Final Club Days

Drink, Drink, DRINK! They all have straws in a mini coke and are racing to finish before the other team.

Thank you so much for your prayers. We had two wonderful days of club on Friday and Saturday.Friday we had 20 kids, 6 of them came for the first time. Sharon did a rope story/trick to share the Gospel during snack time.

It was the perfect day for water games!

Today was the day of our final program. We had 20 kids and 8 parents come.

David planned lots of fun, unusual games for the kids.

James was able to share the Gospel clearly for both the children and the adults.

We gave awards out to 7 kids who came each day of the club and this is the group that said their verses each day.

We finished off the afternoon grilling little meat kabobs and serving cake.

Everyone was so thankful we were teaching "doctrine" to the kids. Many commented that this type of program had never been done in the area before now. They all wanted to know when the next one would be!!!

Kids Club

Here are a few shots of our kids club that we are hosting this week.

We had planned to begin the club on Monday but school wasn't officially out until Tuesday. The first day we had 15 kids. We had 10 on Wednesday and 8 today. Each day the weather has gotten colder and rainier. We are so thankful for the kids who have come out and been able to hear the Gospel. Pray with us that the weather will be rain-free for the last two days.

Welcome to club!

Our first game time, led by the super creative David.

James and "Cloves" interacting during our Bible story time

Hurry Daniel, Grab it!!!

Winter at the beach

Craft time

Sharon serving snacks

Gabe joining the fun just after his nap time

Jer practicing to share the Gospel with our Gospel ball

Jer is HOME!!!

THANK-YOU for all your Prayers! We know that God used them to carry each of us through this difficult time.

Thursday at 4:00 p.m. Jeremiah arrived home. We were so thankful to be able to all be together again and start to get back to normal, (whatever "normal" is!)

Daniel and Hannah both wanted to sit by Jeremiah at supper.

While waiting for Daniel and Hannah to get home from school, Jeremiah passed the time greeting our dogs.

Playing without Daniel and Hannah was not so much fun.

Jer - Day 5

"What did Mommy bring today???"

This was a very good day for Jeremiah.

He ate regular meals and has started having bowel movements again. The problem is that he is too well to be in the hospital! He is tired of staying on his bed and it is hard to keep him happy because he is feeling so much better. "Let's build a tower."

He will finish his last round of antibiotics today and should be able to check out after lunch.
We are so excited to be heading home. Yesterday for part of the day there were 4 kids in our room and Jeremiah wasn't able to take a nap. Last night 2 of them went home and they added a new baby who cried all night. God has taken good care of us and provided abundantly but there are moments when circumstances are difficult.

I mentioned yesterday that two ladies from our church in Curitiba came to help out. They arrived Tuesday after lunch and so far they have helped James pass out over 300 flyers for our upcoming 5 day club, cleaned my house from top to bottom, made meals for our family, as well as kept up on the laundry. They have been such a blessing to us. "Cafe, anyone?"

Yesterday James got permission from the school just down the street to pass out invitations after school today so we will hand out about 350 more invitations today. The ladies will be helping with that as well.

Keep praying for Jeremiah as he continues to heal and for our 5 day clubs which begin next week. We will be doing one week at our house and one week at David's house.

Jer- Day 4

Today when I got to the hospital, Jeremiah was laughing and playing with James. He didn't throw up during the night and was able to eat breakfast.

Breakfast was a roll and chocolate milk, which he practically inhaled! Later, they offered him soup but it was fairly tasteless and he didn't eat it. He ate another roll in the afternoon, drank several cups of chocolate milk and tonight had some graham cracker type cookies.


The Doctor said that if all continues well tonight, he will be given "real" food at lunch tomorrow and be set to check out of the hospital on Thursday.

We were especially excited to have two friends arrive today to help us during this time. Dirce (our pastor's wife from Curitiba) and Regina our friend from Nova Vida. They arrived by bus right after lunch and are helping with cooking, cleaning, watching the kids, passing our flyers for our 5 day club and just good old fellowship.

Thanks for your prayers, we are doing well because of them!

Jer - Day 3

notice: he is without an IV for a few minutes~ I think he liked the freedom!

Thank you for your prayers last night. Jeremiah did not throw up last night and therefore did not have to have the tube put into his stomach!

The new IV is finally in! Now he can sleep in peace.

