Sunday is always a full day around Igreja de Cristo O Salvador, and so it was today. There are about 45 members that attend the service. Travis Sass and Gabriel, a church member, shared their thoughts with us today. It was in Portuguese, of course, but I had a reader who was able to translate a few things so that I could get the gist of the message. The message was from Philippians 4, starting in verse 4. It says, "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near." What does it mean to rejoice in the Lord always? We are to be living lives that are remarkable to those who see us. So often we take for granted the undeserved offer of life with God, or believe that all we need is ourselves. How do we learn to understand our dependancy on God? I like what Paul says in Philippians 3:

"If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ."

Paul was following the Law with great zeal, but he was missing out on the life from God. He had been relying on himself, but a catastrophic event help to change his life. He understood his depedancy on God. His life was changed, and he changed lives.

An interesting story I read with Mauricio this week, was about the adulterous woman. Jesus has great wisdom in helping the woman, and shows great mercy by not judging her. The woman was humiliated and expected to die, but was saved. What would that feel like? I wondered how her life changed at that experience. How has my life changed from the time when I realized my sinful life was bringing me to death, and when Jesus said "I don't judge you either. You can go now, but don't sin again." (Easy-to-Read)? The woman was a goner, and so was I. I expect the woman's life was deeply changed. How could it not be?! Where do I need to continue to change?

I cannot trust in myself, and I need to recongize my dependancy on Jesus. This is where I must grow, but the earlier verse gives much hope because "God is near." Hopefully our readers are seeing Jesus, and hopefully we are mirroring Jesus as we learn from his words each day.

Today we spent the evening with a friend named Thassia. She had met Justin when she spent a few months in Canada, going to high school in Winnipeg a few years ago. It is pretty cool to have a friend to hang out with during our free time. Today, we went to Thassia's friend's house and just sat and chatted for a couple hours. The friend, Gabriel, had also gone to Winnipeg and so it was fun to talk about their experiences in Canada, and to tell them about our time in Brazil. Each day we spend many hours with people as we go through our readings, as they randomly show up at the building for multiple hours and as we spend time with them on our free days. I am learning more that life is about relationships, and we are having many chances to show our relationship with God to others.

Thank you for thinking about us, and praying for us. Be checking your mailboxes for some nice postcards!

Kresten and the Salvador team.