Sure, it’s winter down here, but June has always occurred in summer my entire life! We finally hit some negative temperatures at night. We thank the Lord for our fireplace that we were able to add to our house right on time! The fireplace is our only source of central heating…because it is in the CENTER of our house…With the drop in temperatures also comes the cold and flu. Many of our members have been sick for rather extended amounts of time. Occasionally this last month both Joneia and I have felt a little nausea in our stomachs, but we never came down with any serious sickness, but many have. Please be in prayer for the health of our members.

Between the rain and the cold, a lot of our work has shifted to indoors. We had three different events this month! We started off with our Mother’s Day tea. We had to cancel the event in May because of the crazy storms we were having, but we only had to postpone it until the beginning of June. None of the mothers were allowed to help (obviously), so that meant it was up to Joneia and a couple other young women of our church to plan the event. Some of our teens even volunteered to help serve the food and tea! We had a blast with games, trivia, and specialty coffees. The mothers really seemed to be blessed and enjoyed their celebration.

Last month we had the teen girl’s sleepover at our house; this month it was the teen boys’ turn. We played games, ate pizza, and had a lot of fun together. It was a challenge for me since I am still intermediate in Portuguese, but we survived the night and got to sleep for one whole hour!... I was grateful…

We ended the month with our third event, the Valentines Day Dinner. Valentines Day in Brazil is in June, and is called Dia Dos Namorados (day of lovers). We take this as an opportunity to invite our members, and also to outreach to other young couples to come together for a banquet, have some fun and fellowship, and teach the Bible. We made a “MadLib Love Letter” for Pr. John to read, and everyone wanted to do it again! Pr. John then preached a wonderful message of love and salvation. We pray for the visitors who came who aren’t saved that the gospel will plant in their hearts and they will get saved.

Even with these events, everything else seems to be running pretty smoothly…except the cars. I think both of the Yelle’s cars have been in the shop about 3 different times each in the last month…I’ve lost count. Right now we share vehicles with them. This always seems to happen right before they plan to leave for Furlough. OH YA! They’re leaving for furlough NEXT MONTH! I am excited and terrified to become the head pastor of this church. We have talked with our men about a preaching schedule, and I will now be starting preaching WEEKLY! I am thrilled to get to preach again, but also know my inadequacies in Portuguese. I am so grateful that Joneia is fluent or my sermons would be significantly less intelligible. Please pray for fortitude in me, reliance on God, protection as we will be on our own for a year, and no more problems to hinder the Yelles from travelling peacefully.

We have officially started discipleship with Robson and Sabrina and pray that they will remain dedicated to the process. They both show a lot of promise and hunger for God’s word, and already love the content they are learning. Please pray for wisdom for Joneia and me as we teach them. As always, pray for my Portuguese fluency. It is tough to teach when I only half know what I am saying. I have already encountered the problem of being too direct in a very indirect culture, and have even asked some of our friends to tell me if I said something too directly so that I can learn how to improve the way I speak in this culture.

We see growth. We are worn out, but encouraged. We are healthy. We have everything we need thanks to the grace of God and the support of our churches. Again, please be praying for me this next month. We have not been given a spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and of a sound mind. Even so, I feel trepidation about this upcoming year with weekly preaching and a lot of work to do, and only one more month the prepare. Pray on, saints!

Thank you