When I arrived at 10:00a.m. this morning, I could hear him crying as I came down the hall. His IV had worked itself out last night and they moved it to the other arm. By morning his arm was swollen and they had to move it to a new location. They just couldn't find a good vein. After 4 attempts, each attempt left him with several new "holes" in his arms, hands or feet, they finally succeeded. It was 1:30 p.m.

After some pain medication and train "crashing" I was able to coax a smile out of him.

Jeremiah was really happy that they finally got it in!

I took his train tracks today and he had lots of fun lining up all his cars and trains, as well as crashing the trains into the cars.

He did not eat or drink anything all day. At 7:00 p.m. the Doctor allowed him to try drinking again. James just told me that he has given him a little tea. PRAY that his intestines are working now and that he won't start throwing up.
James came to switch places with me for the night so Daniel and Hannah got to say "Hi" to Jer.

If all goes well tonight tomorrow he can start trying to eat jello and broth again.

Update on Jeremiah

Playing with a little jeep

Sponge bath

Thursday afternoon Jeremiah threw up his lunch and started acting sick. During the night that night, he seemed to have sever stomach pain and no position was comfortable for very long. Friday morning we were at the Dr. office at 7:30 when they opened. The Doctor there checked him out and suggested we go to the Emergency room at the Children's Hospital. After spending all day Friday in the ER observation room, they decided that he had appendicitis. They took several X-rays, did blood and urine work, and finally did a sonogram to try be sure that was what it really was. 30 minutes after the diagnosis, he was going into surgery.

By 8:00 that night we were being wheeled into his room where will stay for at least 6 days.

playing with his hair

It is very rare for a child under the age of 4 to have appendicitis. They say that his recovery will be slow for various reasons, one: he is so young, two: The appendics had started to rupture and pus was found in his stomach.

More play time

Day one: Jeremiah threw up several time but was going to the bathroom regularly and they were very happy with that. He was put on a different medication to stop the vomiting.

Watching Thomas the Train video
(3x's today)

Day two: He had not thrown up since 6:30 p.m. on Saturday so today they let him a little juice about 2 oz and 3 spoons of jello. He seemed very good today, more awake and interactive, even at times bored. At 5:30 p.m. today he started to throw up. They gave him more medicine to stop the throw up but he continued to throw up two more times. After the 3rd time the nurses look at him more closely and noticed that his stomach was distended. The Doctor came within the next hour and said that his intestines had stopped. This is a normal side-affect of surgery and they will re-start on their own with time. If he throws up again, they will have to put a drain down his nose and into his stomach. He is also, restricted from drinking and eating again.Modeling his IV

Pray that he doesn't throw up again and that his intestines will start working soon.

Tangible Love

This week God has really been challenging us to show love to others. Our neighbors, those we pass on the road. The greatest command is to the Love the Lord your God with ALL your Mind, Heart, Soul and Stregnth, the second greatest is to Love your Neighbor as Yourself. I have to admit I fail at both. I want to love God with my all but I fall so short. I am not sure if I think much about the second command.

This week I listened to the free audio book of the month at ChristianAudio.com, called Crazy Love. It was a very interesting and thought provoking book. Although I don't agree with everything taught, I was very challenged to show tangible love to those around me. My ultimate goal is to share the Gospel with them but I can love them as an evidence that this Gospel that I am sharing is REAL.

Christ said that whatever we have done to the least of these we have done it unto Him. If we look at the Gospels we see Christ Jesus consistently giving those those around Him, knowing they were "using" Him, that they wouldn't follow Him.
So, how can I put this in to practice? I feel like God has been giving me opportunities but I have to be trained to respond correctly. During my run on Tuesday morning, I passed by an older lady carrying her groceries home. I should have stopped and offered to carry them for her, but I didn't because I "HAD to finish my run," pretty sad. Yesterday I did better. James I went out to try and visit a couple of people, which didn't work out, and on the way home we saw 3 people working on a vacant house very close to ours. I went home, got some cookies and took them over to them. They are the relatives of the new owners which have 3 children. I made a new contact and showed the love of Christ. Simple... some may say stupid, but I have to start somewhere.

Dunas

We were blessed to have some friends come and visit us from Curitiba. We decided to get together to celebrate the 4th of July. One family came down on the 2nd and we were able to go visit some Dunes in Floripa. Here is a short video of our fun! Hope you enjoy!