Merry Christmas!

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The End of the Year

Hello everyone! It’s Louissa here.

The end of the year is here and for us that also means the end of the school year. Our school holidays started at the beginning of  December. At school I have reached the end of year 9, and because of the way school is divided here it was my last year at Mater Dei, my current  school. Our graduation was on the 14^th of December. 

At my graduation with one of my teachers

I am thankful for the time I spent there and the friends I made. Next year I am going to "COC" (Curso Oswaldo Cruz) and Joshua will stay at Mater Dei. So far, I don’t know many people there so please pray that I will make friends.

This year I have carried on with my ballet and flute. On the 2^nd of December we had our ballet show. This year we did Paquita and after lots of hard work practising we were finally ready for our performance. 

This was my first year dancing with 'point shoes'. We received our certificates from our exams that we took in June. I did my Grade 4 this year and passed with merit.

In September I started studying for English literature and language IGCSE's (International GCSE's). For those of you that don't know, Joshua and I are doing homeschooling so that we can carry on our english at the level we would be studying back in England. 

I would like to thank everyone who supports us so that I can carry on at school, especially those who contribute specifically to my education. 

Prayer Requests:

• I don't know any people at my new school and my current school friends will not be going to the same school as me. Please pray that I will make friends there and that my friendships from Mater Dei will continue.
• Please pray for my English work because with my IGCSE's I have a lot more work to do. 
• Please pray than Joshua and I will have a successful educational year in 2013. 

Brazilians in Europe

Although we are involved mainly in what OM is doing in Brazil, we frequently send Brazilians to Europe. We wanted to include this month's Europe in Touch magazine, because there is very much a Brazilian presence, as you will see.

Please click here to open the document  in pdf.

OM on Globo!

One of OM's projects "Freedom Climb" has had national publicity here in Brazil on the "Globo" website. Globo is one of Brazil's best known news and current affairs channels with TV, magazines, web presence etc. Click on the links below to learn more about this amazing project!

Desde o princípio tenemos crido que Deus está à frente deste projeto, somos apenas meros participantes do que Ele mesmo deseja fazer em relação à vida destas mulheres e crianças que vão receber o investimento do projeto.

Vai aí um link da matéria que conseguimos com a Vanguarda...se o Senhor quiser pode fazer com que pessoas se envolvam através desta notícia, se não for, fará de outras formas, Ele é Deus! Mas além do Freedom Climb foi uma boa oportunidade de divulgar a OM e nosso site está com link na matéria. Vamos orar e pedir que Ele mesmo traga as pessoas certas pra se envolverem com a causa e pra conhecerem a OM Brasil.

Article on GLOBO (Portuguese)

Freedom Climb - OM Brazil Website (Portuguese). 

Freedom Climb - OM International News.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Many of you will be well aware that today, Thursday 22nd November 2012 is the Thanksgiving holiday in the USA.

It is acknowledged that the first Thanksgiving celebration was in 1621, when the Plymouth  (Massachusetts) colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn't until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.

So most of us know that Thanksgiving is officially celebrated in USA and Canada (earlier in the year), but did you know that there is a 3rd country in the list? That country is Brazil - although most Brazilians don't know it! It was declared a holiday in 1949, but only a couple of cities in Brazil have public holidays. Actually many websites I checked stated that there are thanksgiving holidays in Argentina, Japan, Korea, Liberia and Switzerland and other countries. The relationship of these holidays to the traditional USA one varies. It's quite a strange combination of countries!

Here in São Paulo state there is no public holiday, but we celebrated with a Thanksgiving meal back on  Saturday 10th November. It was a charity event organised by a couple of the ministries at the church we attend here (PIB), so we all pitched in helping out with the preparations. It was a delicious meal, with the normal dishes - turkey, mashed potato, sweet potato crunch, gravy and so on. Particularly delicious was the Pumpkin Pie for desert …

Where is this?

