Begun in Faith

Since there is no such thing as a "typical" week for me, this is just a random week that I thought would go one way and went completely differently... which does in that sense make it completely typical and normal. Unfortunately, there's no way to give you a complete look at my life through selfies. A lot of my work in ministry and discipleship is in contexts where it would be inappropriate to take a picture. Many of the pictures from this week are more "life" stuff and I'll try to fill you in on some of the ministry things that happened during the week as we go. Thank you for being here, for your interest, support, curiosity, and love. I do need to just quickly say that I am in a situation where I am doing fundraising online instead of in person like I would usually do. It's been a few years since I've done fundraising and I need new donors to partner with me by donating monthly. I need 9 new donors to commit to giving any amount monthly for the nex

In 2018, I moved to Anapolis, Goias in Brazil to plant a Nazarene church with a missionary team sent by a mission organization called Extreme Nazarene, which later became Ardeo Global. Our project contract ended in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. Throughout the next year, I prayed a lot about what my next steps should be, and God clearly called me to continue working at our church plant here in Anapolis. It has been the perfect place for me to be and I’m so glad I still get to live and work here. (By “perfect” I don’t mean easy in any sense) At the beginning of this year, several of you spoke with me about becoming an official missionary with the Church of the Nazarene. I prayed about it and God did not confirm or deny specifically what I should do, but I felt peace about starting the application process and learning more about this option. That’s still where I am now. I’ve finished most of the application process, but we are still talking about logistics and whether this is a g

Corn is a huge part of our diet here where I live in central Brazil: polenta, tamales, corn custard, corn bread. Street venders actually sell plastic cups of fresh corn, it’s that popular. Throughout June and early July, Brazilians celebrate Festa Junina (Catholic name) or Arraia (non-Catholic name); a party that might look to you like a harvest festival with farm-themed decorations and lots of plaid. Both John and Peter’s saint days are in June, and, since Brazilian schools run with the calendar year, June is also the end of first semester before winter break. Most schools close out the semester with this harvest party like we do with our Christmas parties. Curau is corn custard served with or without cinnamon on top Our church harvest party was the first time we sold food at a church event instead of everything being free. Along with our rummage sale, this has been our first experiment with raising money for the church remodel. We have learned a lot and we're looking forward to t

A little over a month ago, I got a cold. It was a bummer because my symptoms were at their worst on the very day that we had planned on having all the women in our apartment building over for dinner. Everyone had already confirmed and it was all set. And I got a cold. Living the sniffly cold life in a cold Brazilian winter Some of you may remember that last October I got a cold and ended up spending two and a half weeks in the hospital. This time I got over it all on my own (huge yay) and haven’t had any problems since. I wasn’t able to properly celebrate this victory online because I haven’t posted anything about my health on social media before. So I wanted to share a catch up/update. We were eventually able to invite our neighbors over for São Paulo style hot dogs (yes, those are mashed potatoes) Catch up: Last year I experienced very elevated levels of anxiety and grief, which I’ll explain in a bit, but my physical symptoms started in May of 2021. At first it was fevers, then fever