Christmas Dinner at the Trekofski’s

Had roast turkey with dressing, mashed potatoes, yams, peas, candied carrots, and lots of gravy… Yummy! But I’m glad it’s just once a year. It’s quite cold out, so we all just sat around our artificial fireplace, that doesn’t give off a whole lot of heat – but hey, it’s better than the fireplace channel on TV. I spent time baking lots of goodies with the help of Luke & Earl, so we had lots of fun and ate too much of what we baked. Now we have to walk it off, run it off, or do whatever we can to get it off our hips. Enjoying Christmas Dinner My helpers Presents waiting to be opened. Once again it was our joy to have Ruth & Royden join us, from Seattle. They come as often as they can, especially now since Royden’s father is not at all well. Please, pray for him if you remember. He is taking aggressive chemo treatments, so he doesn’t feel good most of the time, which reminds me of my great-niece in Edmonton, Erin Vanderbrink, who is also undergoing treatments for Hodgkin’s disease. She is also having some complications, and we’re concerned for her, and ask your prayer in her behalf, as well. She has a three-year-old and one-year-old, so you can imagine how difficult for her to cope. Over Christmas, we also had John & Patti George and family, from Belize (missionaries from our church), and Jim & Beverly Flewwelling (Patti’s dad), over for a dinner and we just enjoyed our visit with them so much. We filled Christmas stockings for the girls and had such fun watching them opened them, but the only thing they really cared about were the dolls! John & Patti have a wonderful ministry in Belize and we’ve known Patti for many years. Evangeline & Naomi George Other family news, Lynn & Dwight just moved into their house in Mozambique. It’s unfinished, but already liveable, and somebody else was already waiting to move into the tiny guest cottage where they were living. Things are coming along well there. Murray, a cousin of Lynn’s, is there with them, as well as three other young people doing short term work, so life is certainly never down around there, as you can imagine. Their children, Amanda & Russell, stayed in Edmonton over Christmas and it was probably a good thing, because it was too cold and dangerous to be travelling that far. Amanda, as usual, aced all her exams in university, and her lowest grade was an A-. We are proud of her! She is going to take further course to get her teacher’s certificate. Russ works at the airport in Edmonton, for NAVCAN, and quite enjoys it. He is also planning to join the Navy and is quite excited about that. There he plans to continue his education, and that way the government will pay his tuition. So those two are working toward future goals. Our Grandkids. Aren't they handsome! Pat still has a lot of trouble with her back, and is on permanent disability now. She certainly can’t go back to work at Overwaitea, but she manages to keep herself busy. Earl & I have been reasonably well, but we both have to get cataracts removed as soon as we can get an appointment at the clinic. Luke keeps busy and comes over and helps us every Friday, so we stay caught up with our mission work. Earl plans to leave for Brazil on March 7th, and will be back on April 14th. He’s going alone this time, because we have plans to go to Mozambique in the late summer, and I don’t think I can handle two lengthily international trips in a year. Royden & one of our other family members: Gizmo! Until next time! We wish you all a Prosperous, Healthy, and Happy New Year!

Christmas is just around the corner …

So like everyone else that hasn’t totally given up on Christmas we are putting up our lights, the Christmas carols CD’s are cranked up and I sing right along with them. I never get tired of them and people must think I’m stuck somewhere back in my childhood day and somehow missed the turn in the road of time. I go hear all the choirs I can, and join the church choir to get my fix for the year! It really is a wonderful time of the year, when we take the time to remember that Jesus came to this earth and lived among us, so that we can have eternal life and go live with him forever. A special time to give thanks and worship our king. Our life has been rather uneventful lately, and that suits us just fine. We did get to Nakusp for a few days in Nov. to soak up some of that fabulous hot mineral water … that’s suppose to rejuvenate one’s body and take away all the aches and pains. I wish … but it was very nice just the same. My sister Betty and her husband Henry joined us, and because business was slow, we got the use of the whole chalet instead of just half one, for only a few dollars more. It was quite chilly up in the mountains but that just makes the hot water all that much more desirable. Betty, Earl & I soaked twice a day, but Henry preferred casting his reel into the river in hopes of catching a fish. Well, we didn’t get our fish but that didn’t discourage him, he just loves fishing whether he catches anything or not. Betty & I Some snaps of beautiful Nakusp... This inside of our Chalet. Earl has been busy fixing up our van that had a run-in with a bull. It’s already up and running, but we have a red hood on a tan coloured van. I told him I should paint a wreath on it, add a few gold balls and a fancy ribbon and people would think it’s our special Christmas car! He didn’t think that was a good idea. All that’s left to do on it now is paint it all the same colour, and nobody will ever know we hit a bull! Our 'Christmas Van'! :) Earl has his fare for Brazil already in hand and plans to leave on March 07th. He is going alone this time; I couldn’t get up my courage to join him this time. The last two trips I ended up in bed for the fist ten days and felt just terrible. Maybe it’s the radical climate change, or the time difference or maybe the germs of over 300 passengers circulating through the vents on the plane. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to take the chance, especially since we plan a trip to Mozambique this summer, and two long tiresome trips a year would be just too much for me.