Where in the world is this?

Beautiful isn't it? It's not Brazil, by the way. If you want to guess, leave a comment!
All will be revealed next week ...

Busy, busy

With the end of the year fast approaching, things have been very busy over the last few weeks. Right after Louissa's 15th birthday party (see post from 20th September)  both Louissa and Joshua had school exams; they are now preparing for the final round of exams, which will take them up to the end of term of November, which is the end of term. At OM, Nelia is busy getting the English students ready for their English exams. Mike doesn't have any exams to worry about, but has been busy in his new role looking after IT  in South America. Part of this was a trip to OM Belgium to attend the annual International IT Committee meeting at the Zaventem conference facilities. 

Those clever IT people

As well as this, Louissa has been busy with extra ballet lessons, getting ready for a performance of Paquita in early December; Joshua has been playing football for the local bairro (district) at under-13 level. His team finished 2nd in the group stages, and will be moving on to the knockout stage this weekend. We'll be sure to take some photos and videos to share with you!

September Newsletter

Hi!

Just in case you missed it, our latest newsletter is now available - just click here

Hope you enjoy it!

Happy Birthday Louissa!

Yesterday (19th) was Louissa's 15th birthday, and last Saturday (15th) was her party.

In Brazil, the 15th birthday is the BIG one (like 18th or 21st in the UK), and we decided to celebrate Brazilian style!

We had a great day at "Recanto Verde", just outside São José dos Campos, together with family, Louissa's school friends, OM friends, and members of our church Small Group.

Everyone had a great time relaxing, swimming, playing football, and eating lots of delicious food! We finished the day off with a short "Culto" (service) - with songs, prayer and God's Word brought to us by Pastor Jay. After that, there was Happy Birthday and of course cake.

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who helped make this day happen, and to all of you who were there enjoying celebrating Louissa's 15 years.

Now we are FIT!

At last we have been able to change our car! We were so blessed to receive a gift to upgrade our car, and have spent much of our time since we've been back in Brazil looking for a car and getting ours ready to sell.

Now at last we have our new car! Actually it's slightly older than the one we had before but a lot more modern. We tried a few other cars, before we settled on our Honda Fit (Honda Jazz in Europe). 

Honda Fit 1.4 LXL

It's automatic!

It is so much better in almost every way: most importantly it's automatic (CVT); it has electric power steering, making it very light and easy to drive. The seats are comfortable, and it's both small and economical (good as most of our driving is in the city), but it has a surprising amount of space inside and doesn't feel cramped. 

We thank God so much (quite frequently!) for this car - it is going to make a big difference to our life.

Holiday in the UK - Part 3

And now the final part of our stay in the UK. During our last 3 weeks, we stayed mainly in Brighton and Hove, with just a couple of trips out of town. Thanks again to everyone who spent some time with us. It's great to know we have so many friends, and to feel so loved. 

Although we packed lots into the time, we still managed to relax plenty - and it was especially nice not having to go to school/work every morning ...

Here is our final collection of UK photos: 

As part of its seemingly never-ending tour of the UK, the Olympic torch came to Brighton and Hove on 16th July! It was a grey drizzly day, but the town was packed and all the traffic stopped along Church Road and The Drive. To be honest, the torch itself wasn't that impressive, but it was a great occasion - a big turn-out, everyone very friendly and happy; clicking away on their cameras/iphones/mobiles and other miscellaneous digital photographic equipment.

 

There it is, don't blink!

On the Wednesday evening, we went along to "UNITED" -the international cafe at Holland Road Baptist Church. This is a ministry which has grown considerably since we moved to Brazil. There were people from all over the world (including Brazil), meeting up to talk English, to learn about each others' cultures and interests. We enjoyed meeting our evening - the only problem was it passed too quickly!

Internationals (like us)

As mentioned, we spent much of the time with friends - many cups of coffee and tea, delicious meals (plenty of curries), talking, relaxing, strolling on the beach …

Anyone for cards?

