Our flight in to Brazil was delayed a little…but only two and a half hours and not the whole night. So we arrived in Recife at 3 AM on Friday the 22nd. At 9 AM we set out to find a car. We had done a good bit of research beforehand, but by 12:30 we were headed back to Roger and Marcy Smith’s apartment for lunch with our new slightly used car. God gave us a smooth process, good price and a great car. (The options for a car with more than 5 seats are limited). That afternoon we used six seats heading to a mini-retreat for our field council to catch up on everything. Then this past Friday we used those seats to go to Tupanatinga! Thank you all who gave sacrificially towards this car during our furlough! 
Our friend and colleague Randy Southwell came to visit us for a couple of days. I took advantage of it and scheduled a trip to Tupanatinga to have a study there. We had some interest from the church in Arcoverde and so we looked into another space to meet in rather than a living room. God provided a space through Rodrygo and it was really nice. We have been praying about our options and it sounds like we have a couple of options to rent as well as hearing about another church who was going to start a work there but decided not to. Please pray that we will find the right location as well as service time! We are looking to go to weekly services soon! 
We were pleasantly surprised at the turnout last night for church service. The church gained several families while we were gone and they have been faithful. Six former football players came last night! We had 59 adults and 21 kids in the service which is a total of 80 and a milestone for us. One key part of the service was Nivia talking about the destruction in Mozambique and it was neat to see a good response from our people in giving towards it. This year we will be challenging our people to raise the funds to complete the upstairs as we for sure are neeing more space! The youth can have a space upstairs as well as running a kid’s service. The youth started meeting once a month together with another church and Saturday night there were 19 of them. They had a lot of fun.
While we were in the states Sarah did some training with running small Bible study groups. They are groups of 3-5 people that study the same portion of the Bible every day for a week, then meet together to talk about it, pray and talk about their spiritual life. Sarah has really enjoyed the process so far and has really grown spiritually as well. She is looking into how to implement it with the women of the church and I am looking at the men. While she is busy with homeschool, master’s degree, kid’s program, women’s ministry, baby showers and birthday parties, she will also look to have a group of women. I am looking to have several groups. Please pray that the right men will join and be committed to spiritual growth through these groups. 
Sarah’s masters is in Biblical Counseling and her professors are our colleagues from the mission. The last full week of April, Al and Kim Yoder are coming to Arcoverde to teach Module 1 of the Biblical Counseling courses they provide for church leaders. We have wanted our building to be a center for training in our city and region and so far we have a good group signed up and some coming from other cities. Pray that this goes well!
It feels really amazing to be back with our friends and church family in Brazil. I don’t think I can express our feelings in writing with how blessed we are in our life at this point. A lot of it has to do with the love we feel from all of you who lift us up through prayer and send support. You all are a big blessing!
All for HIS glory,
David, Sarah, my egg cooker Evie, and my little artist Claire bear who are both glad to be back home with their friends. They were especially glad to be back with their church family! 
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