Time to hunker down for the winter

Winter did come in fast, first it was so hot and then almost without warning we were rustling to get our tomatoes off the vines and our plants cut back for the winter. We had a FCA conference at the Richfield in Edmonton in mid Oct. so we decided to leave early and visit several places while we were in the area. But it was so cold we decided to do some winter preparations, all the summer clothes went out and the winter clothes came in … to the closets that is. The yard got a quick once over and we had to be sure our car was ready for the cold weather in Alberta. Once it starts snowing in our area it’s quite unforgiving. We spend the best part of winter shovelling our way out of the driveway! We visited Living Faith Bible College first and had a great time of sharing with the student body. Our good friend Paul Reich is back as president again and we had such a good time catching up on things. From there we drove to Camorse and spent the night with my sister Dorothy Litke, so we could make it to our next stop at Hardisty, where we spoke to the Messianic Congregation. Then we wound our way up to Westrose where we spoke in the morning service (one of our favourite places to visit.) We spent the next three days at the conference in Edmonton. What a good conference it was, with excellent speakers! We got home in time to receive a quest for two days, wash and iron our clothes, and re-pack to go up to Ft. McMurray. We just couldn’t face driving four days to attend a three-day mission conference, so we decided to fly to Edmonton and catch a ride to McMurray with our good friend Carole Argo. We had a great time and were treated like reality, of course just lapped it up! The McMurray Gospel Assembly has been a staunch supporter of our ministry in Brazil for years, and going there is somewhat like coming home. To our surprise we met some long time friends we didn’t even know had moved there. One was a childhood friend Les Gill, and his wife Staci, that are very involved in the church there. We also saw Steve & Wendy Schrappel, formerly of Salmon Arm, that used the attend Living Waters Church, where we attend. We love pastor Glen Forsberg and his wife Lois of the Ft. McMurray Church; our relationship goes back many years. They’re a couple that never seem to age, I think they just get better. We stayed with our good friends Winona & Dawson Windsor, whom we’ve known for a long time. In fact they visited us in Brazil way back when and came laden with goodies from the McMurray church family. Pastor Glen & Lois Foresberg

Steve & Wendy Schrappel

Les & Stacy Gill, Earl's friend from childhood days

Winona & Dawson Windsor, our hosts and long time friends It snowed in Ft. McMurray, while we were there, but fortunately the ground was still black when we got home. We are glad to get stuff put away and maybe we can really hunker down for winter now. Earl will be going to Brazil alone next spring. He is looking for someone to accompany him, he doesn’t exactly like to travel alone, but we plan to visit Lynn & Dwight in Mozambique in late summer, and I don’t feel like I can handle two overseas trips in one year. Things are going well in Brazil, our director and staff are launching a new ministry in the rural community of Cacador and plan to set up a smaller version of Mount Horeb out there. Everyone is so excited and there’s lots of activity already going on. Talking about Brazil, while we were in Ft. McMurray a few years back, we met a Brazilian girl, recently married to a Portuguese man, who had just moved up North. It was a delight to see them again, and another member has been added to their family! A lovely talented couple, whose friendship we enjoy.

Elisangela (Brazilian), her husband Rogerio (Portuguese), with their 10 month-old Canadian/Brazilian/Portuguese son :)

