Michigan Missions Group

Greetings from Brazil!

I'm sorry for the recent silence--we have a group of American high schoolers down here this week and it's been pretty busy! Yesterday and today were supposed to be spent camping on Pedra Grande, but due to weather we ended up staying at a little retreat center, playing soccer, doing team-building activities in the woods, and helping build a fence.

The best thing is that I got to try being a translator for the first time! WOW is it hard! I never thought I'd be translating after only 3 weeks here, and I still feel very unequipped, but I'm learning over and over how God chooses to use us because we are weak and because we lack the skills that God is ready to provide us with. Not that I could suddenly speak fluent Portuguese, but having faith that God had equipped me with the necessary abilities gave me the confidence to attempt a task I may never have tried otherwise.

Tomorrow the whole American group, plus some people from our church, are going to a tourist town called Serra Negra a few hours away. There is a small church where we will run a music clinic (I only have to teach keyboard this time, as far as I know...) and we will go into the schools, where they let us teach Bible to the kids. The public schools here are required to offer religious education, which means that we can come out and give them the Gospel plain and simple! It's an amazing opportunity! We will also be doing some street evangelism and taking part in a church service or two before coming back to Atibaia Sunday afternoon.