End of another semester

In my last blog, I announced that I am pregnant, so I wanted to give a quick update to let you know that I am 10 weeks pregnant! That means the baby will be born sometime early May, I think. Since ultrasounds are so hard to understand, I helped out with an outline of what the baby sort of looks like.

Last week we had the send off of the DTS students for their 2 month outreach. The 3 month practical training went very well. We were very pleased with the group of young people the Lord sent us. They are a very young group, most of them all in their early 20s, so they were very energetic and enthusiastic. It was fun to have been able to participate a lot more with this group than last semester.

One of the projects I have been wanting to do for a long time is to start a mural ministry. This semester I shared the idea and a team of 6 students loved the idea as well. We made arrangments with the local public school ( a school with over 800 students) and in 4 days were able to complete the mural with an anti-drug message: ``The power is in your hands, say NO to drugs!`` 

Check out a little bit of the process:

After the mural was finished we planned an ``anti-drug walk`` through town. The whole school got involved and on the day there were over 300 kids walking and helping the DTS students carry `say no to drug` signs and slogans. It was a great success. Unfortunatly I don´t have any pictures to show you right now because I was not feeling good that day and was not able to go on the walk, but praise God for the impact that YWAM had and is having in the community.

Besides the weekend outreaches the students took part in, they also had a very big involvement with our drug rehab center (PROAME). It was a big effort on everyone´s part because it took 3 buses and 2 hours each way to get there each time! But the impact these young men and women had on the men in recovery was worth it and many students said their time at PROAME was the best time of their DTS so far! Praise God!  This is one of our initiatives as leaders of the base to involve the DTS more and more in mercy focused outreaches as well as evangelism.

At the base they were also involved with our children at risk project (Terceiro Espaço). Some of them assisted me in my weekly art classes, which was great.

 One of the weekend outreaches was at our church two weeks ago. Mario is the missions coordinator at our church (he also disciples the leaders of the small groups that work with the youth) so we planned a missions service. Mario also preached and challenged our church to be more involved with missions. Our church is just now ``waking up`´ to the need for missions and it was good for them to see our work and what we do with training young people.

 Now for a bit of family update: Jonas has been training in a new soccer school this past semester. He plays golley and has been doing increadibly well. Next year he will be taking a training test which will be judged by professionals who are looking for new soccer players to train to become professionals. If he passes he will have everything paid by sponsors and will live in a another state and have uniform, food and everything he needs paid for. It is his dream to go professional, so we are doing all we can to support him...

 His new team...

Since he has been doing so well, Mario surprised him and gave him a ticket to see a professional game that took place her in Goiania a few weeks ago. He was grinning from ear to ear the whole time!

Last saturday Mario had the privaledge of baptizing 3 young guys from our drug rehabilitation center. Pr. Abraham (in purple) baptized two others, one was a DTS student he had been discipling 

who had never taken that step before. It was very exciting!

I had to hold Lucas the whole time and at one point had to take him away from the scene because he did not understand why I wouldn´t let him baptize with his dad! When all the baptism were done I finally freed him from my grip and he almost jumped in clothes and all! Lucas is quite a water boy!! 

 This is why God says we need to be like children! They are never afraid to plunge into their Father´s arms!