In the shade in Worthing

Beautiful!

Lovely! 

Smile!

Beach by day ... 

… and by night

We did have a couple of days out, both during our last week - one was at Thorpe Park - that was Mike and six kids. The kids spent quite a lot of time in queues, or upside-down; Mike stayed the right way up.

Another chance to be upside-down

Our last full day in the UK was spent in London - mostly around the Olympic Park and Victoria Park. We didn't have tickets for any events, but we saw lots of Olympic-y things.

We are definitely in the right place

So that's all folks! On Saturday 4th August we headed back to Brazil. 

Holiday in the UK - Part 2

After our first road trip, we returned back to Brighton for the weekend. We had plenty of things planned, and spent Saturday with friends, catching up, relaxing and chatting. 

Lou and her buddy

Josh and his buddy

Brazilian buddies

On Sunday morning, we visited St John the Evangelist church in Fareham. 

Our friends at St John's

We really appreciate the support that St John's has been giving us during our time in Brazil, and it was great to visit the church at last. Mike was invited to preach at the morning service, and we enjoyed meeting  the congregation after the service to chat. 

After a relaxing lunch with one of Mike's former work colleagues, we headed back to Brighton for a (windy) stroll on the promenade.

Two missionaries, and more than two beach hits

On Monday morning we headed back up north again, to visit Mike's mum and family in Shropshire. It was a great week with plenty of home cooking and time spent relaxing. 

OMUK is in the countryside!

We also visited the OM UK base at the "Quinta" to feed back on our first two years in Brazil, and to discuss our next two! We are also able to join in with the Thursday morning prayer time, and share a little with the team there.

Friday night saw us returning to Brighton to complete our third week.

Give us a call!

Our new phone is now installed in Brazil! You can call us from the UK at normal UK rates on our new Brighton number:

(01273) 900262

(You don't need the 01273 if calling from Brighton)

Holiday in the UK - Part 1

Well, it doesn't seem long ago we were stepping off the plane at Heathrow - and here we are back in São José dos Campos. A really great 6 weeks - many places visited, many curries eaten, many people relaxed-with and many photos taken. 

Thank you so much for the great welcome we received, and all the great hospitality and friendship. We've put together a quick photo-diary of what we got up to; you may have seen some of the photos on Facebook - but some new ones here too. We'll do two or three posts as too much to fit into one - so here's Part 1 …

We arrived pretty exhausted and so spent the first week relaxing. We were blessed with a really great house to stay in near Wish Park, and it was so nice NOT to have a routine for a change. Our UK tour started in our second full week, taking in Wales, Birmingham and Bath - as you can see below:

On the Wednesday, we set off for Merthyr Tydfil to meet up with old friends from Wales, USA and UK.

Somewhere near Abergavenny ...

Cup of Tea in Merthyr

At the chippy 

After that we crossed over to Birmingham - Halesowen to be exact - home of "OM Lifehope" 

We visited friends there, and made some new ones. OM Lifehope offers training in English and evangelism. We had a tour of the base and learned more about what goes on there. 

Old friends in Halesowen

Not-so old friends in Halesowen

Worship during prayer evening at OM Lifehope

Lifehope ministry in Wolverhampton

A Brazilian in Halesowen

After two nights at Lifehope, we headed back South, but on the way we spent a few hours in Bath, walking around the historic city and visiting the famous Roman baths. 

Outside the baths in, er, Bath

Fancy a bath?

The kids and Jane

A boy in the street

We stopped off briefly at Stonehenge, and finally arrived back in Brighton on Friday evening. Quite a whirlwind tour!

Some old stones

We've Arrived!

Yes, we're back in Blighty!

We arrived yesterday afternoon (Friday 22nd) at Heathrow - see below

We'll be getting a mobile phone soon so that you can contact us if you're in the UK.

See you soon!