New Years, Conferences, and more…

white elephant gift exchange

David and his new blouse :)

So the cell group had a fun Christmas party where I taught them the white elephant gift exchange, and thankfully it went really well! The best was seeing David, the 6′4″ Canadian intern get a little blouse! Thankfully (for him) it was stolen and he got to pick something else :) Every year the PAZ missionaries here in Santarém get together and do our own white elephant and then camp out on the beach, where we tell our New Year goals around the campfire. This time a bunch of us also decided to get up really early and climb our little “mountain” to take pictures of the sunrise. After we finally got to the top in the dark, it turned out to be a really cloudy morning so we couldn’t see the sunrise and it started raining on us at the top. Needless to say, it was a blast and another memory we have when we look at the not so good pictures taken and laugh!

it's good!

putting up the tents

And for 2 weeks in January it’s been conference after conference. I got to jump over to Mt Alegre with the interns to do some filter supervision for a couple days, then got back just in time for a leadership conference where PAZ leaders from all our bases came together for a wonderful time of fellowship and teaching. Right after that I debriefed with the interns and said good-bye just before the PAZ Missionary Conference started where all the foreign missionaries get together from all the PAZ bases for another great time of fellowship and teaching. So I’m fueled up and ready to race. I’m excited to see what God is going to do through our cell group. The upcoming leaders in the cell are all planning on starting evangelistic groups in or near their homes which they plan on turning into actual cell groups once they start winning their neighbors, friends, and families for the Lord…so we’re look at multipling our cell group in 3, praise the Lord! Oh, and just fyi, we’ve moved our cell group hopefully for the last time, because now it’s inside my parent’s house.

nothin like a camp fire on the beach

Well, I’ve got about 2.5 weeks of focus time before I start traveling for another 2 weeks with the water filter project. I’ll be taking Carolina, Samaritan’s Purse’s water filter supervisor for all of South America, to supervise the work we’re doing. So I’d really appreciate your prayers as I plan for that (a lot of long distance planning) and as I work on catching up from the last 2 weeks of no internet. Thanks so much!

Much love,
Paul