August 7, 2008

Dear friends and family,

This has been another busy month for our Lord and Savior. This month we were blessed to have a group of ten from Heritage Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky and a young lady from Gardenside Baptist Church in Lexington. There was not a minute that we were not doing something. We were able to put a coat of rust-proof paint on the containers and a sealer on the Director's house on the property of the Vocational School. We also made blocks for the construction of the dormitory there on the property. We had people from the age of 12 to the age of past retirement doing this work.

Working on the Vocational School Property

Also we have been blessed to be able to purchase a home here for us and this group helped with the initial cleanup and the start of the remodeling of this property. We have been here in Caraguatatuba for over five years and have been renting, but with the drop of the dollar we found it to be more beneficial to purchase a home and get out of paying rent. We are doing some extensive remodeling as we bought a fixer-upper. We hope to be able to move in about two months from now.

Another project the visitors helped in was the Feed the Children on Sunday morning. But when we arrived on Sunday morning to prepare the bread and hot chocolate, we were told that our bus would not start and there would be very few children able to get to Church. So the men decided to see if they could help get the bus started with a push. So, five Americans and a few Brazilians got behind a big bus and started to push. They got it to start but it was short lived so AJ took the mini bus and brought more than the limit in it. We have two buses that need to be taken to the scrap heap and sold for old metal, then take what we would get and put it down on another newer bus that is dependable. If the Lord is impressing on your heart to help with this purchase, please make your donations to "Bus for New Life Baptist Church, Caraguatatuba".

Trying to push start the bus

We were able to take the group up to our farthest mission work in Natividade da Serra where Pastor George and his wife Alda work. We were there for the evening service on a Sunday and were blessed by a presentation of the youth there. God is blessing there in this work. We were sad to see the group go back to the States but all things must come to an end so we took them back to the airport and said our goodbyes and headed back to Caraguatatuba.

The following week we took the mini bus with sixteen people from our Church to our second mission point outside of our city in the city of Sallisopolis where Pastor Luiz and Dani work. We left at 6:00 on Sunday morning and arrived there in time to help with their Sunday School service and Pastor Walmir got to preach. We then went to lunch, then hit the streets evangelizing. We had an AWESOME day. It concluded with me preaching at the night service. We arrived home in Caraguatatuba around 1:00, tired but full of excitement for having seen God's work being done and being able to preach His Word.

If you would like to come down and see your mission work here in Caraguatatuba, I am sure that we could let you too push a bus or make some blocks. Whatever is going on, you could fit right in. So come on down; the light is on and your bed is turned down.

In His service,

Aj and Barbara