Winter came in like a Lion …

We’ve been busy getting ourselves mobile again, as it was we were storing the kids vehicle while they are in Mozambique, so we were okay. Earl decided to ‘buy back’ the van from ICBC, fix it up, and hopefully make a bit of extra cash. He visits all the pick-a-part places he can and has already found a fender, a hood and a mirror. Then he’ll have to give it a new paint job, it’s a two tone right now. Winter came upon us so suddenly and caught us off guard. My plants are all wilted, and some of my homegrown tomatoes froze as well. I did manage to preserve most of them though, and I made lots of jam, overkill for sure, because we can never manage to eat it all before the next season rolls around. I will try to pawn some off on our grandchildren or whoever will take it! We went to Edmonton for our FCA conference, we decided to leave five days early and visit Living Faith Bible School in Caroline, and share with the student body there. From there we went to visit the Hardisty Messianic congregation, then on to Westrose church for Sunday morning and finally on to the conference at Richfield. We saw a lot of our friends at Conference and the speakers were wonderful, we always enjoy our conferences so much. We came home just long enough to wash clothes, do some winterizing of our yard, and repack to go to Ft. McMurray for their annual missions conference. We decided to fly to Edmonton and hitch a ride with a friend. It just doesn’t make sense to drive for four day and stay only three! We’re getting too old for that! This time I’m taking a heavier winter coat. It seems like winter has hit all the western provinces at the same time.

We also managed to have a quick visit with our grandkids, Russell & Amanda! :)

One always has to be prepared for the unexpected...

Here we are into fall already! Our summer was so very hot and dry, and BC had over 1,900 forest fires this year, we broke all records. Some days it was so smoky, we couldn’t see the mountains or the trees. Our weather has actually turned cold, especially at night. So, we are having to harvest our tomatoes and anything else we don’t want to freeze. We’ve had a few emergencies in the family recently. Earl’s brother Elmer had a heart attack and landed in the hospital, where he had a stint put in. My brother-in-law Lorne, had to be flown to Victoria and also had a stint put it, but thankfully he didn’t have a heart attack. He is now back at work and doing great. It will take Elmer somewhat longer to recover. We made a trip to Vancouver to visit Elmer & Marlene. Took the ferry to the island and visited one of our supporting churches in Chamainus. After that, we drove down to Seattle for four days to visit Ruth & Royden. Earl did some wiring in their basement, which they are renovating. It was such fun to be there, and we so much enjoy our granddaughter and her husband. Managed to get in some shopping and then headed homeward. We had hoped to get home before dark, but stopped too long at Costco, in Kamloops, so by the time we hit the road, it was already dark. We were clipping along following another car when suddenly he swerved off into the oncoming lane, and for a split second we wondered if he was drunk. The next split second, we knew why he did what he did! About a fifty feet in front of us was huge pitch black Angus bull was standing right in the middle of our lane. Earl hit the breaks but just the same, we broad sided him and knocked him down before we could stop! Our car unfortunately got the worst end of the deal. We were unhurt and believe it or not, the bull got up, stood there for ten minutes in a daze, and after that his owner came and chases him home. But there was quite commotion on the highway, just the same. We’re going to make doubly sure that we don’t travel after dark again. It’s just too dangerous. So often the unexpected happens, as it did this week. We got a message on facebook from a young man in England that had been adopted by a British couple from the Mount Horeb orphanage when he was just under two years old. He said he had been riffling through his documents and found our name. He punched it in on the Internet and found our blog. We were so amazed to hear from him after so long, and like most adopted children, he was most anxious to learn something about his biological family, and was hoping we could help him make contact. We are in the process of writing letters and sending pictures, etc. etc. between him and his family. If we are happy and surprised, imagine how his mother and sister, uncles and aunts, etc. will be. It’s just another one of the wonderful surprises that come our way from time to time.

Elmer & Marlene

Pleasure Boats in Vancouver

Our Granddaughter Ruth & her hubby Royden

Jeremy & his girlfriend Carey

Summer is coming to an end.

Wow what a summer we’ve had, at one point there were more than 800 forest fires burning, and some days it was so smoky we couldn’t even see the outline of the mountains around us. As each summer approaches we hope and pray the rain will fall at just the right time, in just the right amount, so we won’t have to deal with the frightening wildfires. The last three or four years have been pretty bad and the doomsayers tell us we can look forward to much of the same, but I think when it comes to predicting the weather or natural disasters that might occur, it’s anybody’s guess. We decided to do make some finishing touches on the back yard this summer, it’s nice to have a large lot, but it takes a lot of time and money to make it look good and keep it that way. Earl got material and recruited Luke’s help, and they really got into it. But it really does look better, even though it looked pretty good before we started. There have been a few upsets in our family recently. My brother-in-law Lorne Plett (Jenny’s husband) went for a stress test, and they wouldn’t even allow him come home, they flew him to Kelowna, did all the tests, and then flew him to Victoria where he had several stints put in. Apparently the quickest route to getting treatment is when the Dr. treats it as an emergency. Lorne was up and back to work in a few weeks. My grand niece Eric Vanderbrink has Hodgekin's disease and is undergoing chemotherapy treatments. She has two young active children so you can imagine how hard it is to be there for them right now. Then we got the news that Earl’s brother Elmer from Ladner also had a heart attack. Fortunately it happened at home and Marlene called emergency right away and got him into the hospital, hopefully not too much damage was done to the heart. He had a stint put in as well, and has to take it easy for a few months. Things in a family can change so quickly. We are going out for a visit this week. Will visit a church in Victoria on Sunday and then drive down to Seattle to visit Ruth & Royden. Grandpa will do some wiring, and grandma … well, she’ll do whatever her hands find to do. They were just here visiting Royden’s dad who is suffering from colon cancer. We would really appreciate your prayers on behalf of these suffering relatives. Royden’s sister from Seattle was here to see her dad as well. She brought little Vincent (the Lepp's first grandchild) much to grandpa and grandma Lepps delight, and they weren’t the only ones to enjoy him, so did the rest of us. What a sweet little fellow he is.

