Victories in the Lord

So much has happened in the last couple of months I don´t even know where to begin this post...I am 6.5 months pregnant as I sit and write here and most of my thoughts lately have to do with our baby boy who should be arriving sometime in mid May. I am in the midst of preparing the ``nest`` for his much awaited arrival. We just finished some much needed painting around the house and finally bought that new closet for the boys room I was hoping we could get and I just washed and ironed piles of clothes that I had saved from Lucas which now our little Daniel will be able to wear. They look great in the new closet! I am so glad I saved them!

Other than that there has been a whole lot of other stuff going on outside of me as well. Some of you may be wondering what came about of the drug rehab center moving to the base...well, it happened! It was a smooth transition and has been a welcome addition to our YWAM base family! Here are some pictures of the move:

 Our new kitchen! Pictured is Victor one of our recoverants who is a talented cook!

 These are all the guys that joined us (6 guys in the picture are staff)

Mario´s mom was a P.E. teacher and had a gym for many years which in the last few years was closed and she was trying to sell the equipment with no luck. Mario suggested that she loan the equipment to us and in exchange we would pay for the maintenence. She agreed and we had the equipment sent by truck and it arrived in the midst of the move so we had many men to help us with the set up.
Now we have a gym on our base! What a blessing!

Meanwhile at home...I´ve had a wonderful little helper in my own kitchen!

Jonas has also been a great help looking after Lucas every once in a while so I can have a break.

Mario had this new sand box built in our yard for Lucas. He´s enjoying it very much!

The rehab center not only brought a bunch of new people, but a whole addition of animals, including several parrots, chickens, ducks, geese and a dog. Lucas is loving the action!

A much needed relaxation at the end of the day...

Here´s a little bit of what went on inside our home in the last few weeks! I´m so glad it´s over!

 On February 19th we also began another DTS with 16 students from several parts of Brazil. 

We had a wonderful and blessed opening service...

 Three men who finished their recovery period are currently doing DTS! One of them is doing the course with his wife who also decided she wanted to take up the challenge! Praise God! What an amazing testimony!

 The DTS students agreed to help the base by raising funds to help us by a ``kombi`` (VW bus) for the base. The blue tin cans were passed around for those who also wanted to help raise funds...

 Something we were not expecting is to have our feet washed by the other leaders as a symbol that they are with us in this new journey! What an honor!

Mateus, the director of the drug rehab center was also honored...

as was his wife Mical  (they have been married just 4 months!)

I couldn´t leave out another very important event that actually took place before all the above, which was Lucas´ second birthday. It was on January 2nd, but we had the celebration on January 5th. Since his first birthday was a smaller event, we decided to make it extra special for him this year.

My parents were in the States for the event, so they were not able to be there, but all of Mario´s family was there (except for one uncle who couldn´t make it).

Mario´s oldest sister, Katharine, is also pregnant and expecting her little girl about the same time as our Daniel.

Mario´s family helped us out so we could rent some fun things for the kids...

 Some of the Terceiro Espaço kids (our children at risk project) joined the party and enjoyed some cotton candy...

and  Lucas could not get enough of the trampoline...

He jumped until the sun went down!!

We are so grateful for all the Lord has done! Serving the Lord full time brings it´s difficulties and challenges, but the Lord also gives us moments like these that refresh our souls! Thank you Jesus for all you´ve done!