We are actually at the table!!! Eating like the big people! Before, we were like the puppies under the table nibbling on the crumbs, never getting enough to eat and feeling so empty. No I’m not talking about real food but spiritual and emotional. We are now understanding so much that it actually feels like we are at the table participating and “eating”. We are reading the Bible in Portuguese, and understanding sermons. Now all we need is to learn how to feed people.
We are both just about done with the actual language lessons so we will then technically know how to form everything we will just need to work on fluency and more vocabulary.Language funny: At the airport the announcement said that pregnant women and nursing (lactating) mothers could board first and Stephen thought they said people with lactose intolerance could board first. He wondered why they got preference.
Last Saturday the missionary training graduating class included Isaque’s “grandparents.”(who are about the same age as us….it’s a long story) We became so close to this couple that Stephen cried when saying goodbye to them but I get to see them again!
“If we were people from a tribe we would listen to you,” encouraged one from the graduating class.
We have decided that it would be a good idea for Stephen to take a trip up north to one of the missionary centers and work there for a month without me. This way he will be totally functioning in Portuguese and not thinking in English. (We usually talk in English at home.)
While he does that Isaque and I will take a trip to Peniel (the NTM Bible school here in Brazil). We will stay with Isaque’s “grandparents.”
We are both excited about our trips and hoping that they will really help us improve in the language.
After these trips we will have an evaluation and hopefully be cleared to move to Manaus where we can talk to the leaders and decide what tribe we will move to. Before we move into the tribe we will come back to the states for a short break.
We hope to be able to spend Christmas with family!
Pray:
- that we would not be distracted by the things of this world but that we would desire and thirst for the Lord and the things that last for eternity.
- for improvement in the language to communicate well
- for diligence, patience, wisdom, hope, joy, peace, love,….. 🙂
Praising the Lord for friends,
Stephen, Amber and Isaque Clement