Thanks to wonderful people who send financial gifts to help Action Missionaries bless others. ACTION has a Christmas fund that is designated to give ACTION missionaries the opportunity to organize an Evangelistic Christmas Meal every year (upon the missionaries request for the fund via a project). This year we decided to take advantage of this great opportunity to bless the many familes of the Terceiro Espaco (childen at risk) Ministry.
Here is a picture of some of the decorations...
We had over 70 people present at the Christmas Dinner that took place on the 22nd of December at the YWAM base.
Since this was the first time we were organizing an event of such proportions, we didn't know if we should expect more people than we counted, or if no one would show up at all! But in faith we planned, bought the food and decorations and with the help of some of the staff, my parents and a couple of people from my parents church who graciously helped us cook the meal (which consisted of a delicious strogonoff, white rice, two yummy salds and dessert)the event turned out to be a success!
Praise God there was enough food for everyone!
Of course the food was not the most important. Before the meal we had a short presentation for the parents about what the Terceiro Espaco is and showed a short video clip that I put together showing some of the events of the year. Mario also talked about some of the future plans that we have for the Terceiro Espaco, like the day care center that we want to start building, as well as investing more in the community in general. Mario had the wonderful idea of starting a center in the town (Palmares) where parents can denounce violence, drug problems, abuse and from there we can take that to the autorities.
This next year Mario is finishing his degree in social work, so he wants to start working in the community as a social worker. We pray that the Lord will open doors for us in this way...
(My parents also sang a duet)
After Mario, I also thanked the parents for this trust in us and opened a time for questions, but instead of questions one mother got up and with tears in her eyes started thanking us for what we are doing with her kids, then another got up, and still another...
It was so encouraging! It was not an easy year for the Project, I was basically running it alone this past semester and I wondered if I was making any difference at all! So those words were a breath of life to me and an encouragment from the Lord to keep the project going!
Not only were we able to bless the community with a nice hot meal, an evangelistic word about the real meaning of Christmas and what it means to have Jesus be born in our hearts, but we also received several boxes of non-perishable food from a church, which we separated into 10 gift bags and at the end of the event Roney (the one in the picture below) drew numbers from a hat and 10 different families went home with a heavy bag of goods on their heads!
These are just 3 of the families who received the food gift bags!
Praise God for the Wonderful things He has done!!!
Of course we also had our own family Christmas. This year Mario and I spent Christmas with my parents and some extended family. An aunt and uncle and the whole family (3 married sons and their families) all came to spend the holidays with us from another state (Matto Grosso) . It was the first time I spent Christmas with extentended family (since in Ecuador were we lived for 20 years no one could afford to come visit us). It was a new experiece for me and it turned out to be quite nice!
The only family member that couldn't be with us was my oldest brother Johnny and his wife Krista, who live in California. But he had a fun time talking to him on skype. Everyone got a chance to say "Hello!"
Look at that dinner! YUM!!
On the 26th all the relatives also came over to our home for afternoon coffe (turned out to be afternoon popcorn)...
The kids from the base had fun playing with their new friends for one afternoon. You can see who is related to me because they are all blond (it's the German blood)! :)
This is my second cousin (my cousin Jimmy's daughter). Isn't she the cutest!!?
This is my mom's Christmas tree that she made from a bunch of combined branches! You don't need a lot of money when you have creativity, see?! :)
MERRY CHRISTMAS
TO US ALL!!!
We weren't sure what to expect when we arrived, but we were told that Saint Marc in Haiti was receiving hundreds of refugies, children and some wonded victims, so we decided to take the bus headed to Saint Marc....
These medications have already been put to use. Today we spent the day helping the other nurses and doctors that were already here. There are teams arriving all the time, but Brazil and USA were the first to arrive here.
One of the main jobs that Mario and I had today was to register hundreds of earthquake victims from Port-au-Prince who came to Saint Marc. We are registering them as refugies so that they can receive government aid...
Yesterday when we arrived we unpacked the donations that we brought (as well as that of the US teams) and separated them, filed them and put them on shelves. 
