Pentecost greetings!

Greetings from Cubatao. I realize that many of you have been praying for us but lately you probably have not been sure of ways that you can pray for us. I want to send something out before you wake up and head to church. I sent this out as an email but then I had so many of them returned from undeliverable addresses I thought I would make a blog too.

• Just over a month ago Samantha had a regular check up with her Doctor down here and she was beginning to show symptoms of a cold. Two weeks later the cold had gotten much worse and we have one month after we pay for a Dr.'s appointment that we can go back for free, the only problem was the Doctor was on vacation. We decided to go to a public hospital (read 'free') and after driving around from 11-3 we finally arrived back in Cubatao in line to see the Doctor. Samantha had "a lot" of mucus in her lungs and we were given other medicine and sent home. Now, about 2-3 weeks from that public hospital trip, Samantha is much better. She's been eating more than normal in order to replace what she lost while she was sick and she's also been sleeping much better.
• We finished buying furniture for Samantha's room. We'd been talking about getting her furniture and decided when she got sick that it was time because of how often Samantha was waking up in the middle of the night. When Samantha would wake up the only thing that would calm her was to lay on Mommy, Samantha would come into our room and I would go downstairs to the couch. We wanted a bed for Samantha so that Izabel could put her back to sleep in her own room. The night that we finally had her bed installed was when Samantha started sleeping all through the night again.
• There is an important soccer match today at 4:00 our time. The team I cheer for is playing against the team that our missionary pastor cheers for in one of the local championships.
• We went up to Sao Paulo last week hoping to return with a car. We had a successful trip, we bought an almost new car that we were able to get inside out budget. It's a very basic car but it's the car that most taxi drivers use so we figured it was a safe bet. Also on that trip we were able to splurge a little bit and we ate lunch at Outback Steakhouse and then Izabel and I went on to a Starbucks.
• I've been asked and have agreed to begin teaching English for a student, Renan. His current semester is about to end and in June I will begin doing classes with him. You can pray about the classes that I will be having with Renan and also for our future ministries.
• Yesterday morning we found an abandoned kittten, with all the dogs on the street it wouldn't survive so we gave it a safe place to stay. We're hoping to find someone who wants to take in a kitten.

Thank you for your prayers and encouragements. Feel free to share these updates around.