Seeing a life restored

We had a great evening with Alermão and Cida Wednesday night. Alermão was one of our homeless friends who we helped go through rehab, see previous post for more explanation, but he making it great in his now role as a family man!
What was set as a double date turned into a terrific party of 12! We had a very cool family of friends who came in from out of town, and Alermão and Cida's kids all joinded in. We had a great time planning Alermão and Cida's wedding, and getting to know his wonderful family better. They have fun kids! Here are some pics -

Double date

Ali and I are heading out on a double date tonight.  Besides being a date with my favorite wife in the world, it is going to be fun because we are taking Alermão and his bride-to-be out.  
Alermão was one of the early regulars to our homeless lunch.  As a homeless crack addict he decided to accept our offer to go through drug rehab, and after 6 months he came out ready to live a new life. He got back together with his ex and is raising his kids again, now as a dad worth looking up to.  Alermão and Cida are now planing their wedding, which is a dream come true for Cida.  God really does make all things new, and it's a lot of fun to see it happen... And then to go on double dates with renewed friends!

fully back...finally!

it took us 4 weeks to be home for good! but we are here now!

i have to admit, i did not recognize my bedroom when i first got home! we proceeded to spend the next several days deep cleaning, organizing, and simplifying our home.

here are some interesting adjustments since our arrival:

1) there is a newborn in the house! Kenya & Lauryn, Eric's wife and baby girl, have moved to itu and will be living in our home until the halfway house is ready to move into. It's been sweet having a baby around! surprisingly, no one in the house wakes up with the cries at night =)

2) CHANCE BAGS has moved in, also! our little CHANCE bags factory is in the outside area -- here is our fb with pics : http://www.facebook.com/bolsachancebag -- We have 2 friends that work on the bags daily, and i have added this small project to my under-challenged life (please insert sarcastic tone). we are LOVING the chaos CHANCE bags has brought, and hoping to watch the production grow and bless many lives.

3) We are so proud to see the ways the youth group continues to bless the community around them even in our absence. We have 15 graduating seniors to send off this December, and my heart hurts just thinking about it! -- the Lord will do mighty things through them!

4) i seem to STILL be adjusting to grad school, even though i've been taking classes for 13 months now. Several papers to write within the next week, and i am hoping my faithful proofreader is more excited than i am! (thank you, jackie beth)


we have been reminded that adjustments are a time to exercise flexibility
and to be reminded that God controls the flow.

may you have a chance to be flexible.
peace to your home.

Half back!

We are "half back" in Itu now.

I (Mark) am home and Ali is finishing her last week state side. Ali is doing an online masters program with Rochester Christian College, and she has one intensive week of classes to kick off her semester of online studies.

I had a great day here in Itu. It started early with work on the halfway house. Eric and I were taking off more mortar to apply water proofing. My plumbing is done!!! What a huge gift and great donation of service!

Next I was doing some organizing of paperwork and seeing where my fundraising process was. I was down from what I needed for my payment this week... so I was prepping to deal with the lack when I got news of two amazing acts of kindness and generosity that puts us over our goal for this weeks payment!!! I am so humbled, and thankful! It still amazes me. As faithful as God has been, and as consistently supportive as the community around us has been, it still floors me to live it. Thank you.

And the day was brought to an end with work on our Chance Bags project. Look up "chance bags" on Facebook. We unpacked our new jersey donations from ACU and Centennial high school (my old jerseys!) and our 3 new donated sewing machines (thank you Granbury) and Susanie was very impressed and excited that we had a "Project Runway" edition machine! :) We got the Chance work space from cluttered and full of leaves to open, clean, and ready for action.

At the end, I'm just thankful that God has given us this chance to use our passions and skills for His glory and for the betterment of those around us, humbled by the amazing support we get in carrying this on, and, glad to be back! Half back. Ali, we're ready for you now!

the strange "land" in between

we spent wonderful time with mark's extended family in Canada for the past couple of days. We had 4 generations present for the weekend! This was a great event to close our time in the States.

Now that we are back in Ohio, we are living in the strange "land" in between the US and BRAZIL. Last minute shopping (brownie mix!), gifts for friends, calls back home, travel arrangements, good-byes... these activities have a way of throwing us into a stage of being both places and neither at the same time. Honestly, it's the most uncomfortable place to be. It's like temporarily trying to have a foot on both continents and painfully realizing there are 9 thousand miles in between.

my prayer is that none of us try to live this way for very long, that we all learn to practice full presence wherever we find ourselves today.

can we still be blog friends?

You know those friends with whom the connection seems so entirely natural that even when you have been separated for weeks or months or years, it only feels like a few hours have gone by? … well, welcome back! It’s been a while, but my hope is that this will be a natural continuation of good conversations.

i will attempt a rough catch up in this post, and then we will move on from here knowing that there are PLENTY of adventures for us to live out together in the future!

Our summer was incredible and chaotic and beautiful! Camp Roots joined 127 ppl from Itu & San Angelo and we celebrated our week with the theme “My Story Belongs to You,” which culminated with an hour-long CIRCUS production offered to our community!

The CURA medical campaign continues to grow and impact our city! This last summer we assisted over 900 people in 5 days. We now are brainstorming what it would look like for our church to have a year-round presence at the local schools where we usually set up CURA.

Several of you have seen us closer to your home lately… or IN your home! =) we’ve enjoyed the several weeks spent between Texas and Ohio visiting old friends, making new ones, and spending qt with family!

Exciting things loom on the horizon – we will share more about them on this page.
ali

WE ARE STILL ALIVE

we are so sorry for not keeping you updated!

as you can imagine, life is spinning at very fast speeds!
since the beginning of June we have welcomed campaign groups through our home and ministry context, spent long hours preparing for Camp Roots 2011 & medical campaign CURA 2011, and began remodeling all 3 halfway houses!

we will post pics and videos soon.
please know we appreciate you and look forward to sharing stories soon!

ali

ps - be sure to look us up on facebook!

ps 2 - we spent 10 days with some amazing AGGIES, and they shared some of their experiences on their blog http://afewinperu.blogspot.com/