Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!

We would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy 2008!! We are currently enjoying our holidays with Matt's family in West Virginia. We return to Brazil on January 4 and upon return, we will share what's been happening around here! God bless all of you!

My Brazilian Namesakes

Here in Brazil I go by the name of Mateus - that's the Portuguese equivalent of Matthew. Some people here like to call me "Grande Mateus" - Big Matt! That's a nice nickname. But I'm not the only Mateus in town. I'm going to tell you about two of my namesakes - or xará as we say in Portuguese (pronounced sha-RAH). Let me introduce you to Pequeno Mateus and Médio Mateus.

This is Pequeno Mateus - Little Matthew. He is the newly adopted two-year old son of our sister in Christ, Luzia. She has been waiting 4 years in the adoption line for this moment! Finally, two weeks ago, her adoption was approved and she "gave birth" to a wonderful two-year old boy whose name happened to be Mateus. Coincidence? Providence! Mateus is a real energetic guy, smart, likes playing with construction toys, and loves to eat. Sound like anyone you know?

Little Mateus is also very affectionate. He took to us, especially to me, right away. We are so happy for Luzia, that God has been faithful to her and rewarded her patient waiting & praying for a child. Pray for her as she begins motherhood in mid-life! Pray also that this will continue to strengthen her relationship with her ex-husband, as he & Luzia have been in dialogue over recent months. The coming of Little Mateus may be one more step in God's plan to bring this couple back together!

Now I want you to meet Médio Mateus - Medium Matt. He is 13 years old. He is the son of Dídio and Valéria, whom I introduced in a previous post. Once a month we go to their house church on Sunday nights to encourage them and the others that meet with them. In January, Dídio, Mateus, and several others were involved in a serious car accident; no one was killed, but Dídio and Mateus were both severly injured. The whole incident caused Dídio, who used to be very indifferent to God and church, to rethink his life. He was baptized earlier this year. Two months ago, Mateus decided to be baptized as well! Praise God for how he has transformed this family!

Mateus has an affectionate nickname among his relatives - "Presuntinho" (Little Ham). So does that make me the "Big Cheese?" Yeah, I know, you're rolling over in laughter right now.

It's good to know that these two guys, Pequeno Mateus and Médio Mateus, are doing justice to the name Mateus/Matthew - which for you fans at home, means "Gift of God!"

House Church Retreat

Since the beginning of the year, I've had an idea to do a retreat just with the church that meets in our house - for two purposes: to encourage our members, and to provide an informal atmosphere to which they could invite their friends for evangelism. This past weekend, Dec. 1-2, we were able to have our retreat. We spent these days in the same house in Nova Petrópolis where we had the mens retreat in October. Everybody loves this house and its big, ample green space - I wish I owned this house!There were plenty of fun & uplifting activites for all.

For the guys, there was futebol, of course - that's how men bond. Judging from the quantity of sweat on my shirt, you wouldn't think that I was an in-shape marathon runner!

For the girls, it was reflection and sharing time on Sunday morning. The weather was perfect to enjoy the outdoors.

There were also some pranks, as there are on any good retreat - Renato getting chained up during naptime, and Dariu holding a broken ax for an hour while the glue dried!

Unfortunately, only two of our families (the Signorettis) could go on the retreat - the other families had situations come up that impeded their ability to go with us. The great thing is that the Signoretti clan invited two other families to come with us! They invited Cici, Renato's cousin, and his wife Leticia & son Ryan. They also invited Dariu & Mara, great friends of Renato & Branda, and their daughters Fernanda, Bruna, and Vitória. We had a great worship time on Sunday and talked openly about what following Jesus means in everyday life, and what it means to participate in a church.

L-R: (kneeling) Renato, Vitoria, Dariu, Regis, Vinicius (standing) Guilherme, Fernanda, Wagner, Bruna, Branda, Mara, Ryan, Cici, Leticia, Conceição, myself, and Waleska! We hope and pray that this retreat will spur more spiritual growth in all our lives! I have to include this shot of a butterfly we managed to capture that was fluttering around in the woods - in sunlight, it literally glows a sensational daytime brilliant blue. My camera flash jazzes it up a bit too much...I wish you could have seen this butterfly. Divine poetry in motion!