April showers bring May Flowers! But September Spring brings everything to a screeching halt. Spring has sprung, and with it came the rain. Last month I sincerely hoped that we would be in our house to write this blog, but because of the rain, I could not paint the house. Because I didn’t get to paint, the floor and windows couldn’t be installed. Because the floors couldn’t be installed, the doors couldn’t be installed. And so, this month, we waited…We waited for the rain to stop. We waited for our tile flooring to be delivered. We waited for our windows and doors to be fabricated and shipped. As many home renovators will tell you, there always seems to come a time of delays. Our patience was very stretched this month. It’s almost like running a marathon just to get a leg cramp in the last mile. We’re so close and can practically see the finish line, and then we suddenly must take things slow. Yes, our patience really was stretched this month. So, while we waited, we worked in other areas. Joneia started plans for our upcoming marriage retreat. I worked to update and transpose the sheet music for our hymn books. I studied more Portuguese, and worked on writing more Bible lessons. Joneia taught the children, including a new family from Venezuela with four daughters! There were several low points, but there were also a lot of high points! Including a somewhat MIRACULOUS story…
On September 1st, Joneia received a text and a voice message from the ranch where we purchase our hay for the horses. They said that they had a very serious situation. One of the mares that they keep on their ranch just had a baby foal…they didn’t even know she was pregnant! The owner of the horse was furious and wanted to get rid of the foal. He competes on this mare, and now would be unable to compete for several months! We had previously let the ranch know that we will be looking for a horse in the future since our current horses are very old (Horses here are essential to our property maintenance and safety: they are a natural predator for snakes). With that in mind, the people at the ranch thought of us! The only problem, this foal was only ONE DAY OLD! A horse should not be weaned from its mother until at least four months. This seemed like an obvious “no” for us, but they were still hopeful that we could take the foal. We talked with our vet, and she said it is absolutely possible to wean a horse from its mother as early as a week, but that you would practically need to bottle feed it for the four months. It would be more work than our life and ministry could handle. We prayed about it and left it in God’s hands, telling the ranch to look for someone else to take the foal.
A week later, we returned to the ranch to purchase more hay. When we arrive the owner of the ranch happily announces to us that he has solved our problem! The owner of the mare would allow the foal to stay with his mother for the full four months if he could compete with another one of the ranch’s horses! The owner of the ranch happily agreed to this. To make things better, our vet just so happened to arrive at the ranch at the same time we did! Mind you, our vet is not the regular vet for this ranch; she was only there to do a quick operation on one of the horses. She asks Joneia, “so where’s this foal?” We take her to see the foal and she tells us that she sees nothing wrong with him! It was obvious that God was working things out behind the scenes, and “just so happened” to bring our vet to the ranch right when the ranch owner “just so happened” to solve our problem. To make things better, we were given this horse for free! We prayed about it and felt absolute certainty and peace from God. And so, we will be bringing our new colt to our property at the end of this year! He will be a wonderful addition to our camp and will continue to help with our maintenance and safety.
This month in our ministry, we had our Brazilian Independence Day and Dia do Gaucho (Cowboy Day) event. Many people dressed up in their Gaucho outfits, and we had a wonderful meal, sung our state’s anthem, and had a Bible lesson. Several visitors heard the gospel, and we had a very successful event. During our last teen church, Joneia had the opportunity to give a clear presentation of the gospel to one of our teens. She now knows the gospel, but she did not make a profession of faith in that moment. Please be praying for Evelyn that the seed of the gospel will take root in her heart and that she will get saved! Also keep praying for my Portuguese. As usual, it is a long process of language learning and I want to be fluent already! It’s taking a lot of time and work, but I am slowly but surely getting there.
We have been living in Brazil for 8 months now! Somehow it still doesn’t feel like we live here yet! This is our home now, but I don’t know if it will start to feel like that before we get to move into our house. It has required a lot of patience, and we have been so grateful for all of the prayers for us. We are so blessed by all that God has done for us. We have a particular prayer request for this upcoming month: Joneia and I are beginning Discipleship with one of the young couples in our church! Please pray that we will be able to teach them about the lessons Christ taught us, and that it will be a life changing time for them for the glory of God. It is an excellent growing opportunity for me with Portuguese, so please pray for that too! We hope to see a lot of spiritual growth in the coming months with them.
Thank you again for your prayers and God bless you!