Bits October

October started out with our first football game in Arcoverde. Despite the opposing team arriving late and us losing the game, it was a real success. The city was exposed to football as there were around 1200 fans that day, many more fans than the latest soccer games have had. The city officials are impressed and much more willing to help with the team. We also were able to be more organized as a team after the game. 

The week after we had another service in Arcoverde. There were plenty of people there and they heard an excellent gospel message from Pastor Claudio, a Pastor from our mother church, Koinonia in Recife. The day after, we left to head back to the states for four months. (Although we didn’t actually leave until a few days later due to a passport issue; read about that in this link). 

We arrived in the states on a Friday and left for Orlando from Chattanooga Sunday morning for a leadership conference with ABWE. It is always good to see our colleagues and we received some great training on time management out of the book “What’s Best Next.” We also saw my parents for a few days and then Sarah’s parents came down for the weekend as we went to Disney on Saturday with them and our friends Maicol and Mandy who are missionaries to Brazil and have a little girl Stella who is the same age as Anna Claire. They have also been working with me on getting the Servant Leaders program going. 

This past week our friend Alison has been here mainly to pick up equipment for the football team. We were able to see our friends from West Huntsville Baptist who had a donation of equipment. In addition to picking that up we planned for a football clinic we are going to do together in Recife next June. We are hoping to gather a few teams from the region to train as well as insert the gospel. I never thought football would open up so many doors for the gospel in Brazil. Please pray for this clinic and also for Alison as he is on his way back to Brazil with a few extra bags. He takes a bus out of Chattanooga tonight (Saturday night) to arrive in Orlando Sunday morning where he will catch his plane (that has an expensive extra bag policy). We have a bunch of equipment to get down to Arcoverde and so if you are planning any trips to Recife and don’t have any bags, let me know. :)

Well this month is busy! Sunday morning we are in a Sunday school; November 8th preaching in Montgomery; the 15th-20th I will be at a Next Generation Leader’s conference in Miami; the 29th we will be speaking at West Huntsville Baptist! Pray for us this month to be a blessing while we are here. If our finances continue as they are, we will not need to raise extra money to get back to Brazil; and so all the money that comes in while speaking on furlough will go to our building in Arcoverde. For our first phase of building we are looking at raising 120,000 US$! 

Thanks so much for your prayers this month. They were extra needed!

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, our little first grader who is enjoying her cousins and shopping, and our fearless (and black-eyed) energetic 2 year old who loves the farm animals (we are living in Sarah’s parent’s renovated barn during furlough) and went right up to all the princesses and started talking as if they were old friends.