River trips, cousin's visit and upcoming milestones!

Since my last blog update, I have been on two more river trips, my cousin has come and gone and the summer interns have returned to the States. The last 3 1/2 months have been absolutely crazy busy but they have been incredible ministry wise. Thank you so much for the constant prayer support and also, the financial support. I would not be able to continue here in Brazil without it.

Here is a recap of the past few weeks and the river trips I participated in and a look at what is to come in the next few weeks...and of course, lots of pictures because those always say a lot more than me writing :).

2 weeks ago, I set out on a boat trip to the communities of Lago Central and Uquena (3rd time!). In Lago Central, the project was to pour the concrete floor, clean up the area around the church and paint the front. We had one full day of nonstop work to get the church ready for the inauguration services. We had one service on a Saturday night that was led by our team from Michigan. They shared testimonies and the youth pastor gave the word. On Sunday morning, we had the official inauguration of the church followed by water baptisms and a huge celebration lunch. The service was incredible and packed. Several people gave their lives to Christ and afterwards around 20 people were water baptized down at the river proclaiming to all around that their old way of living was dead and they are now alive in Christ and living for Him! What an amazing thing to witness! Sunday afternoon, we left Lago Central and headed to the community of Uquena. The work here was to get the roof on the church and get the floor ready for the concrete to be poured. We also had children's activities going on at the same time. Our first morning, I helped at the construction site pulling branches, etc out of the dirt being put down to prepare the floor in the church. Needless to say I was covered in dirt. I had to use a brush to scrub my legs during my shower to get the dirt off and it still didn't come all the way off. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture to show how dirty I was haha. In the afternoon and second morning, I was able to work alongside a team at the local school with the children. Due to my cousin's flight, we left early to head back to the city. A few days later (last Monday) I embarked on another river trip. This time, our destination would be Urucurituba, a community about an hour and a half by boat outside of Santarem on the Amazon River. Part of the team worked to move the wooden church to another location and make it bigger while the other part worked in dental and health clinics. My job was to translate for the nurse practitioner. It was a nice change of pace to be translating. We saw a lot of patients! Praise the Lord, all of these trips have been so blessed. The Lord is doing great things in the Amazon Basin and I am excited to be a part of it.

So now, I am back in Santarem trying to get caught up on life and sleep :). This has been such a great few months but extremely tiring. I have two exciting milestones coming up this month: my 25th birthday (1/4 of a century...aghh) on the 26th and 2 years in Brazil on the 29th!!! My focus for the next couple of months will be the Mini-Bible college I am administrating. I will be working with the Missions pastor to get the project organized in the river communities. I will also continue my course at church for leaders. My church leadership has also asked me to start a cell group for young adults at my home on Saturday evenings. I hope to be starting this group in the next couple of weeks. I already have a girl that lives close to my home that does my nails and she said she is excited to come because she needs God in her life!!! Talk about someone ready to give their life to Jesus!!! I pray I can win her for the Lord and begin to disciple her. I also have a good friend recently accepted to be a missionary with PAZ who will be visiting for a few weeks toward the end of September.

Life is good and Jesus is great!!!

Enjoy some pictures...

One of my favorite people :)

Lots of painting to be done and concrete poured in Lago Central!

So precious!

working hard!

Still smiling after a very long day of hard work!

I was scared to death to hold this little guy :)

Love that face!

Church in Lago Central ready for the inauguration!

Emily Cristina

Inauguration service in Lago Central

Several people giving their lives over to Jesus during the service!

Group waiting to be water baptized

God of wonders beyond our majesty!

He thinks this dog is his mom!

Such a pretty dragonfly!

Sharing the gospel with children in Uquena...3 gave their hearts to Jesus!

Love these faces!

A home in Uquena

We had to walk from the speedboat in the back of the pic in about 6 -12 in. of water and mud to get to shore :)

Emmaline (cousin) and me

Crazy cousins!

Urucurituba...people waiting for dental and medical clinics

so cute!

Translating for Sharon @ the medical clinic

A family who came to the clinic