MINISTRY

We hosted a girls' slumber party at our house for the young women from church, as well as some regular visitors. It was a great time for us to connect spiritually: we talked about 1 Samuel 1 and what it means to "spill your spirit" before the Lord as Hannah did.

I started writing a weekly devotional guide for the church (someone has to translate it into Portuguese for me!) on the Psalms. I hope and pray that those who use it will be blessed as much as I am by the challenge of writing it! Someday (and if any of you have any great connections, please do share) I'd love to develop it to the point that it might be published.

The teen group at church continues to grow (there's about thirty of us on a good night), and I hope that as summer arrives, we'll have more time to spend together.

OUTREACH

Let's Start Talking begins in less than a month! We'll have a team of five Pepperdine students here for six weeks to offer conversational English lessons using the book of Luke. (This is the same program I worked with in Japan!) Please pray for our team members: Josh Schaub, Joel Ornelas, Billi Walker, Tara Emerson, and Tiffany Ashe. Pray for a positive response to our advertising for LST, and pray that those who do respond will have open hearts to hearing about Jesus.

We're continuing to reach out to students at a local high school in Oeiras. David and Stephen have made a special connection playing basketball with a bunch of kids there, and several of them have expressed openness to talking about God. One mother called the school to complain about their religious 'influence' on the students, and they have since been banned from playing ball on school grounds. However, this same mother ended up inviting them to her son's birthday party, and is having them over for dinner tonight! We serve a mighty God! I've also been able to meet with several of the girls from the school, and I hope to continue to be able to share with them. Pray especially for Lee, a Christian girl at the school who feels very lonely in the midst of a mostly anti-religious peer group. Pray also for Carina, a girl I met there a couple of months ago who needs the security of Christ in her life!

And God continues to provide interesting "divine appointments" with people in random places! I was reading at a bookstore last week, and got into a conversation (mostly in Portuguese, yikes!) with the man sitting next to me. Stephen and I met him again yesterday, and he plans to come to church this Sunday! As it turns out, he studied to be a priest at one time, lost his faith, and has a renewed interest in knowing God. Pray for Joao, and for all of those 'neighbors' we encounter in the course of our daily lives, whether in Lisbon, Los Angeles, or Washington!

I appreciate so much your prayers and support; bless you for enduring this email to the end!