Children's Day Special Celabration. October 12th

Hope all of you have had a great Sunday.  We had a great day.  Here in Brasil we celebrate a day for the children.  This day is celebrated on October 12.  Since it was in the middle of the week we had something special for them today.  We are running the van and a bus on Sunday morning.  Today we had a great service and had several new visitors.  Odali use the colored bracelet to tell the about God.  Then each child got a bracelet to take home.

That way the children can tell their parents what they learned at church.  Most of the children come from homes were no one goes to church.  The truth is  that most of them come form home with single moms.  We also had other activities since it was a special days.  We don’t do egg hunt but we did a sucker hunt.  Boys  X  girls.  We hid 100 white ones for the boys and 100 pink ones for the girls.  They had to see how could find more the fasted. 

To finish the service we served the hot dogs.  We always serve lunch.  But hot dogs are special.  Believe it or not it cost more to serve hot dogs than a full meal. 

We want to thank all of those who pray for this ministry and us.  God bless each of you.

Please pray for us as the court hearings about the closing of the home will be starting.  We know that God is in control, but it puts a lot of wear and tear on us.  Pray that God give us the strength that we need for each day.

Pictures of the Changes being made.

Varnishing

 We are working hard to get the new auditorium ready to use.  We are also getting classes ready from the nursery to the adolescents.  Things are starting to look good.  Here are some pictures so that you can pray for us and be thankful for what God is going to do and for what He has done.  We greatly appreciate your prayers and your support. God Bless each of you.

Chairs look beautiful!

Testing the Sound

Toddles class room

Nursery being worked on. 

Adolecents classroom. They have started sanding so they can paint. The theme they have chosen is, " ALIEN in this world".

Fixing the Garden in the Front of where the entrance to the auditorium is.

Library changed rooms and is just about ready to be used!

Our goal is to have it ready the same day as the new auditorium.

New plans for Church and Chruch Ministry

Greetings Dear folk!

It is hard when you get used to using a computer for everything. Not having one to use without being broken more than working. We finally decided we better get a new one before we lost all that we had on the old one. We should be set for a good while.

We are doing great. We took some time off and went on vacation. We had not had a vacation for some four years. Since our boys like the beach we went down to Caraguatatuba where my brother Epitacio is pastor. Even though I was on vacation I preached 3 times at the church that he pastors.

We are making new plans for our church here in Garça. We will be working with Pastor Gilberto who is pastor is Marilia. There are several mission points that are going through some difficult situations, mostly a need for pastors.

Also pastor Gilberto and I have visited several cites in a one hour radius that still do not have Baptist churches.

We have bought a lot in Marilia and have already built a house for a pastor to live in. We will be starting a building there next. Also one of the plans there is to open a bible institute.

This lot is only 1.5 miles from the 4 universities in Marilia. We are praying that God will prepare some one that would love to work with the college students. There are over 30.000 students that attend these colleges. This is a tremendous opportunity.

We will be moving our services to the building where we used to have the school. Since we have so many kids on Sunday morning and we will be working with Sunday school classes where we can move the kids into the classrooms more easily. We will be fixing some things like painting, changing some doors and things like that.

We have been working on getting the library ready to open. But we will have to make a change and move it to a smaller room and leave the bigger room for the auditorium for the services. We hope that we can have all this ready in the next 2 weeks.

Pray for us, and all our new plans. Thanks for your prayers and support.

Odali and Kathy

odali_kathy@hotmail.com

God's Beautiful Creation

Things here at our home, Alpha and Omega are just doing great. Everything out side is getting absolutely beautiful. It is getting close to the beginning of spring. We have a weeping willow tree that is beautiful. This kind of tree has a red flower that looks like a brush.

The green from the other trees are so bright. Each day God surprises me with all that He has created. Things are never the same. Every day I try to see God in all that He has made. So many times we just remember and think of God by the BIG blessing that he sends our way and/or if our health is good. You know dear friends there is more to it than just that. Ask God each day to help you see him through the things he has created. You will probably be surprised when you see the things that you have missed. The other day I was sweeping my porch, and thinking about God. As I was thinking I said to God, Let me know you are hearing me. when I looked down to continue sweeping, there was a black and red bug crossing the porch. I had never seen the bug before, it was perfect.


Today several of us have been carrying and cleaning things where we are going to set up the church auditorium. We are moving the library to a smaller room. We still have lots to do, but we are excited about the new plans. I will take some pictures of what we are doing so those of you who have been here can see what we are doing. Thanks for your prayers for us and the work here.
God's blessing to all of you.

Sorry for not having new updates.

Greetings Dear folk!

It is hard when you get used to using a computer for everything. Not having one to use without being broken more than working. We finally decided we better get a new one before we lost all that we had on the old one. We should be set for a good while.

We are doing great. We took to me time off and went on vacation. We had not had a vacation for some four years. Since our boys like the beach we went down to Caraguatatuba where my brother Epitacio is pastor. Even though I was on vacation I preached 3 times at the church that he pastors.

We are making new plans for our church here in Garça. We will be working with Pastor Gilberto who is pastor is Marilia. There are several mission points that are going through some difficult situations, mostly a need for pastors.

Also pastor Gilberto and I have visited several cites in a one hour radius that still do not have Baptist churches.

We have bought a lot in Marilia and have already built a house for a pastor to live in. We will be starting a building there next. Also one of the plans there is to open a bible institute.

This lot only 1.5 miles from the 4 universities in Marilia. We are praying that God will prepare some that would love to work with the college students. There are over 30.000 students that attend these colleges. This is a tremendous opportunity.

