Re-entry

Re-entry has really been something! Our jet-lag is improving but we're still a few days away from normal. We're on a fast track to get some things fixed, repaired, etc. before the weekend when our Australian team shows up - so today, first thing we hit it hard. We have always said that if we could get one thing done here in a day, that was an accomplishment because simple things just take forever. But, it is improving and our crazy day went surprisingly well, invaliding this saying that was so true when not so long ago.

We have to renew our passports right away and have an appointment with the Embassy later this week. However, we needed updated photos meeting the US requirements, even thought we like the 10-year old photos in our passports much better! Success! While they developed the photographs, we got badly needed office supplies, two things, oh my gosh! Then we stopped at the battery store and got a battery for the CAM car we will rent while ours is in the shop, ....another success. That's three things! How can it be? Then, that went so well, we need some supplies for the team from Australia arriving this weekend, can it be done....YES! four things! So, we made it to the language school by noon and Yes, our instructor was ready for us and we began our next level of study, being scolded for not speaking Portuguese in America and being thoroughly humbled at what had slipped out of our brains during the last few months. We tried to ease his pain with an Obama T-shirt we'd picked up in the states as our Instructor is a big Obama fan. We really enjoy our teacher and are glad he is sticking with us a little while longer! On the way home, we swung by Toyota to see if we might be able to get a shock absorber to replace the broken one we're driving on - Yes! got the last ones they had in stock. We then returned home through one-less detour (praise the Lord!) - oops, I forgot about the new one...and got the CAM car going, went off for diesel fuel, got ours ready for taking to the shop tomorrow (remove everything inside that is not welded in place). Now, to do the mountain of homework, and look at that stack of email! Wow!

Tomorrow we have an important seminary meeting about our new class that we want to start in February and our very serious shortfall of funds for operating the facility. We have 30 students signed up for class and no money after something like May. We really need to see how God would have us deal with this problem - it is not like the other world I worked in for so long where you make a plan covering parts, people, and paper, ensuring all the funding is in place before you start. In the missionary enterprise, you move forward in faith looking into the unseen void ahead,....knowing in whom we place our trust...praying that we're operating in faith and not just being foolish. As I've said before, eternity hangs in the balance for so many and how will they hear without a preacher?...

Got to go do my homework!...

This morning's devotion was about Contentment where I pondered Psalm 131 and our preponderance to be "doing" instead of "being." The book I am reading (listed below) says that "Christian contentment means that my satisfaction is independent of my circumstances." Philipians 4:13 tells us that we can do all things, being abased and abounding - in Christ. We spend our lives learning that only in knowing Christ can we really do anything of lasting value. May our preoccupation with getting things done not crush our contentment that comes with walking closely with the Lord. Amen.

Blessings & boa noite,

Dave & Ann

"How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" Romans 10:14

Referenced Book: In Christ Alone by Sinclair B. Ferguson