It’s November and we are just 80 days or so away from getting on the plane to head back to what we called home 10+ years ago. 
I personally have felt many ups and downs during this process, but thank the Lord for allowing us plenty of time to process this change.

Nate working hard on math on the porch, away from the noise of the others in the living room.

Chelsea and Makenna working hard!

Maddy working on math, looks like Hannah already did her work and was playing outside.

 We have been on a good home-school schedule trying to get most subjects done by Christmas or at least by re-entry to the States. 

Church life…
Church life is going well. We are working with our leadership team to get them ready for walking on their own.

Chico and Nilza, our main leaders in Maribel

Chico and Nilza will be/are the main leaders of the Maribel church. 

We had a gal come back to the Lord a few weeks ago. I have had a few conversations with her since and asked Nilza to start discipling her. It brings joy to see discipleship happening and watching folks grow as they learn to walk with Jesus and show the way to others.

Alem do Veu

It took nearly 18+ months to accomplish a panoramic study from the Bible, but we did it!!!! 
Our friends, Steve and Sonia Armour, missionaries currently in Natal, Brazil, have worked many years developing this bible study in Portuguese. We were blessed to visit them last year and give them an update on our group. With the crazy, unpredictable culture of river folks, they were awarded certificates of completion. Some gave testimony that it helped them gain more knowledge and understanding of the Word of God and as Chico mentioned, it is the most treasured thing we have, the Word of God.

Chico with his certificate

Nilza with her certificate

Our Maribel Alem do Veu Graduates

Visitors…

We have had lots of visitors from Altamira and Maraba last month. The Snell Family are the newest missionary family living in Maraba and it was a mission for them to come all the way out(nearly 1000km) to see the work and bless us with bringing our sweetest Brazilian friends, Monica and Ivanildo and their family. It was a great surprise that they could also bring their kids(our kids were super happy) and a miracle that they could get the time off of school to come! We took them on a 3 day trip up river to visit communities that we regularly visit. We had 3 people give their lives to Jesus. Ivanildo shared and it was like a knife cutting through butter. We have visited this community many times and never had one salvation. We just kept planting seeds of friendship and watered them along with sharing the Lord with them. The Lord gave us a great gift in seeing hearts respond to Jesus! We were kissed by the sun and many mosquitos during that trip and the kids all did well!

Prayer time was very fruitful!

Special time of prayer over the youth in the village

A last good bye to this family and neighbors from Sao Fransisco!

Catching fish and eating mangos on the way.

Nate and his best bud, Marcos. Their birthdays are just one day apart!

Maddy, Bruna and Makenna in one last embrace.

Load ’em up and move ’em out! Jen, Phil, Ivanildo and Monica all piled in with the kids and heading back to Maraba! Thanks for the chocolate and s’mores, it was what the dr. ordered!!!!

Last weekend we had another missionary couple, Art and Cyndi Rae from Altamira come. They also brought a Brazilian couple we have known, to visit. They blessed us with lettuce, cheese, meat and watermelon!!!! It was a great treat!
We made homemade pizza with cheese in Maribel for the first time ever!!! Thanks Rae’s!

Cyndi Rae, Sheyla, Maddy and Makenna fixing up our pizzas in our kitchen in Maribel

Short and Sweet, praying before the Rae’s and our friends before they head back to Altamira.

Art giving the Brazilian thumbs up! Thanks for coming guys! We look ahead at travel for the next week or so. We are traveling up to Portel, where our co-laborers, Richie and Christie Bouthillier, who were in Porto de Moz, have started a new base much further up the river and onto the Amazon River. We will say our last good bye’s to them and a few of the Brazilians that moved there to help them plant a new church and work on the filter project there.

Maddy won “mustache” stickies from a treasure hunt!

Maddy surrounded by friends from Maribel

Maddy will celebrate her 12th birthday on Wednesday. The following day we will travel to Porto de Moz to see all our old gang, youth that are 6 yrs older now and some who have married and are starting families! It will also be our last good byes to them.

Our first visit to Porto de Moz in 2004. Lots of bbq’s on this beach,  relationships built, baptisms and relaxing family days happened here.

Our first months in PdMoz, taking the kids for a walk! Richie and Christie had little ones too and it was great fun!

We appreciate your prayers this week as it will be emotional for us all saying good bye.
We plan to return to Brazil to visit but we just don’t know when we’ll see all of these folks, whom we love and will miss as they are all so spread out in the region we have lived these past years. 

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