Dear Friends and Family and Colleagues,

Today brought new opportunities for each of the Salvationist Service Corps in their respective locations. If you’ve been keeping up with them on Facebook then you have already received the information that follows but if you don’t, I thought you might appreciate hearing a bit about what each team has been up to. In case you’d like to keep up with them on Facebook, here’s a link to their page link. Please keep in mind that some of the teams do not have access to the internet as often as the others so their posts are a bit more infrequent. I hope you enjoy!

Joy

Brazil (June 24)

After a wonderful first week in Sao Paulo and a 2-hour bus ride through the beautiful mountains of Brazil, we arrived to Vila de Pescadores (English translation: Village of Fishermen) on Monday! We have had so much fun here at the Vila; lots of shoveling, building, molding, painting, and memorizing the names of all of the children here. As our Portuguese has been slowly improving, so have our construction skills- we have been hard at work remodeling the backyard of the center (Extreme Home Makeover: Brazil Edition, we like to call it). So far, we have successfully painted two entire walls (one mint green with chocolate brown and one white), made about 10 buckets of cement, built two brick mini-walls, created a garden, and placed mosaic tiles on the floor of the barbeque area! Although most of us girls have never done anything of this sort of work before, it has been a great experience! We quickly learned that concrete makes a great hand exfoliator and excess paint on your fingernails can pretty much be considered as a free manicure. It can be described as a win-win situation; the work gets done AND we finish the day with better looking hands! This whole week has been full of “highs.” We are so blessed to be able to spend another week here in this incredible place!

Aside from the backyard makeover (pictures to come, of course), we have spent a significant amount of time hanging out with all of the children that enter the Community Center building. So much fun! Even though we are a bit worn out by the end of the day, their energy and joy keep us up until the late hours of the night (okay, maybe not so much of “late”…..9-10 pm to be exact), and it has been the perfect start and ending to every day of this week. These children range from the ages of 6-18, and they are some of the best ping pong players and crochet-ers we have ever seen! (Just in case you were wondering, YES even the boys love to crochet!) A week of around-the-world ping pong, Uno- the most chaotic version you can imagine, and scarf/blanket making—what could be better? We are in LOVE with this city and are already so sad that we have to leave next week! Plans to move here one day may or may not have been already made….

Kenya (June 23)

We have just arrived back in Nairobi after spending a week in Embu. The team had an amazing first week. Every day was filled with adventure as they played with children, held Crusades (open airs) where they danced, sang, and preached, and the Bible studies they shared. From the sounds of it, the team has had so much fun and received so much from the Lord. The children love touching the boys’ beards and playing with the girls’ hair. And one game the children have absolutely loved has been the parachute, who would have known something so “simple” would be SO MUCH FUN!

Booth and Morgan have done the preaching at the meetings, while Jerry, Meagan, Grace, and Wendy have led the Bible study where they teach about God’s purpose for the kids’ lives. Something the Kenyan’s have taught the team has been their gospel dancing. There have been many times the team has talked about being pulled into a group of Salvationists dancing for the Lord.

Sri Lanka (June 17)

Hello! The Sri Lanka team is happy to finally update everyone on all we are doing here! Internet has been hard to come by and when we get a more stable connection we will be updating with photos and stories of all we have encountered. The trip here was arduous; a delay in Atlanta, a two hour delay in Amsterdam, which caused us to miss our flight in Mumbai/Bombay… however, the Lord is good and we arrived safely. I can speak for everyone on the team by saying this trip has been amazing. Sri Lanka is beautiful and full  the friendliest people we have ever encountered! The food is spicy, hearts are warm, and we have been welcomed with open arms. The first day was spent doing visitations around the capital of Colombo ( a local corps and a boys home). Yesterday we traveled to Baticaola, a ten hour drive, which is where we will be for the next 2 days. The trip here has been unreal for some of us… today was spent doing visitations. The people of this area have been affected by a 30 year civil war (which just ended last year), the 2004 Tsunami, as well as a flood earlier this year. The are many non-government agencies, many of them Christian such as The Sal. Army, World Vision, etc. that are working to help this area rebuild. Tomorrow we will be entertaining over 400 kids with songs, games, and arts & crafts. They will be busing the children to a beach where we will conduct the program… There are simply no words to describe the excitement and anticipation of hanging our with these kids. Photos will come soon but truly the faces of these children evoke the innocence and pureheart of Christ. They have been a blessing and we can’t wait to be a blessing to them. We cannot wait to share more of all that is happening as we push to advance the kingdom on this side of the world… face to face, word by word, hand by hand, all for the glory of Our Savior!