3 months in a post

Hi everybody,

We are already in early April and that gives us the challenge of telling 3 months in one blog!

JANUARY

As you were told, Nico's parents were with us for 3 weeks in January. We really had a good time all five of us and Lorenzo was able to get to know his Italian-French roots!

"Nonno" and "Miflo" as they are called by their grandchildren, took advantage of their time with Lorenzo and have been missing him (and us) from the moment they boarded the plane.

But their holiday in Brazil was not easy either ... On the menu was a lot of help cleaning and cooking for my mother and maintenance work for my father, just so they could keep fit!

Still continuing the maintenance work that we started in 2017, this time we laid tiles in the area reserved for staff especially to help get rid of the water when it rains.

                                                                 

FEBRUARY

In February, all the staff who had travelled for Christmas returned at the beginning of the month so that we could restart the activities after this period of summer vacation here. We are now 8 full-time missionaries with a Brazilian girl who joined the Rock House team this year: her name is Rynara.

We did the registration of the children, started to visit the families regularly and prepared the house to receive a team of 10 girls aged 18 to 25 years doing the practical phase of their YWAM School, DTS (Discipleship Training School) from Cologne in Germany. They stayed with us for 3 weeks, it was an opportunity for them to discover another reality, experience the missionary life and for us to start the year with a blast! All this was done by creating new friendships and seeing God acting in our lives through very different people ... Below you can enjoy some pictures of the ministry time in the Rock House groups, in the slum, with the homeless on the street, with ex-drug users in a rehab centre, and some others ....

It's not easy working in a team, and after the German team left we had a period that was a little more difficult in the Rock House and for Rachel and me. We had a lot of discussions with the staff individually and as a team to try to discover what made communication and work together difficult. The expectations of each other, the communication at times is more complicated when several nationalities are represented and the spoken language is not everyone's native language, unspoken accumulations that build barriers ... all this has made it necessary to take time together and individually in prayer and to speak about it so that we can find our unity again, for our good and that of the ministry. It is going a lot better now but please continue to pray for this.

MARCH

You must have heard about it: early March was Carnival. And even if sometimes in Europe we think that the carnival is only in Rio de Janeiro, well it is not so. The carnival is celebrated in all major cities of Brazil. In Belo Horizonte, the carnival grows from year to year to the point that this year YWAM Belo Horizonte participated in a first evangelistic impact in the city itself instead of going to Ouro Preto, a historically known city where carnival is usually celebrated in this region. There was  movement of the churches that came together with organizations like YWAM to organize outreaches together in key locations in the city where the rallies were taking place. I could only go one day but I took the opportunity to participate in the "batuka" (the band of percussion that parade in the street).

Brazil, as you surely know, is a developing country, and social policies are also changing and services are becoming more professional. Our work in the slum is recognized by the local welfare services but that means that certain conditions must be met. In March, we spent a lot of time in the office drafting the activity reports for the previous year and the action plans for the current year. With this certificate it in exchange recognizes the importance of our work, opens doors to partnerships with, for example, organizations that distribute food to social projects, and also allows the arrival of foreign missionaries (since this document is requested for visa). We should have an answer at the end of April if we will receive this certificate for 2019.

At the beginning of March, the entire team had the privilege of being invited to the birthday of a child who was turning 11 years old. He had decided at the end of the year that he wanted to have a birthday party and for 2 and a half months he sold every day after school "salgados" (savoury finger food) in the street. He earned R$1 per sale and he put everything aside. On his birthday, his mother explained that it was he who had paid for his birthday because she could not afford it. What a privilege to see and be a part of the determination of this young boy!

But speaking of visa ... we have good news! We finally managed to transform our temporary visa which we had to renew from year to year to a permanent visa!!! No more paperwork and thank you Lorenzo!! Since Lorenzo was born on Brazilian soil, he is Brazilian and therefore in the context of family reunification we have this right to a permanent visa! Besides that, we also made the Brazilian passport for Lorenzo.

He is growing really well and it's been 6 months (ALREADY) that he's with us! Children who participate in activities always want to see him, hold it ... and team colleagues too !!! And it's cool because Lorenzo likes to spend time with them too. Here he is pictured in the arms of one of the mums we visit in the slum!


Thanks for reading this full blog, and thanks for your continued support and prayer. We appreciate each of you so much and are so thankful for your lives. May God Bless you