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Thursday, July 24, 2008

Fabiana




Today I wanted to spend some time highlighting another of the students. Fabiana is 30 years old and comes to the program from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Fabi is the older of two children. Before studying to become a missionary, she studied chemistry. Fabi has been a regular participant in our after dinner discussions and last night I heard her talking to others about the tribulation and end times with some of the other students and members of our team. She is also a regular competitor in what has become our nightly game of HORSE and she has put me out of the game more than once. She also has a nice singing voice and has helped out with our morning worship.

Fabi currently works in her church with her pastor as she trains to enter the mission field. Right now she is planning on going to Tunisia (in Northern Africa) to do mission work amongst the Muslims there. Although her heart is set on working in Tunisia, she has been recently told by her pastor that she may be asked to serve elsewhere. Although she is a bit confused by this recent possibility of change, she is leaving her mind open to serving God wherever she is called to go. Please pray for Fabi as the decision on where she will go will be made in the near future.

I also wanted to spend a little time today talking about our Brazilian wildlife. First is the wildlife in the house. We are fortunate on our team to have Shelly who is a massage therapist. Over the last two weeks everyone in the house has benefitted from a neck massage. Last night when she was finishing up with a massage, the group started getting a bit silly and we ended up with a massage chain with each person giving a massage to the person in front of them. In the picture is Aline giving a massage to Shelly who is giving a massage to Carol who is massaging Debra who is massaging Robson who is massaging Daniel. Not pictured is Bianca who is receiving a massage from Daniel and giving a massage to Christy. We have grown very close to the students over the last two weeks and hopefully have formed friendships that will last beyond this time together.

As reported by Team 1, from time to time we have been visited by the local monkeys. Last week we could hear them in the trees and even caught a glimpse of a tail as they scurried away. But yesterday we had four of them visit us behind the house. In the trees behind the house is a tree with pods growing from them. It looked like the monkeys were eating these pods. There were two types of pods on these trees. Some had dried and were brown. When opened, the seed in the pod was similar to popcorn and was impossible for me to chew. But in the green pods, the seeds were still soft. I tried a few and I thought they tasted like a bean. If you look closely in the picture, you should be able to see three monkeys.

Half of our team toured the CEM (Center of Evangelical Missions) campus yesterday afternoon and the other half will go there today. CEM is affiliated with Interserve International and their campus has a two year program to train missionaries to go into the field. They also offer post graduate classes for pastors and missionaries. CEM is our hosting organization and they were responsible for finding the students who are taking part in this program. It would be impossible for us to do this program without them and we are thankful for the support they have given us during our stay.


This morning our thoughts are turning to Team 3. Thursday is the beginning of their travel day and we pray that their travel goes smoother than ours. I talked with Deb yesterday and she has reminded all of her team to pack their most important items in their carry-on luggage. We are happy that we were able to contribute to their preparation for the trip. As their journey begins ours is drawing to an end. We talked this morning at our team meeting and many on our team are not looking forward to leaving the students but are thoughts have begun to return to home.

Blessings from Brazil,


Dan and Team 2

1 comments:

htripp said...

Hi Bianca, miss you! Brazil looks amazing!
I'll pray for your team for a safe trip home!