25th May Update

Hello everyone.

Since my last update we have been working at our project church in Cajepe, walking distance form our house, full time. There is only ever 4 of our team t the project at a time but we switch after lunch so that there is always people there. The work that is included is plastering the inside walls of the church building. This work only needs 1 or 2 people at a time, so the other people go outside to talk and play with the kids that live near by. We have a worker that the church has given us that tells us what to do and sets the standard of plastering. We have all tried plastering but only a few people have got the right technique. Our worker has shown us how to do it properly and we are getting better now. It has been really fun playing with the children outside the church. Their ages range from 4 to 16 and 17. Most of the children come to the Church but we hope to get more coming soon.

On Fridays, the Pastor of the project Church in Cajepe organises an evangelism evening. We all meet at the Church and then we walk out to an area and set up chairs, microphone and instruments to preach, sing and also perform dramas. We have done this twice now and it has been really fun every time. The first time, Andrias and James from our team shared their testimonies, which had been translated into portugues, and we also played a couple of english and portugues songs. On the second evangelism night, we sung a few songs and also performed and drama, which people said was really great.

We have been asked as a team to organise a kids club during the week for the children that we play with at the project Church. Our first kids club was last Friday. We themed the club on the story of Noah and the great flood. Games and craft were included in the club and we got the children to make animal masks that had bible verses on the back of them. After the games and craft, we performed and drama with the whole team and it went down really well. We are planning to have a kids club once a week from now on.

Another great activity that we are going t door is door to door evangelism. The Pastor of the Cajepe Church is going to take 4 of the team around to different houses around the Cajepe area and he will be evangilsing to them. We are going to be doing this twice week starting from tomorrow. I am going to be joining in with this today and i am looking forward to it.

So far this project has been really fun and very different to our last project in Aldeia. It has been really nice living in town and being so close to shops. It has made the trip to buy food for the day much easier. We can also walk into the centre of Serra Talhada in around 20 minutes. I have really loved all the relational aspects of this project. We have already got to know so many children for the Cajepe area and also quite a few of the parents too. The members of the Church that we live above have been very welcoming and we have made many good friends already. We have decided to rotate who goes to the 2 churches in the evenings. 5 people go to the Church we live above and 5 people people go to the Project Church in Cajepe. This means that we make and appearance at both churchs all the time. The Church in Cajepe is quite small at the moment but it is rapidly growing.

I have got a couple of pictures of our new friends from the church and also our first kids club we organised:



I am really looking forward to all the things that are to come in Serra Talhada. It has been really good so far and I know our time will only get better.

Thank you for reading.


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12th May Update

Hi everyone

We have now settled into our new house at the second project in Serra Talhada. It is a flat with 4 rooms which was owned by the pastor of the church we are working with. The flat is located directly above the church so there is easy access to the main church building. All ready we have felt so welcomed by all the church members and have made great friends already.

Our project is mainly to finish off building and refurbishing a church that has been planted by the church we are with. 2 years ago a Latin Link team, similar to us, came to work for the church and they built the building we are finishing off. It is amazing to see what the land looked like before they came and how much it has changed now. We will not be working at the church plant all the time. During the day our group is split in 2 and half the group either go to a school to perform and spread the gospel, or they plan what the group will do when we are given opportunities the go to schools or even do kids bible camps. The other half of the team work out the building doing plastering and possibly painting. The 2 groups switch at lunch time so that everyone gets a fair amunt of jobs. We have not started work on the project church yet because a few things need to be done at the church we are living at such as making doorways and plastering walls.

I realy hope that we settle in even more over the coming weeks and that we really enjoy our time in Serra Talhada. Moving from our house in Aldeia is quite a change but I am sure we will get used to our current house soon.

Here are a couple of pictures of the church building we will be building at, some work we have done at the church we attend and also pictures of the house we are living in:

Thank you for reading

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5th May Update

Hi everyone.

I am currently in Porto Galinhas for our one week team holiday. It is really nice spending more time as a team going places and seeing sites. Since my last update the project in Aldeia has nearly been finished off. Sadly we were not there long enough to see the bulding work completely finished but it will be finished very soon without any trouble. The football pitch is going to have really high metal fencing to stop balls from flying out of the land. We put up very tall poles for the fencing. On tuesday night a gigantic JCB digger came to level out the playing feild that was at a great slant. At first we were going to be digging the field by hand but seeing how much was dug up by the digger, it was good we had not dug it by hand. It was really good to see the project at its final stages of completion. In july, when the project will be completely finished, the centre will be used for many different types of camps. There will be a camp every week in July with different age ranges and also camps in every week of January. It will be really nice to see the centre being used by children that will attend the camps. I hope to one day come back to brazil to see the centre in use with my own eyes.

Being in Aldeia has been really great and I am going to miss the church, the friends we have made, and the beautiful scenery we lived in. I am really looking forward to our next project in Serra Talhada and can´t wait to get stuck in with the people there and the church we will be working with. I hope that after the team holiday that everyone will be energised for the next 7 weeks. The next project is going to involve a lot more social activities and possibly a small amount of practical work such as painting.

Here are a couple of pictures of the final stages of the building project:

I am going to update my blog again as soon as i can when i get to Serra Talhada.

Thankyou for reading

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