Schalm Family Reunion 2009

Think of it ... You didn't even have time to get bored with my blog this time, and I am already updating it! A first for me. It usually takes me months. :p

We just finished our family reunion this past weekend, and we had a wonderful time. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time to talk to everybody, which I would have loved to do. There were some new members added. Spouses of the grandchildren, and their children. The family keeps growing and growing. We had 111 in attendance, even though there were at least 40 that couldn't make it. We started on Friday night with the registration, and just hung around, had snack foods and lots of conversation. Saturday we all gathered about 2pm for more talking and snacking. :) Then at 6pm we had the banquet. Ate again! :p We were really happy that all three of our grandchildren were able to be there. Amanda & Russell came from Edmonton, and Ruth & Royden came from Seattle. We were just so proud to introduce them to the rest of the family that saw them very occasionally. My nephew Todd and his wife Laura and their two children came all the way from Borneo and my nephew Stan and his wife Ruth came all the from (would you believe it) BRAZIL! After spending 30 years in Brazil and never having a relative near by, wouldn't you know it that my nephew gets transferred right to Curitiba, just 30km from Mount Horeb - Itaperucu, where we used to work and live.

These are hot days, and fires are burning all around us. It's quite worrisome sometimes. So we are praying for rain and it's come, in gentle showers and down pours, but not quite enough to actually bring the fire hazard level down. The most horrific tragedy happened to a family holidaying in Eagle Bay, just about 30km from here. Their two children and their cousin were sleeping in the family cabin, near the house, and somehow the cabin caught fire and before anybody noticed it or could call help it was too late. The father tried to reach his children but got quite burned in the effort. What a terrible way for a holiday to end.

Nothing new has happened around here lately. I still want to pressure wash the house and clip the hedge way back, but those are big jobs and I think I will recruit Earl's help, but he is so busy putting a bathroom in our new coach flat above the garage! Once done, we will have extra room to put up visitors, and may even be able to rent it for short periods for people needing a few days, weeks or months accommodation.

Now, be sure to scroll down and check out my pictures. Till next time, Ruth.

Ruth, Amanda, Russell, Jannelle & Luke

Ruth & Amanda Luke & Amanda making faces. I wonder what they were thinking about ... Amanda trying out her cooking skills!

Some of our family members

Just enjoying a wonderful summer.

Sorry that I let so much time go by before updating my blog. Time just zips by, and our lives don’t seem all that filled with excitement and interesting happenings that others would find appealing! But just the same, here are some of the high lights of the last two months. We travelled to Edmonton for the annual Sam Ministries banquet and met with so many of our faithful supporters and friends while there. Pat actually drove us there in her brand new copper coloured Honda Fit. It was a tight ‘Fit’, but the good gas mileage made up for any discomfort we endured. We got in a good last visit with Lynn & Dwight before they left for Africa on July 1st. They were only home for a short three months, so our time with them was quite limited. They spent most of their time in Edmonton doing mission business and seeing as much of their children as they could.