We will be moving our services to the building where we used to have the school. Since we have so many kids on Sunday morning and we will be working with Sunday school classes where we can move the kids into the classrooms more easily. We will be fixing some things like painting, changing some doors and things like that. We have been working on getting the library ready to open. But we will have to make a change and move it to a smaller room and leave the bigger room for the auditorium for the services. We hope that we can have all this ready in the next 2 weeks.

Pray for us, and all our new plans. Thanks for your prayers and support.

Odali and Kathy

April News

WOW! Easter is here already. We have had several things going on here. Since the beginning of this year many wonderful things have happened. Sorry we have been slow on getting things on the blog. Today I will try to get you all caught up on the news and what is going on here.

As many of you know, we no longer work with children at the home. We have been helping adults that come from the same situation that the children we worked with did. From time to time the city´s social workers ask if we can help with some families. We talk to each person that comes and see if we can help.

Some people ask us if it is easier to work with adults or with the children. Well…… Let´s put it this way; adults are set in their ways and must want to change. But then if they don´t want to change you can ask them to leave. They are old enough to take care of the business. It is definitely a different experience.

We are still having the music classes here at the church. The students are coming along very well.

We had a group of people from Caraguatatuba were Odali´s brother has been a pastor for over 14 years. We had a great time of fellowship with them.

Also, while they were here the church from Marilia and Vera Cruz come over and spent the day. We had activities during the day and services at night. Every one enjoyed the good eating and the fellowship.

We are having a great number on Sunday morning. The attendance is growing continuously. We had so much rain that for almost 2 months it was hard to pick people up on the bus route. The rain was great, but we are also thankful that it has stopped and now we are having great numbers on the routes. We have started visiting again. We are working on bringing out the children’s parents. There have been several parents that have been coming. Another thing that has been different is the parents are bringing the kids and putting them on the bus to come to Sunday school. We are planning on having a special day first week in June, FAMILY DAY. Pray for us for this day.

Pray for the lady that is helping us with our Library. Her name is Suely.

She comes to church every Sunday, but has not made a profession of faith. She has crippling arthritis and has some difficulty in getting around. We pick her up to work in the library. To help these people financially we find different kinds of jobs that they can do so they can make money. Teaching them responsibility and the importance of maintaining themselves is one of the main things. Pray for each one of these people that they may especially come to know the Lord and Savior. As human beings we would give up on most people, but Graciously God does not. He loves taking people like Moses, who murdered a man and transformed him in to a great leader even with all his fears and disabilities. That is what It´s all about. God´s power of transformation. Praise God for His love and mercy.

One of the places where we have done some work has given us a good amount of paint. We will be able to paint lots of our rooms. We are thankful to God for the gift.

Garça is a small city and there are not too many things to do here. I don´t even think the movie theater is working. But we do have a bowling lane now. Can you believe that!!!! The teens had a competition of memorization and other things and the winner got to pick pizza or the bowling.

Titus our son won, and since he does not like pizza they went bowling. It was his first time and he really enjoyed it.

The youth are going to camp this week. They are excited about going. Pray for those that are taking them and for their safety.

Music class

We have a group from church that is taking music lessons. Here in Brasil students do not study music in school. If one wants to learn music or how to play and instrument he must take private lessons. After 2 months of classes they played and sang for Christmas. They were so nervous. But we are very proud of them. Our oldest student is the lady playing bass. We were surprised when she said that was the instrument she wanted to learn to play.

We have had so much rain here. We are thankful that we do not live in an area that has floods. If we did we would certainly be wiped out. The rain has done lot of damage in town but it has not taken any lives.
Our school year starts this week. The kids of course have mixed emotions. They want to see their friends but studying part ..... oh well.
We want to thank those of you who sent special gifts for Christmas. We deeply appreciate your kindness. May God bless each of you.

The church is doing great. Last week we had 5 people saved. Pray for these babes in Christ as they grow in the Lord each day.
We have a new mother here with 3 children. She came for help with a social worker from the city asking for a place to live. She was a drug addict. She has been using cocaine most of her life. When we had the HOME two of her brothers lived with us. They had the same problem. They came from a family (well if you can call it a family) that had no structure what so ever. Unfortunately that is becoming more common around the world. The Devil is not too fond of structured families that serve God. Actually the devil started working with Adam and Eve. The first misunderstanding they had was accusing each other. Pray for this young lady. She just turned 30 and has 3 kids ages, 11, 6 and 2.

End of year..... Had a great time

Christmas!!!!!

Hey friends,

Hope all of you had a great end of year. That you holidays with your family and friends was great. We had a great time and mostly enjoyed just having fellowship with friends and church members.

We have finished most of the painting of the front part of the building. The building is so big that it take time and lots of paint.

We took the church to the farm again for a day. Everyone had a great time. Every one enjoyed the water and the water falls. Those who were young enough or better strong enough went to the bigger falls. The place is just beautiful.

We had a great Christmas Eve dinner. On New Year’s Eve we had our dinner outside. We had grilled skibobs and salads. We played card games, volley ball and the kids had fun playing together. It was just a wonderful time of relaxation.

We are trying hard to get the library ready to be opened by the end of January. Getting all the books registered of computer takes some time. Especially went those who are typing are not professional typist. We had some nice desk donated to us from a school in town. So we went and took out the ones that we had that we old and not in good shape. All the desk that we had, were given to us by others schools that were going to through the away.

We thank all of you that stay in contact with us and that keep us in your prayers and support this ministry. May God bless all of you and your loved ones and may the year of 2011 be a year full of God blessing in your lives.