Archive for Bill & Sue's Journal
 

  Monday evening, July 9, 2007

 

I was out early this morning when it was still cool and breezy, and it was like a stateside fall day with leaves blowing off the trees and up the street. As the day moved along, it warmed up and it’s hard to believe it’s “winter” here.

 

Looking through pictures that Sue has been pulling from albums, choosing what to put into scrapbooks she is making for the kids it has been quite an adventure during the years. And I never realized we had so many pictures!  Sue’s ESL classes are on winter break here so she’s trying to get to things that don’t normally get done during the months with classes along with regular ministries.

 

Today is a holiday here so we slept in this morning.  Numbers were down yesterday at church because of the long holiday weekend and people traveling. Still there was a good group out, just not packed like we’ve become used to these past few months.

 

The Valentines dinner that we had in June went very well with nineteen couples out (out of twenty that signed up). There were five new couples that were invited. The food was excellent, folks enjoyed the activities and the devotional thought on how listening is a gift of love that should be shared. When the evening ended, everyone commented what a good time it was.

 

This month, being “winter”, we are having a soup supper on Saturday night. However, the temperatures have been around eighty, so folks are joking that we’ll have to turn the air-conditioner on high so everyone will be cold enough to enjoy soup. Last year it was warm when we did this, but it didn’t stop anyone from enjoying the variety of soups the ladies prepared.

 

Our young peoples group is getting excited as they are responsible for the worship service on the fifth Sunday of this month – a first for these kids! They will be doing everything except the preaching, from music to readings to refreshments afterwards. Though we have done this with other teen groups, these younger kids have never done anything like this before.

 

On August 1, for Bauru’s Birthday in the Park, they will be doing an evangelistic pantomime/drama several times during the day and the teens have begun rehearsing for that as well. It is a huge event in the city, with bands and special music groups on the big stage throughout the day, and special interest booths throughout the park. The day ends with cutting and eating a long cake, a meter to represent each year – this year is 111 years.  Our church and the other ABWE church in town had a booth for the day last year, and will be doing it again this year, giving free gifts along with gospel tracts and invitations to our churches.  Remembering all the work that went into the pinwheels that we gave away last year (boy, did our hands hurt bending wires and cutting bamboo), this year we’ve decided to go with yo-yos with stickers of our church emblems on each side along with tracts and invitations. Also, the couple that did balloon animals last year are going to train more people to do it with them this time. I have the feeling that ours will be one of the more popular booths again.

 

We have been having trouble with the owner of the building where the church is located right now. She wants to eliminate the middleman (being the realtor, who is a friend of one of our members) and deal directly with us. We have not accepted this proposal, and said we would move if the situation continues. It is hard to think about since the location is so great, but we’ve dealt directly with owners before and will not get burned again! When situations like this come up, it’s good to know that even though we are taken by surprise, God never is and He has a plan in all of this.

 

Church has also had couple of campaigns to help the Shelter for Homeless Men. In the past we did special acts of kindness for the drug center where Sue had worked, but when it closed because of lack of municipal funding, we sought another agency to help out. There was one campaign for pillows and our people donated thirty-five. The other was for crackers, since many of the men have to eat every couple hours for health reasons. They go through eighteen pounds of crackers a month and we had seventy-two pounds of them come in. That’s a lot of crackers!

 

It was neat that Joel and Lynne sent us the ultra-sound pictures of our grandson. The doctor told them that the baby is doing well and so is his Mom, although knowing Lynne’s summer allergy problems and the hot weather it won’t be a laidback summer.

 

Along with working extras hours at the hospital, Natali has been looking for a new apartment to rent.  Hopefully, with the summer heat up there, she’ll find a place with central air.

 

Aaron earned his 1^st degree red belt in TKD (I think it is spelled Tae Kwon Do). Rachel’s car was stolen in the end of May, but, believe it or not, the police recovered it, and after the hassles with insurance, towing and repair shops, she is happy to have it back. We’re looking forward to Aaron and Rachel’s visit to Brazil. They arrive in São Paulo on August 9. Even though they’ll only be with us for a week (the 2nd week they travel to Rio and Iguaçu Falls) we’ll take advantage of the time we have together. 

 

I guess this gets you up to date a little bit. The guy is on his way up to install the air-conditioner in our bedroom so I’ll sign off.  Have a great summer!  Tchau!

 

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