We had the youth group over to the house for a devotional on identity. Where does your identity come from; friends, society, media, or God? "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 1 John 3:1

An LST team came to spend some time teaching and reaching out, I spent a good amount of time with them, encouraging and showing them around. Below, we're walking on the beach to get to an old Dutch fort.

The precious kids in São Lourenço during sunday school

Dayse, minister's wife, and I at an event to encourage and challenge the women of São Lourenço to get more involved and take more initiative in service

A sagui monkey in my friend's backyard

Celebrating Lisandra's baptism!

We gathered on the beach for a Luau and time of worship

Celebrating Jonatas's birthday

At a friend's weddng

The youth retreat for São Lourenço took place on the beach. We were blessed by wonderful messages and fellowship. I led discussion and prayer time for the girls and we had a special devo on the beach in which we confessed, prayed and threw our burdens into the sea

I went to the beach, Enseada dos Corais, with a big group from church and had a good time visiting with Giselle, Bia, and others.   

                                                                   

Apparently some people like to eat giant ants because they have lots of protein.

I went to a retreat for young people and had a wonderful time getting to pour into some sweet girls that God placed in my path. It was over the Easter holiday and we spent time reflecting over Jesus' life and the impact he has on our lives.  It's always a joy to be with tons of other young people, lots of fun talks, games, laughter, and little sleep.

We are at Giselle's 15th birthday party, it's a really big occasion for most girls here. In this picture I'm with 3 generations of one precious family though there are several family members missing.

 

The church in São Lourenço hosted an event for young people in the area.  There was 

a great turnout and a positive time of learning and communion.  

Adventures

We had a special lunch with our friends and neighbors, Alberto and Nathalia, who have been so helpful and generous with us.  They also work with the teens at church and are a great blessing.

Several men from the church have been working on the construction of the new church building  

Adventures at Tamandaré beach, including lots of creatures, even a jelly fish!

Fun day full of outdoor adventures in the city of Bonito with our friend Raisa

We got to take a quick trip to the state north of us and spend a little time in the city of João Pessoa.  We stayed with a family with 2 adorable boys, loved on them, and also spent time encouraging and visiting two other American interns.  We went and participated in a youth event on the beach:  study worship and games. 

Sweet girls carrying props across the city to the nursing home where we 

sang, had a puppet show and loved on some elderly folks

We've been painting a huge mural at the church of the days of creation

Random Happenings

We had to prepare Thanksgiving in the dark because we had a power outage through the whole evening.  Thankfully we have a gas stove and oven so the goodies could continue cooking. 

I had the pleasure of having my parents, the Sneeds, here for a couple weeks in December.  They got to know a lot of the city as well as the people and churches I'm working with.  It was lots of fun and a huge blessing. One night I accidentally got us on the metro during rush hour; we were all crammed in and uncomfortable and afterwards the guys at church reprimanded me for putting them through the craziness, but we all survived. 

We all had lunch at our good friend Riso's house.  

We had a Christmas party with some of the young people at our apartment one night complete with a white elephant game.  We asked them to bring silly, cheap gifts but most of them didn’t grasp the concept, but it was still fun. 

 We also put up a paper tree on our ceiling

Bio's daughter, Hannah had her 15th birthday! Fifteen is a big celebratory year in latin america so her party was all decked out with butterflies and everything was pink and green. 

Amar, Amar, Amar

Last Sunday, our friend Rafael was baptized and this is what happened next...enjoy :)

It was such an honor to celebrate with this group and this has quickly become one of my favorite songs. 

New Years

Happy Belated New Years!

As you can imagine, New Years is celebrated a little differently here in Brazil.  New Years is actually more anticipated and much more celebrated than Christmas.  

While a majority of Brazilians celebrate New Years on the beach, watching fireworks and jumping over 7 waves for good luck, we stayed in the country with about 45 youth from church.  

New Years Eve started with a lot of cooking.  There were probably 10 people in the kitchen from 2 or 3 pm until midnight.  Everyone else just rested, hung out in the pool, and helped cut vegetables when they requested help.  

At 11pm we had a little devotional.  At midnight, we shot off fireworks, everyone hugged and said happy new years.  Then we had a secret santa with chocolate and then we all ate dinner!

Look at all that food! It was delicious!

Then we all stayed up for a few more hours and some people even stayed up until the sun came up.

You may have noticed all the white? It is traditional to wear the color of what you hope your new year will be filled with.  White represents peace and is the most traditional.  

Você é Linda!!

For the months of October and November our normal Wednesday night classes took a break.  Annika and I and our friends Gil and Edivane started using the book Redefining Beautiful by Jenna Lucado (Você é Linda is the title in Portuguese which literally means "You are beautiful") with the middle school girls, and Alisha, along with Sandra and Natalia started using Every Young Woman's Battle by Stephen Arterbum and Shannon Ethridge with the high school girls in our new Wednesday night series.  We had large groups of very interested learners who were excited to be talking about inner beauty and sexuality.  As we continued the weeks lessons, I heard a few different stories about girls that were more willing to open up to their families about their lives and their own walks with God.

The middle school girls at one of our Wednesday night classes.

 The high school girls at one of their classes.

With the middle-schoolers, we practiced a special way of holding hands during the prayers that they loved.

At the end of the class, we had a big party where all of the girls and their moms came together for a celebration, prayer and snack time.  The girls loved it and it was a good time for all of us to be together as a group.  Annika made some beautiful "letters from God" for all of the middle-schoolers to take home as a reminder of the great love and promises He's made to them.

Valeska showing off her "letter from God"