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As I sit down to write to you, my heart is filled with warmth! The sun is finally shining, and life is filling up with people! As you, our friends and family in the northern hemisphere, get back into routine after a fun-filled summer, so we feel like life is starting back up as well!
This past Saturday, our team was invited to speak to a Junior Youth group as they met together for the first time face to face! The leadership told us to expect maximum 40 teens, but much to their surprise, 44 showed up! It showed us how people are longing for relationship once again. We had a great time playing and interacting with them. This next weekend, we will have the privilege of not only seeing them again, but also their parents, so we will be playing with and speaking to approximately 100 people! Remember to pray for us as we start hosting and speaking more frequently from here on in.
We have been eyeing the land next to Quest for 10 years, waiting patiently for God's timing for the purchase. Earlier this year, Scott and Eden talked with the owners and before they met, we spent much time in prayer regarding the price. God impressed on both of our hearts that if we were offered a price of R$400,000 or less, it was time to purchase. Scott and Eden were amazed when the owners put the price of R$350,000 on the table. As a team, we felt God confirming the timing. So we started putting together a project for the purchase, including the cost of the landscaping that would be necessary to prepare the land for the construction of 12 cabins. As inflation soars here in Brazil, the owners put this offer on the table for 3 months, which is the end of October 2021. We need $111,000 raised to pay for the complete project. We are already at 33% raised. God moves on our behalf in incredible ways! Please pray, asking God what amount, if any, you would be able to give to make this a possibility. We know that God has got this covered, we just wait in expectation to see where the blessings will come from!
Follow.
This is the name we have chosen for Quest's 6-month course based on Christian worldview and adventure. As our time as founders here in Brazil comes to an end in the next 3 years, we are feeling the need to put into place the last dreams God laid on our hearts 15 years ago. And Follow is one of those dreams! We have been hard at work preparing the course load, inviting teachers and speakers to join us on this journey and have seen God confirming through all kinds of happenings.
One of our concerns for the students was the lack of internet here at Quest. We were using a 3G cell network signal and paying R$200 a month for 4 MB, quite a frustrating thing in our lives, especially during the pandemic when all meetings and contacts with people needed to be online. Scott and I were heading into town and we saw two men pulling wires just down from the camp. We stopped and asked them what they were working on and they told us that they were pulling fiber optic cables for internet in the rural settings. We looked at each other and smiled! God is taking care of every detail! Needless to say, two weeks later we had great internet installed at Quest for half the price we were paying before! We praise God for that and were reminded once again, that this is not our camp. God is working way ahead of us. Our first Follow students will be arriving August 1, 2022. Please pray with us.
Quest has a beautiful chapel on the second floor of the Panapana. The view is stunningly beautiful! What has been lacking, are the glass doors we planned to have installed to close it up! There are four bedrooms surrounding the chapel that we have built out of drywall, instead of the normal brick, because they are meant to be temporary. As soon as we build the cabins, we can eliminate the rooms and have a much larger chapel/meeting area. We have been amazed at how well the drywall has handled the extremely humid conditions, but what is becoming a problem are the bats flying in at night.
I'm not sure how many of you have had experience with cleaning bat excrement off of something, but it is not an easy task! In fact, it is starting to wreck the drywall. This has become a concern for us and last week we had an estimate done on the cost of the glass doors. We were given an estimate of R$22,000. We knew it would be around that price. But where would we come up with that amount of money? The next day, Scott received news of an unexpected amount of money. Scott accessed the account and when he did the exchange calculations, the calculator read R$22,000! That is how God continually looks after Quest. It would be UNBELIEVABLE, except that we serve the God of the universe and for Him, this is nothing, but to us, it is everything! We praise His name for these gifts of love!
We are so grateful for each one of you! Thank you for taking the time to read our news. We often wonder how you are all doing, so please feel free to drop us a line. We pray for you, thanking God for this amazing team of which we are a part. God's richest blessings to you all!
Home church: Niverville Community Fellowship, Manitoba