Hi everyone, I know that it is Christmas time and you would like to know about how my Christmas was.
I had a lovely time with my family and friends. I obviously missed U-Don because he spent Christmas back in Australia with his auntie. But it is such a blessing to be here and enjoy time with my mum and sisters that I have been handling well the fact that U-Don and I are keeping in touch only via skype daily.
On Friday 23th December I went to a service in the church that happens every Friday night from 10:30pm to 12:30am. They get together for a prayer meeting. The focus of the service is to praise God and pray.
The message was given by Yuri Breder who just came back from the mission field in Nepal. He spoke about Jesus being our daily bread and as he spoke we could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in that place very strongly. It has been a long time that I did not feel such peace in the presence of God. At the same time there was a fire inside me starting to burn for me to obey and serve the Lord even more. My energies have been renewed and I can´t help smiling because of how much I love Jesus.
We prayed for revival for our individual lives and for the life of the church. There are many people who are hungry for the Word of God and are thirsty to live in the presence of God. We believe that God will answer to our prayers and will renew our hearts to serve him even more and bring glory to his name.
This was a great way to start celebrating Christmas.
Then to the party: Here in Brazil we get together on the 24th December at night to prepare a banquet to celebrate Christmas. We wait awake to celebrate Jesus’ birthday already during the first few minutes of the 25th December, just after midnight. Then we hug each other and keep celebrating. There are even fireworks.
I treasure the time I have with my family a lot and I am very happy to be close to them for 2 months before I come back home which is so far away from them.
Then on the 25th I spent time with my grandmother and aunties from my dad´s side of the family. It was a blessing to be with them on this very important date.
At night we went to church for a Christmas celebration. The church was full of people in both services at 5pm and 7:30pm. The service was awesome.
They had music, orchestra, choir, drama, dance, the Word and a lot of prayer and praise to Jesus. It was a great celebration. Many visitors accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior during the service.
The Brazilian people are so passionate about things. I love being here because I can exercise my passionate side. I can be myself here and it is not weird. I love the hugging, kissing, laughing, joking, and having a good time despite any hardship. There is no time to finish a party, as long as you are having fun with your friends, you lose track of time and enjoy time together.
New Year´s Eve I will travel to another city and when I come back I will post news about it.
I hope you had a lovely Christmas celebration there. May God bless you even more in 2012.
