Friday, July 01, 2011

Long overdue update

First off, if you don't get our regular emails, you need to know about Becky's trip to Brazil a couple of weeks ago. She went for about a week, in order to renew her Permanent Visa to live in Brazil. Caleb and I (Ben) have until October (you might remember that I took Caleb to Brazil in October 2009 by myself to deal with Visa issues?). Anyhow, Becky went with 9 pieces of luggage, each almost 70 lbs! Wow! Yes, crazy, we know...but we are not shipping anything to Brazil. If it doesn't fit in the luggage, it's not going with us. Sometimes we wish we'd ship, but we decided that for now it's not worth the headache with all the paperwork and complications involved with it, including the customs fees and "hidden charges" that might "pop up"! Anyhow, she went and came back safely, though much more tired than when she left...and the following message/email below is what we sent out a couple of days ago.

Dear praying friends,
Thank you for your prayers! Becky’s trip went very well! She never lifted a single piece of the nine large 70 lb. bins she took to Brazil with her! Our good God provided two people at each point to do the work for Becky—isn’t our God SO GOOD?!? Thank you for lifting her trip up to Him in prayer.

Now, for another crucial request we have: we are practically ready to fly to Brazil. Almost all of our support is in (6% to go--please pray for ALL of it by the end of July, our target date), but we are still waiting for Samuel’s Visa to be approved. We have checked the status of his Visa process on the Brazilian government’s website, and it says that it has arrived in Brazil for analysis. However, it is still sitting on someone’s desk or in a bin under a pile of other Visa requests. We would like to leave at the end of July for Brazil, but we cannot do this without Samuel’s Visa in our hands. So, our request to you and to the Father is that He would cause the process to be sped up somehow… In fact, why not pray that someone would pick his paperwork out of the pile and simply complete and return it to the Brazilian Consulate in Atlanta for us to pick up? Is ANYTHING too hard for the LORD? Of course not! Will you please intercede and put this need before the Father with us? We thank you so much, and look forward to telling you how God will get the glory! It is all for HIM that we do this.

These days we are busy packing and doing paperwork, studying Portuguese (Becky), and spending time with the boys. We’d also ask you to pray for Caleb & Samuel as they begin dealing with the transitions now and in the next few months. We will be leaving Friday for two weeks to visit churches and start saying goodbyes. Please pray for safe travels. Thank you.