birthday party.

Joshua also requested a smiley face cake.

Joshua had a great party.  A lot of our friends from church attended and some of our American friends were  also there.

These are three friends from his Sunday School Class at church.

Our Friends, Neighbors and church family that attended Joshua’s Party.

We gave Joshua a somewhat traditional Brazilian birthday party.  Complete with the traditional birthday foods of vatapá (a shrimp sauce that goes over rice) and a traditional rice and chicken dish.  We also had candies (dulces) and salty snacks (salgados).  We were thankful that our maid was available to help make all the special foods that we needed for  the special Birthday.  Joshua  and our maid have a very special relationship and we were glad that she could participate in the party.