Dia da Independencia

Last Wednesday was Brazil's independence day, the 7th of September.  Throughout the day I was congratulating all the Brazilians on having independence and everything that goes with that.  Turns out it was a bloodless revolution, I was more excited than anyone I talked to. So no one was too excited about the holiday but people were very excited because we had a Church Day on the same day.  It was a day where the whole church spent time together, we played games, ate, and had a worship service where 21 people joined the church and 4 were baptized.  It was a great day with friends and family and a great day to celebrate the power of the Gospel.

New Members

Comunidade Horizonte

Back to School

That's right we are going back to school, although we have a car now so we don't have to ride the bus and we also buy our lunch at school, we are cool like that.


Classes are starting back at PUC-MG and we are excited about what the Lord is doing post-CCP.  We have several people that are interested in studying the Bible.  Which is something that is really neat to see. People that have never opened the Bible or much less own a Bible are studying the Bible. That is really cool. It is amazing to be a part of what the Lord is doing here and being able to see Him work and its even more refreshing to know that it doesn't depend on me.

"The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. "
                                     -Acts 17:24-25

Thank you for reading.

Recap

For the past 7.5 weeks we've had a group of US college students from Campus Outreach Memphis here in Brazil working with us.  The group left last Thursday night.  While they were here they did a great job of stirring up a lot of action on the campuses of PUC-MG and UFMG. New people are involved in the community from the summer, some are Believers, many are not. Please pray that the relationships can continue to grow and mature especially during the month of July while the students are on break.

Caio and Marco Tullio are freshman Engineering students at PUC.

Clarissa is a freshman Engineering student at PUC and she is friends with Caio & Marco Tullio.

Ana Luiza is a Psyschology student at PUC.

Matheus is a law student at PUC and is involved with the community, Wes was one of the students from Memphis.

Group shot from the Final Retreat.

Thank you for your financial support and prayer. God has been teaching us a lot lately on the power of prayer and how helpless we are without Him. Continue to pray for us, we thank you more than you know.

The Land of Holidays

This past Thursday was Corpus Christi day here in Brazil.  When I asked Brazilians What is Corpus Christi day?  Most don't know and say its some kind of Catholic Holiday but since most everyone gets off work for Thursday and Friday no one seems to be complaining.  Below is a list of the Brazilian holidays, you can click on the name of holiday to find out more about it.

Date Week Day Name January - 01 Saturday New Year's Day March - 05 Saturday Carnival March - 06 Sunday Carnival March - 07 Monday Carnival March - 08 Tuesday Carnival Tuesday April - 21 Thursday Tiradentes April - 22 Friday Good Friday May - 01 Sunday May Day June - 23 Thursday Corpus Christi September - 07 Wednesday Independence Day October - 12 Wednesday Our Lady of Aparecida November - 02 Wednesday All Souls Day November - 15 Tuesday Proclamation of the Republic Day December - 25 Sunday Christmas Day At first glance you may be thinking that this is not a very long list. The amount of days on the list is not much but you need to add a day to most holidays and keep in mind that everybody takes holidays here in Brazil. Once you add in the months of January and July the two big travel months for Brazil you now have the Land of Holidays. Our Sindica put it best when she said, "Do you know of another country that has as many holidays as Brazil", she said this as her family was packing to visit their country home for the holiday.

Origin

The theme for the CCP this year is called Origin or Origem in Portuguese.  This past weekend we kicked off the festivities by watching the movie Origem or Inception in English.  We used this film to drive the talks and discussions. Here are pictures from the weekend.

Group Shot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pricisila & Abbey

Presentation

June 14 2011

Its been a few weeks since we last updated the blog.  We are in our busy season, a group of Americans from Campus Outreach Memphis have been here since the end of May and we are swamped with time on campus, language classes and transitioning to life here in Brazil. Things are going well. God is giving us favor on campus and we are meeting new students and some seem very interested in what is going on with the Americans and the community.

Thank you for all your prayers and support.

I will write more later and try to post some pictures from last weekend.  Last weekend we had a weekend away in the interior of Brazil with the community, new students, and the CCP(Americans).

The Americans are Coming, The Americans are Coming...

Actually they are already here and have been since the 13th of May. Every year a group of US college students visit Brasil for two months and labor with us on the campus.  The name of this program is called the CCP or Cross Cultural Project and this year we have 20 students from Campus Outreach Memphis.  The schools represented in Brasil are U. of Memphis, Arkansas State, and Murray State.

This is a big time for the ministry and a busy time as well.  Our time right now is spent in two main areas, campus and language.  We are visiting the campus 3-4 days a week right now and have language class 3 days a week.  We are very busy but we are excited about the new challenges and responsibilities.

There could also be a third category as well: Driving.  We are driving a lot more since we have a car and it is nice. What is not nice is the traffic here in Belo.  We live 10.8km away from the campus of PUC, that's around 7 miles.  It takes us about 25-30minutes going to campus and sometimes coming home can take 40-50 minutes.

Pray:
Please pray that the Lord will provide us with energy so that He can better use us to glorify His name.

Thank you for reading and for your prayers and financial support.


BH