Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Feliz Natal!

Hello My Faithful Supporters and Friends!

Feliz Natal e Proximo Ano Novo!

That means Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in Portuguese. Well, as you know, this will be my first Christmas in Brazil. You may be wondering how different it is here compared to the States. I must say that Christmas is greatly understated here. They still get together and celebrate with their families, and they still get and give presents. But in this month of December, I don't think I have heard one Christmas song, and I haven't seen one advertisement telling me about the best toys to buy for this Christmas season. I know some of you really love Christmas, but I have to say that for me, they lack of hype is refreshing. Of course, I will miss getting to spend Christmas with my family and having dinner together.

I am glad to tell you that the Single Women's group I am leading is starting to do really well! We have some new girls coming, and we recently introduced childcare for the group. We have a lot of young mothers, and we are hoping that this encourages more of them to come. Thank you for your prayers for these girls, and please continue to pray for them to grow in the knowledge of Christ's love for them.

Last week, I got to teach my first message to our Youth Group here. My friend, Cleide, translated for me. I taught them about the importance of experiencing Christ's unconditional love for them, and what a profound impact it has on their walk with God. I think the message had a powerful effect on some of them as we talked afterwards. A few of my students from CDR also came to listen. I feel like even in my short time here, God is already really using me to spread the Gospel. I feel really blessed to be able to speak his word into the lives of others.

Every year, CDR does a project for the community. This year, they chose a school of elementary students to serve. So 2 weeks ago, we spent the day at this school, and taught the children how to recognize abuse. The CDR team did skits, sang songs, and gave workshops to the children that gave them the tools and understanding they need to see the difference between discipline and abuse. We also explained to them how much Jesus loved them. We explained that even though others may treat you badly, Jesus will never treat you badly and will always see you as precious. It was an awesome time of being able to minister to these children, and show them how much they are worth. I posted some pictures below.

Next month, I will be on vacation from teaching at CDR, and so I plan to go traveling. There are many other missionary bases in the region I am located, and I want to visit the other places to see if I would be interested in possibly joining their team. As I told you before, I will probably spend a year in Altamira, and then ideally, I will join another church plant in the region to help it grow.

On a personal note, I have been having a lot of problems with my back in the last month. I have been experiencing a lot of pain, and it makes it hard for me to get around as much. Please, pray for me that God either heals me or gives me some provision to make the pain go away.

As always, I love you guys and I bless you and thank you for your support. None of this would be possible without you. I bless your families. I speak God's healing and restoration over every area of your lives. May you grow more and more in the knowledge of God's love and sacrifice for you!

Love, Allison

Crazy Cleide, always entertaining!

Images of Love

Images of Abuse


If you would like to see all the pictures from the project, please follow the link below.

CDR Project 2012