October 2, 2002

Dear friends and supporters,

It seems as though it has been an eternity since we were here in the States. But in reality, it has only been a little over one year. Coming home has been busy. We have moved our son Bryan home from Louisiana, performed his wedding, moved our daughter Mary to Richmond closer to her work, and now we are painting and remodeling where we are to live for the next 6 months.

Three weeks before leaving Brazil for the States, we had an experience no one cares to have. We were robbed by three armed assailants. At 6:30 in the morning we were awakened by one of the children of the caretaker of the property. He said that his mom had been sick for the whole night and that they needed our assistance. When I opened the door he was standing there with two other men and these other men had a gun at his throat. They entered our home and proceeded to ransack everything that we had. After some minutes one of the assailants left, and when he returned he had the rest of the caretaker's family and a neighbor who had come to help lay brick that particular morning. They stole the money that we had to make the trip back to the States, our computer, our microwave, TV, cameras (both the 35 millimeter and the digital), radios, sound system, VCR, the keyboard for the mission, and so many things that it would fill the whole page. When it became apparent that they couldn't carry all that they had stolen, they demanded the keys to A.J.'s truck. We were all then bound with silver tape and locked in the bathroom. Each of us had been silently praying for safety and God answered our prayers. Though we lost many things, we did not lose our lives, and we live to do the work that God has called us to do.

Now why did this occur? Who knows? However, maybe this could help explain. The night before the robbery I prayed for the Lord to give me a sign if He was finished with us there and was ready for us to move on to another work. I took this as His YES answer.

So here it is - another move, another town, a new work. Isn't it AWESOME what the Lord allows us to be a part of? Even though He does not need us, He uses us anyway. When we go back to Brazil we will be leaving our furniture in storage and renting a furnished apartment in the town where we feel that God is leading us. We are looking for a place to begin a new type of work: a vocational education for the kids that are getting ready to leave the Children's Homes. We will be doing vocational training, life skills training, and training them how to maintain a household (budget, buy and prepare food, etc.). Also we will be furthering training in evangelism and discipleship. The love of my life is evangelism, so I will always be looking for opportunities to open new works and to lead souls to the saving knowledge of Christ. As you can well imagine, this work will need much prayer by you, our prayer warriors, and also we will need to double our support to be able to maintain the job training that we want to have.

We are here in the States until March 4th. If you would be interested in hearing more about what we have been doing and this new work, please contact us at 859-252-2859.

In His Service,

A.J. and Barbara