News from Merlyn and Mario Milhomem: Home Sweet Home!

In my last post I talked about the situation that the base is going through because of debt that was not taken care of in the past but that now is own main concern as new leaders of the base. We are still praying about this and raising the money to pay the land. It will continue to be our main priority as a base... One of our personal worries was about our own home. As many of you know the house which we have been living in, is not our own house, but belongs to friends who are serving the Lord in Angola. They have graciously allowed us to live in their home for the past year and a half- rent free! But we have always known that sooner or later they would be comming back and that we would have to find another place to live. They decided to come back in July or August of next year (2010). God has made it very clear to us that He wants us to continue to invest in Brazil, so we began praying that the Lord would provide a home on the base for us.... A few months ago the house in the picture below was being used by the drug rehabilitation center for a second phase to the program, but after more than a year the leaders of the rehab center told us that they didn´t want to continue the second phase of the project on the base for several reasons. So they left and the house was empty for several weeks. Mario and I felt that maybe this could be the answer about a house that we were hoping for, so we meet with the base council and opened our hearts to them. To our great joy, the decision was unanimouse. They were giving us the house! (As long as we continue with YWAM it will be ours). Praise God for His goodness!

Here you can see the green house where we are living today in comparison to our new home. It is the very last one in the row. The house was built by a lady who decided to stay as staff after completing her DTS in 2002, but before she finished the house she changed plans and left the unfinished house to the base. After that, the rehab center made some changes to it here and there, but it still needs most of the finishing details. It is a one room house, so we decided to build an extra room for guests and for our kids that we hope to have in the future! We are also extending the small kitchen out and making the curent kitchen into a dinning room. We have had the help of 3 guys from the rehab center who have worked with contruction. The one making cement in this picture is named Coquinho. They have all been an increadible help!

Materials have been comming in consistently and has helped the work come along quickly, but the main man on the job has been Claudio...he has been an angel to us in this work. It´s hard to find a good construction worker here in Brazil, but Claudio has surprised us all with his professional work. He told us that is a way to say thank you for helping his recover from his drinking problem. Praise God!

While the men work on the contruction, I have also been working on my new garden!

In this picture you can see two trees that I have planted in the concrete circles in the middle...as you can see our house is right next to the bases´ windmill and water tank... The plants in the picture below were from that donation of plants that we received from the government plant nursery a couple weeks ago! When I mentioned to the lady who was making the donation that I was making my own garden she gave me these plants specifically to plant in my garden! Isn´t that awesome?!

The guy in this picture is named Silvio, he is 22 years old and has been learning construction so that he can get a job in that area when he finishes his time at the rehab. center. Pray that the Lord will keep him strong!

In this picture you can see the guest room that we building...

This other picture shows our new kitchen. Here in Brazil everything has to be made out of cement and steel because of termites, but also because wood is the most expenive building material.