Update

Hello once again from sunny Rio!
We have had a busy couple of months, and I am glad to be at the end of the year, so that I might rest just a little bit before we start back up again next year. I am still trying to process the last few weeks, and so this update is going to be short.
Since I wrote my last update, we have had 4 medical teams with one week of rest in the middle. The two clinics we had in new areas were amazing. The pastors were overwhelmed with our work and excited about the work to be done when we were finished. The week of rest was much needed, and the past two weeks have been kind of a blur. One of the weeks we had 3 pharmacists, so I got to translate in triage for a nurse. I really enjoyed it and got to challenge a woman who was constantly anxious and really didn’t see the point in dumping all her problems on God. I shared with her about Adam and Eve and how they disobeyed God, causing separation from Him and death. Fast forward to Jesus, and I told her how God solved that problem of separation by sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins and disobedience to God. I also challenged her with the Bible’s words in 1 Peter 5:7, to cast our cares upon God, for He cares for us. She just couldn’t understand why her problems would be important to God. Please pray for her (her name is Norma) and people like her, that they would understand that God created each one of us and wants us to have a restored relationship with Him.
The final team was from Brookwood Baptist in Birmingham, which is my home church. I was so thankful to have my spiritual family here for the last week, that we could encourage one another. The area that we have been in over the past few years has been plagued by competing drug factions, and members of the team had been praying since they were here last year. This year when we went to the church on Sunday, there was a peace resting on the community. It turns out that two of the factions had united and the other one was gone. The peace was evident in the faces and attitudes of the patients and church members, and they very quickly acknowledged the fact that prayer was a very important catalyst in the coming of that peace, both on the part of the Americans and Brazilians.
One of the verses that God has used to encourage me over the last month is Romans 8:29 – “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.” Even with all of my shortcomings and failures (and triumphs and strengths), my life will be spent with God conforming me to the image of Jesus Christ, for I am one of the adopted children in His family. Though I am not perfect, there will be a day when I am perfect (though it may not happen in this life), for God’s purpose is to conform me to the image of His Son. I praise Him that He has purpose for us, that we are not just swept up in the current of Christianity and drift willy-nilly to the end of our lives. I praise Him that He has plans for us, and that He uses all things for our growth and His glory.
Please continue to pray for:
S, who will be having surgery at 7:00 am Central Time on Wednesday, October 31.
Our team, that we may take advantage of this time to rest and renew our minds and bodies.
Our team, as we prepare for this next year, that we may be focused on the Lord and what He would have us do.
My visa, as I still have not heard anything about its renewal.
Thank you as always for your support and prayers.
For He alone is worthy.