Seventeen years ago Olivia was born in a hospital waiting room. It was the “Pregnant Mothers” waiting room. The baby was coming fast so the nurse called the doctor, and ran to get a lamp. After sticking the two wires into the wall outlet the bare incandescent light bulb helped the doc see what was going on. An hour later we were back at our apartment, proudly showing off our 10 pound 8 ounce Brazilian baby. As I recall the price was $100 for the doctor, $1 for the needle and a couple of bucks for the medicine in the needle.

And we have been proud of Olivia ever since. Seventeen years!

In this photo of her birthday lunch:
Isabella, Olivia, Emma, Deanna, Anni, Rick, Chelsea, Penny and Danny

I woke up with this song on my heart this morning, around 3:20 a.m. 

It was written in the 1700s. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for your encouragement.

1. Come, thou Fount of every blessing, 
 tune my heart to sing thy grace; 
 streams of mercy, never ceasing, 
 call for songs of loudest praise. 
 Teach me some melodious sonnet, 
 sung by flaming tongues above. 
 Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it, 
 mount of thy redeeming love. 

2. Here I raise mine Ebenezer; 
 hither by thy help I'm come; 
 and I hope, by thy good pleasure, 
 safely to arrive at home. 
 Jesus sought me when a stranger, 
 wandering from the fold of God; 
 he, to rescue me from danger, 
 interposed his precious blood. 

3. O to grace how great a debtor 
 daily I'm constrained to be! 
 Let thy goodness, like a fetter, 
 bind my wandering heart to thee. 
 Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, 
 prone to leave the God I love; 
 here's my heart, O take and seal it, 
 seal it for thy courts above.

Matthew 18:3 And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” NIV

^{Hebrews 11:10} For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Be

Ivanildo and two of the guys from our church braved the bus ride over to Altamira to attend a Men’s Retreat. They left here at noon and arrived in Altamira at 5:00 a.m. Many times they had to get out and push the bus through big mud holes. Ivanildo was telling me three cowboys were on the bus with them. They each wore a pair of tall, beautifully polished cowboy boots. This, in itself, is kind of unusual. Most cowboys here wear ankle high cowboy boots. Anyway, after everyone climbed back in the bus after pushing the vehicle through a big mud hole, the cowboys would pull out their knives and scrape the heavy red mud off their beautiful boots. Ivanildo laughed when he told me this, remembering many times in his own past when he had done the same thing. One of Ivanildo’s specialties when he was a cowboy was breaking wild horses. And he had a wild reputation to go with it. At this Men’s Retreat he met an old friend from his younger days. This guy could not believe Ivanildo was now a pastor. Blink! Blink! He kept coming up to Ivanildo, grabbing his arm and dragging him over to introduce him to someone else. “You see this guy? You did not want to know him before he was a Christian. He was very dangerous.”

The three guys came back from the conference pumped. They were phoning their friends here in Marabá and telling things they had learned. Ivanildo is planning a mini-conference here to pass on all they learned. There is such an eagerness and hunger. This is God’s time to be planting churches in this region.

Here is a photo of Ivanildo’s shoes in front of his door, after the 18 hour bus ride home. The conference  took place at “The Ranch” conference center, very near where Ivanildo grew up. A huge thank you to everyone who helped to make this event a success.