SAM Ministries Banquet

Pat's little Honda Fit

We undertook the task of painting the interior of our house this summer, and it looks really great. Luke and his friend Devin came over and gave us a hand. Luke has had some painting experience and works fast, so that really helped. We are trying to do an upgrade on our house every year. We don’t want to end up years from now with a big renovating job on our hands and not enough strength and energy to do it! Pat has moved into our basement suite and is nicely settled in. It’s so nice to have family living there for a change. It’s good to know things will be looked after when we go on our annual trip to Brazil every year, or on a church visiting trip etc. How does the feature wall in our living room look? :) I love to putz in the garden! We are having a Schalm family reunion in July and are really looking forward to that this weekend. To date, we expect at least 110 people to come and help us celebrate. As we get older, we wonder how many more reunions we will live to enjoy! We have one every five years, and so far only one sibling has passed on to eternity besides mother and father. The sunny Shuswap is a perfect spot for a summer vacation, so that’s a drawing card. We finally have some warmer weather too, but I’m afraid my feeble tomato plants will hardly bear any fruit this year, though the weeds are doing wonderfully well as usual. Schalm Family at our parent's 50th wedding anniversary. We do have some wonderful blessing to share with you though. Enough money came into the mission’s coffers recently to begin work on installing our own fire prevention system at Mount Horeb. The city of Itaperucu has 25,000 inhabitants and there is no fire brigade, fire fighting equipment, or fire hydrants, so it is no easy task to install system at our own expense, which is what the State government requires us to do if we intend to continue to operate a school etc. But fires do happen, strangely enough, even though most of our buildings are cement and brick. In fact, we had a fire at the old Mount Horeb, fortunately all the neighbours came to our rescue and we managed to put it out. Someone called the fire department in the capital city and a truck finally pulled up 3 hours later. Another blessing we received recently is that the Jireh Foundation once again came to the rescue and six members of our staff can continue their university education, in spite of the recession. God truly has answered our prayers and they are grateful and happy.

Enjoying our time with Lynn & Dwight

We, like everybody else in B.C. are waiting for Spring, seems the weatherman has decided to teach us avid gardeners a bit of patience. We are still hoping to get our tomato plants in by the May 24th. and maybe even our hanging plants. There have been some new developments since my last entry. Luke got another work permit; needless to say he is very happy. He got a job in a auto glass shop, his boss so kindly applied to immigration for the permit. Our daughter Pat moved into our basement suite, it’s nice to have only family living here. Sure is neat when I run out of ingredients for a cake or anything else I’m preparing, and can just run downstairs and borrow it. We decided to give our house a new interior paint job, and it looks very nice. But I haven’t rushed out to buy new furniture yet though ... don’t think Earl would have been happy with that.

We went to Seattle to pick up Lynn & Dwight who had flown there from Edmonton to visit Ruth & Royden. We had just a short visit with them, but as usual it was so good to see them. Royden has a chameleon and we had such fun watching him feed him cockroaches that he raises for that purpose. And for those of you who may not know, there are oodles of people that raise all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures and have to provide them with as natural a diet as possible! He even sells cockroaches and makes good money at it too. After our visit, we returned to Vancouver to spend a few days with Earl’s brother Elmer and his wife Marlene. They had a houseful of guests, but treated us all so well and we had such a wonderful time of fellowship. We cooked, ate, and laughed the visit. We spend the last evening at their daughter, her husband and their two interesting daughters. We were all into their games and saw just how out of shape and unbalanced we all were.

We came back through Squamish, Whistler, Pemberton, Liloet, Cache Creek, Kamloops, and finally Salmon Arm. Our first stop was in Squamish where we looked up our long time friend Jenny Price. It was so good to see her, and she was her usual up-beat self. Our ties go way back to 1960, we were neighbours for a long time, and her children babysat ours. Now we are grand parents, and she’s already a great grandmother. It’s obvious she enjoys her kids, grandkids and great grandkids. What a wonderful example of a Godly woman she is. Before we left we drove down a few memory lanes to take pictures. Cruised by our old home, the hospital where Lynn was born, the school they both attended and a few other places they just had to see. We got lots of good pictures. Squamish has changed so much we hardly recognized it, and lost our way a time or two as we drove around trying to find some familiar landmarks.

The trip over that route (hiway 99) was beautiful, and if you ever get a chance to take it, you won’t be sorry. There are so many wonderful places to see in B.C.we probably won’t see them all in our lifetime. Lynn & Dwight were able to spend 3 days with us, too short but sweet! They are leaving for Edmonton tomorrow and we will be joining them again in Edmonton when we drive down for the SAMM AGM and their annual fund raising banquet to take place on May 23rd.

