We had a really nice Easter Sunday. In the morning, some of the church members came to church to worship the Lord and break bread together. This breakfast broke a 21 day fast by many members of the church. Later that evening we had another church service and it was a great day to celebrate our Lord’s resurrection. Also, we had an Easter egg hunt, well let me rephrase that, a candy hunt in our yard with the girls and their neighborhood friends. They loved it.
Elba and I went to the capital of our State, Belém, to participate in a 3 day national leadership retreat. It was a great time to reconnect to all of our friends, and make intentional time to spend with God. Yes, even though we are missionaries and pastors, the busyness of life has its ways to draw us away from God and our relationship with Him. We learned different ways to pray and draw close to God through silence and solitude. One of the techniques that I thought was really helpful was called imaginative reading. Essentially you choose a bible verse, read it, and then imagine yourself as an on-looker or part of the action. It was really helpful to meditate in this fashion plus hear all the different perspectives of everyone from the group when we shared our experience.
Elba took the plane to Belém which took a little over 1 hour to arrive. I drove our truck and it took us 2 days with a combined total of 17 hours of driving. The road conditions are rough as you can see in the pictures below. Also below is a picture of the group at the meeting. Rick Bergen put this shot together by combining several photos.
During our trip in Belém, Camilly had a bad accident. She was playing hide and seek and during the excitement of the game she went to close a glass door and she put her hand right through it. OUCH! She was rushed to the hospital and received lots of stitches on her arm and thumb. By the grace of God, no veins or tendons were severed. THANK YOU JESUS! This happened a day before her birthday. Camilly turned 6 years old and she had a great time at her birthday despite the injury.
