JUNE ALREADY!!!

Hello all! I have a few other things to add to the blog today. First of all...I would like to correct Amanda in that it is actually June and not April. Was this supposed to be a joke? I have no idea. Maybe this joke is on me. However, I would like to wish everyone a happy first day of June! Time definitly has flown from April to June!
Back to Friday at the school, I'd like to restate how much we all felt like movie stars! We signed well over 100 autographs, there were so many children around us that I couldn't even look up. All I could do is see all the papers that were being shoved at me to sign. Anyway, I was thinking, "We are nobody. Why do all these kids want OUR autographs? If they reallyknew who we were, just four American youth, would they really want us signing all these papers for them? Probably not." Then I realized that to them we are famous. They made us that way. Even if we don't think so. So, if we are famous and heroic to them, we need to live our lives worthy of that. We need to give them something worth wanting to imitate. We need to model the kind of the love that Christ has for us, and use this "fame" to point them to the true hero, Jesus Christ.
Saturday we got the wonderful opportunity to help with a children's program at Central Free Lutheran Church, here in Campo Mourao. Kids from all over the city were invited, and we had a great turnout of about 100 kids! We got to lead them in some songs and spend lots of time just simply playing with them.
After the children's program, in the evening, we got together for a service with some of the members of the church in Cohapar and Lar Parana. Nate got to give his very first sermon in Portuguese all by himself with no translator! He did a great job, and will hopefully be able to do more preaching in Portuguese in the near future.
On Sunday we got to worship with the Lar Parana church and share special music (a total surprise to us, when we were called up in the middle of the service to sing!).
One of the bittersweet moments of our Sunday came when he had to say goodbye to our 4 year old, Vitoria, who lived at the Miriam Infant Home. She left at 5am Monday morning to go to live with her grandmother in Curitiba. Please keep her in your prayers. We have no idea what kind of a home situation this will be for her. Pray that she will be safe and well taken care of. She proudly told us that she packed her Bible that we had given her, when we were saying goodbye. She loves Jesus soooooo much, please pray that this never changes, and she will continue to live for the Lord her whole life.
Yesterday (Monday) we started our week as we do every week with a visit to the physical therapist with our twin babies, Altieres and Tavilete (I know I spelled both of those names very poorly, so I'll let Amanda correct me in a future post). They are getting to be very big and strong, and are beginning to get numerous new teeth!
Well, this is all I have for now. Thanks for keeping up with us :)

In Christ,
Bethany