Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Porto Alegre!

The Christmas Feast

For Christmas dinner we eat turkey, Greek rice with raisins and carrots, Greek potato salad, dressing, and a cake. I made some Texas pecan pie not to feel too homesick!

The Other Half of The Family

The Better Half of the Family

A Present for Felipe

I drew Felipe for our family Christmas gift exchange this year. Some of you may remember that Felipe helped me a lot with learning Portuguese when I was settling in to Porto Alegre in 2003.

Noite Feliz

This is a movie clip of everyone singing Silent Night at Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve- the tradition here is to eat at midnight.

A Family Reunion

For the first time in 15 years Ana´s father, Luiz, and his brothers Pedro (left) and Orlando spent Christmas together. This was the first time Ana and her brothers and sisters met Pedro, who also came with his children and grandchildren from the state of Santa Catarina. Maybe you read a blurb in the news about the terrible flooding in that state. The Lord was watching over them as their family was not directly affected by the floods. It was so good to unite with them and make many lasting memories.

A Marriage Blessing

Daniel and Miguelina were married in the Catholic Church a number of years ago, but because of several obstacles they were unable to register their wedding with the city clerk. They were finally able to do so in November of this year. So they asked me to do a marriage blessing for them at our December Celebration.

It Only Takes a Spark

For our Christmas Celebration I chose a combination of new and old songs. We sang Silent Night and that devo song we usually sing around a campfire that starts like so, ``It only takes a spark….``. Of course we were not around a campfire but that song speaks about evangelism and the importance of it.

A Creative Gift

I received a refrigerator doll made by my secret friend. He said it is supposed to look like me, so I guess I´ll let you be the judge of that. What do you think?

A Thoughtful Gift

For her present Ana received a colored rug made by hand by her secret friend. I don’t know how many hours her friend spent, but much work was put into it. This is the kind of thing we loved to see- people putting their heart into the gift, having little to do with actual value, but with sentimental value.

House Church Gift Exchange

We too, like many others around the world, like to have a gift exchange at the end of the year. This year each person in our house church drew one name. The goal was not simply to purchase a gift. This year each person had to "make" their gift by thinking of the personality of the person and creating something that the person would like.

Out-of-School Party

Here´s our version of an Out-of-School Party for teens (here the spring semester ends in December). Brazilians love to have parties at the end of the year, so in keeping with that tradition we wanted to do something fun with the teens who meet in our house church, so we chose a Friday night to take them to a pizza buffett called Al Capone´s. It was fun talking with them about what 2008 meant for them and what they are looking forward to in 2009.

Vitor, Ana´s brother, gave a testimony about what the Lord has done in the lives of he and his wife Loiva. They have wanted to be parents for the last four years, but because Loiva has endomitriosis she has not been able to become pregnant. She has taken several medicines to help her get pregnant but it has not worked. Their doctor recently told them that their only chance to get pregnant was if Loiva had the In Vitro procedure. With a lot of help from above she was able to set up an appointment for this procedure in February of 2009 when normally the wait is 2-3 years. The Lord has done an amazing miracle in their lives and we are praying that He will see them through to having a healthy pregnancy next year.