Single Digits Baby!

Wow! We are officially in the single digits now- only 9 days until we leave and we are SO excited! We had a wonderful hour long conversation yesterday with the director of Restore Brazil, Jay, which sharpened the image in our mind of what it will look like there. He has been working tirelessly to get Acts 29 Brasil off the ground and  to start promoting the church-planting bootcamp called Foundations (scroll down for English) that they'll be hosting there in May. We are so pumped about this bootcamp! Today we're going out for a breakfast date and to see a matinee movie (something we haven't done in a loooong time), then we are going to go shop for some items that we need to bring (including a couple more suitcases to bring them in- can you say Goodwill?). Jay told us that it's important to bring all the clothes that we will need because they're more expensive there, and we're going to need to bring an extra pair of "throw-away" tennies for our work in the slums.



The two primary slums that we'll be working in when we arrive are called Cidade de Deus (often referenced as City of God) and Rio das Pedras (River of Stones), but we'll be living in Barra da Tijuca. Click here to see an interactive map of our ministry area. Jay described to us the potential pousada that we'll be living in, and it sounds like a great option because it's in a great location and there is already a connection with the non-Christian manager so there's ministry potential there, but we're still praying because the cost to live there is higher than we anticipated. However, we'll be staying with Jay and his wife Luciane the first few days we're there anyway so it's ok if we don't find one before we leave.

Please be praying with us as we close in on a week before departure-
-Find an affordable apartment within our area of ministry
-Today, they're officially launching the "church-plant" in the City of God slum, led by Pastor Sergio
-Began registration for the A29 Bootcamp, that they'd affectively get the word out about it
-For Jay as he's working to get A29 Brasil off the ground and to settle into his role as Executive Pastor at Barra Presbyterian Church while still learning the language
-A smooth-ish transition down there as we're tying up loose ends here, and trying to avoid colds
-Find someone to take over as teacher of our ESL class here that we really cherish

For now, enjoy these pictures from the Rodeo and check out Giulian's previous post on Culture Shock for the video.

This is our Tim McGraw and Faith Hill

Our favorite

With our giant turkey leg

I just had to put this one in here, how cool is that?!