Ola!

Here goes for a slightly longer update.

I figure I should start by giving a little more information about what I have been doing ever since I got here, as the last post was rather uninformative.

Sooo, to start with, about the family I´m staying with: The mother owns 27 shops all around Recife, the dad is a lawyer. Lucas, their son (and our chauffeur generally) is 19 and already owns a mobile phone store which employs 16 other people and Clara, 17, and whose room Maddy (another stepper) and I are sharing is still at school. I guess I musn´t forget their 2 dogs, Bruce and Bella, who seem to think that my feet taste nice. However, I have already succeeded in getting them a little trained ( for some reason when I say STAY, they sit down!!!)

Now to what we have been doing... So, I mentioned cleaning the campsite. This is the place where the team will be helping out with camps for the next two weeks. It has a big dining area, and 6 bedrooms with lots of bunkbeds (we hope they will stay up!) It also has a swimming pool, which we of course had to test before we could let the children into it! It will probably be tested again several times during the camps. We organised the first week of camps today. There should be about 20 8-12 year olds coming, for most of tehm it will be their first holidays, and I know that some had already finished packing before we had even set off for Brasil!

Apart from preparing the campsite, we have also done some work witha  few young people from the church ( I mentioned some activities last time). Football seems to play an important role in this, as it seems to be the main subject of all their conversations with us. I must admit that I can now say that I have scored a goal for Brazil against England. On a more serious note, it has been great to see how God has helped all of us to overcome language barriers and engage with the children that we have met.

We are also very lucky to be working with a great team of young people from the church, most of whom speak English. They have been extremely kind to us ( one of them even bought Maddy and I some cake because Maddy said that she loved bakeries), and are doing all they can to help us.

As to the team, I think it is fair to say that we get on really well: the Brazilians were even surprised that we did not know each other before we came! Our times of devotions, prayer and worship are always something that I look forward to, as we can really feel God´s presence there.

So, praise points would be:
- that the team is so united and that we can really see God at work
- that we managed to clean the campsite and prepare the first camp on time
- that God helps us to understand people better every day
Prayer points are:
- several people on the team are not feeling very well, and all of us are pretty tired already so prayers for  healing and refreshing sleep would be greatly appreciated
- that the camps would be a time when the children can really come to understand Gods love for them, and that they would really enjoy themselves
- that our lack of portuguese would not be a barrier to forming closer relationships with the people around us

Até logo!