English Oasis

I didn't realize how much I miss being surrounded by English until this week when we went to an English church service. Some American friends of ours from the mission found out that a local English school (which is run by a Christian) has a worship service in English once a month and they invited us to also come. I can't tell you how refreshing it was to be surrounded by a language you can completely understand and for once to be the one who does not speak with an accent! It was also so refreshing spiritually to be able to hear a message and sing songs in my heart language. We definitely plan to return for the next service at the end of September. I also mentioned the service in my English conversation class and everyone seemed interested in coming too! What a great opportunity!

Speaking of fun in English, here's a little peak into how getting together with my family has changed drastically now that we're VERY far apart.

Where do you think we are in the above picture? Believe it or not, we're at a birthday party! My brother Joseph, who is in NJ, turned 21 last week. Rather than just celebrating with the small part of the family still in NJ, my dad decided to invite us in Brazil and my other sisters in VA and SC to join them at the party on a conference call via Skype. For those of you who don't know Skype, it's a free computer program that you can use to call anyone in the world computer to computer for free! It is so great to live overseas at a time where communication is so easy!
Back in the world of face to face communication, I was finally able to take some pictures of my conversation class. As you can see, the class is grew a little from last week since one of the students who missed last week came back, and another student will be able to return in a few weeks. So, it looks like I will have 6 students in total, which seems to be a perfect number - big enough for fun activities, but small enough to know each student individually.
Here the students are working in pairs to discuss some questions before coming back together as a group.
Please continue to pray for us as we meet together.

This week Jeyson took the camera to the hangar and got some good photos:

It was Friday afternoon and it looks like things were wrapped up for the week.

Well one last thing to fill you in on is our "newlyweds" Bible study that I mentioned last week. We were so excited to start last week but several of the couples were sick and couldn't make it. We decided it was better to start strong with the whole group together so we put the first get together on hold until tonight. This evening will be the first of the four meetings and I'll let you know next time how it goes. Please pray for us if you think of it!