One of the new mothers of our church asked to dedicate her baby in our church! It was my privilege as pastor to lead my first baby dedication. We met with her and the father about what this dedication means, and they were both happy to continue. We dedicated young Aurora to the Lord and encouraged the parents to live their lives as an example to her and raise her to follow the Lord wherever He would lead. Since that dedication, we have seen Janaina (Aurora’s mother) coming very faithfully to church! It was a joyous time where our church prayed over the family, and it has been wonderful to see Janaina taking this dedication seriously. This blessing was just the start of this month!

February was fast and simple! We had our regular services and no special events. Things are going well! Our church is growing, and we have seen a good number of visitors this month! We also had the opportunity to have one of our teens stay with us for a week. She learned a lot about life and Godliness, and she got a good glimpse into our lives. She went back home with a new perspective. It has been a privilege to start investing in the individual lives of our church members.

As is common for the new year, we felt a restart button had been pressed. We were ready to start again for 2025, and we had several goals in mind. One goal that we are finally conquering is an early morning routine! This last year, I discovered the power of a 5 am routine, but lost my momentum when I had a kidney stone, and never was able to return to my routine. So far, for all of January, we have become 5 am people! Life on a ranch in the middle of summer is hot and busy! It has been amazing to have the time to slowly wake up, read my Bible, take some personal time of reflection, cut grass, and harvest blueberries all before breakfast! We are basically finished with all of our major tasks for the day before lunch! We have been praising God for this secret that we have learned about the morning hours. Are we tired? Surprisingly no! We have our sluggish days, but mostly we feel energized and excited to begin our day. It has been encouraging for us to feel that drive again. And this month has been full of progress.

Thus ends the most challenging year of our lives. December naturally has the most events of the year with Christmas and New Years. Additionally, we conducted my first Lord’s Supper as pastor! We added new members to our church! We had many new visitors! I also ended up preaching every service for two weeks while our other preachers took some much-needed vacation time! It was very challenging, but was very encouraging to see how far my Portuguese has come. Our ministry was very fruitful, and this month we have noticed incredible spiritual growth amongst our members! Without any prompting from Joneia or myself, they have expressed desire for further outreach, and more involvement! We are seeing incredible fruit at the end of the year. After such a challenging and heart-breaking year, seeing the fruit that our members are producing has been the biggest blessing for a young, new pastor.