Beautiful Day

Today was an adventure. We woke up at 4:45 this morning to catch the sunrise. Some of our interpreters blessed us by paying to rent fishing boats to take is through the mangrove to the ocean for a truly breathtaking ride.
The rest of the day was spent in Recife. We visited the Coqui Favela, which is a slum here where VFC (Volunteers for Christ) is working to reach out to the people. It was amazing to see the poverty here, but glory to God for the redemptive work he is doing through his servants with VFC.

After some shopping, an amazing dinner, and one last group time it’s off to bed. We can’t wait to come home and tell you so much more about this trip.

Yesterday from the Eyes of a Student

Well today was awesome! I started off the day going on a 3 mile run on the beach with Charlie. Then we went to breakfast. The food is awesome here! That’s coming from a picky eater. Then we headed off to the fishing village. Today was really fun, first we got showed how to play soccer pretty much. The kids are amazing at soccer and all laugh at us for how bad we are. It was really cool seeing the kids start to understand the language barrier and laugh and smile all day. Then we decide to show them an American game that we are actually good at. We played Ultimate Frisbee and they surprisingly picked it up really easily and we had alot of fun! In the afternoon we played capture the flag and soccer. Through out the day we had small group time and it was so awesome to see how God worked through us and through the translators. We left the fishing village a little early today so that we could get back to the hotel have a little time to relax, get changed, eat dinner and then head back to the fishing village to go to church. When we were pulling up to the hotel we noticed something on the tops of the cars in front of us and sure enough and finally most of our luggage was right there pulling up to the hotel as we were. We all celebrated and it was awesome to finally have some clean clothes after wearing the same stuff 4 days in a row. We all went to the beach and went body surfing and just kind of hung out and then we went for a swim in the pool. After having a little fun we all got ready and put our CLEAN clothes on and headed to church! We all sat down outside where the service was going to be held and sat with some of the kids in our groups from earlier in the day. The service began and it was a little bit different but only because we didn’t know the words they were singing and it was hard to sing the English words to the same tune. Then David Holland went up to the front as the worship leader called him up, and we sang “God of the city” and we would sing a verse in English and then they would sing it in Portuguese and it was truly amazing to see how god was right there and that we were all worshiping him the same and there is no language barrier with him. This was probably one of the coolest things I have ever experienced. Then David preached the sermon to the church and did such an awesome job! It was awesome to see how he would speak and the translator would interpret what he was saying and tell the church and we would all know what he was saying and preaching to us even though we can not talk to the Brazilians face to face, but through this everyone was hearing the same amazing message. Church tonight was an awesome experience and not even expressible with words. We got back to the hotel late tonight so we just hung out for about an hour and then are all headed to bed now. Well it’s late here so i better hit the rack. We will see y’all soon!

-James Floyd
Senior, Paschal High School

If you find this post - try reading Davids post on the CCBC blog
www.hsmbrazil.com He has been posting there daily from his iphone app as we have not been able to log on here????

We did received our bags last night - just in time to have clothes for church! (by the way - -thanks for the clothes some of you gathered at the last minute – some were packed in the 3 bags we did receive - we have been wearing them until now - we promise to wash & return them to the Brazilians before we leave!!)
After church last night we had a fashion show with the Brazilian girls & a few american girls wearing clothes they have made with the sewing machines and fabric we brought 2 years ago! A woman has been helping then who owns a store in Caruaru - a large clothing manufacturing city about 2 hrs away.
She brought additional clothes and accessories to finish "the look"....I will get to meet with her today and hear about the plans for all of this - SO EXCITING!!!!!!
I heard a few of the girls from our team negotiating prices last night!
Today we are going to the beach with 80 teens & all kinds of beach games. We will have a BBQ and make S'mores!!!!
Tonight is movie night with popcorn and Rice Krispie treats - yes our bags were packed with 100 bags of marshmallows!!! - a luxury in Brazil.
….and to top it all off.... our fearless leader----- now known as Pastor David Holland …and his very able assistant Kristy Harden have spiritual applications for all of these fun activities! We are excited to learn how Jesus and marshmallows work together for the Kingdom of God!
Please pray for our time with these teens today - please pray they will feel the freedom to tell us "their story" and feel safe to ask any questions they might have about what we have been teaching each day.
Blessing to each of you!