Back in Canada …

We left for Brazil in February, and came back five weeks later, but it still seems like mid-winter. Just the same, my crocuses, brave little things, with only their heads above the snow, are already blooming their little hearts out. We stepped off the plane in Brazil in exceptionally hot and humid weather. At our age the body doesn’t seem to adjust quick enough to such drastic climate changes and it takes us a few days to get sorted out. There were days when we actually pined for a bit of the cold Canadian winter we left behind. A few minutes in that intense sun, and a bad sunburn, was a good reminder that we must remember to slather sun block on all our exposed skin! There are always the usual things that remind us we are back in Brazil. People, cars and animals of all sorts share the streets and sidewalks. Garbage is scattered everywhere and no one seems to notice it, except us. Mangy dogs roam the streets day and night and bark incessantly, which rouses the roasters, that join in the chorus with their crowing, which wakes the chickens and gets them all cackling! Most households keep chickens in their back yard for eggs and meat. It’s unbelievable how people sleep through it all, but somehow they do! We try to muffle the noise by wrapping our head in the pillow, and we even tried the new fang dangled earplugs, that are terribly uncomfortable, and just didn’t fit our ears properly! As always, everyone at Mount Horeb greeted us warmly, and it felt so good to be back among our many Brazilian friends. It was gratifying to see how the work has grown and progressed over the past year. There are just over 300 children registered in school and in order to accommodate them all our school runs a morning and an afternoon shift every day. New children come every year, so we actually recognize only a few of them these days, mostly our staff kids. Even they change so much in one year and we have to check and be sure the name matches the face. The kids often look at us and say, “Do you remember me?” To which we mumble some sort of reply, but they soon set us straight if we’ve erred. We made it a point of visit each classroom and spoke to the students. Many had heard about us and were anxious to know us personally. They also wanted to know how Mount Horeb got started, and how come we came to their city. We were only too happy to tell them how God guided our steps to Itaperucu, and led us to do what we did. We are still amazed at how God helped us with the tasks we undertook, and at how much the school ministry has impacted the community. As we stroll through town many people stop to talk and express their gratitude to us for providing a safe place for their children. A place where Christian principals are taught and building character in the lives of the children is a priority. A place free of violence, bad influences, and the constant presence of the drug pushers waiting just outside the school gates, all too prevalent in the public schools of our city. The first Saturday after we arrived we joined the outreach team and headed out for Cacador ,a poor community in the interior. We all piled into the army jeep, and the Volkswagen bus, both heavily laden with the Unique Christmas gifts we had purchased, and set out on our slow rough journey over dirt roads. The mission out reach goes out almost every Saturday to work on improving the living conditions of about 50 families living there. It hadn’t rained for a few days so it only took us two hours to get out there, but the road was still quite wet in the lower sections of the road, we almost made it without any incidents, but for the last half kilometre of road, The jeep was loaded a bit too top heavy with the grocery hampers and school kits for the children and it started tilting and sliding into the ditch. The guys quickly unload some of the heaviest stuff off the top of the jeep, and we managed to make it safely to our destination.

We then proceeded with our late, but very welcome Christmas party. We had announced our coming and the small building we gathered in quickly filled up as people in the community poured in. First we had a time of singing and praise. Earl & I were then asked to greet the people and share something of our lives with them, after which our director Paulo Roberto spoke to them and encouraged them not to despair, God aware of their needs and was sending help. Finally it was time to serve everyone the hotdogs and pop that we’d brought with us, and as a grand finale, we handed out the school kits and grocery hampers. Many hours later they all left for home happily bearing their heavy burdens with them. How grateful they were, it was a reminder of God’s love for them, and that He had not forgotten them in their need. School classes should already have started, but we have since learned that they still haven’t had a day of school yet this year. Someone told us the department of education had forgotten to send money to fuel the school buses! Lord willing Mount Horeb will set up a school for these children by next year. They are so anxious to learn.

We were so happy that our friends from Ireland joined us at Mount Horeb, we had such great fun and fellowship. They are such enthusiastic and willing workers for the Lord, always so ready to help and contribute wherever they can. This year they set up a community kitchen at the mission where mothers of our poorest students can come and learn to prepare more nutritious meals for their families. They can also use the kitchen to make the finger foods that many of them sell on the streets in order to survive. In exchange for this, they will prepare the daily school lunches for the school children, which will take a heavy load off the shoulders of our regular kitchen staff. We praise God for the commitment of our Irish friends that come to Brazil every year and contribute so willingly of their time and talents to the ministry at Mount Horeb.

We also re-connected with many of the children that were raised in the orphanage. Most of them are now married and have families of their own. They attribute their time at the orphanage to having made the important difference in their lives. How wonderful to hear them rise up and call us blessed, and how can we not feel blessed. It reminds us that God’s greatest blessings can’t be purchased with money.