Update time!!  I’d much rather we taped a video, but that just doesn’t seem to be working out. So instead, I am going to attempt to try writing update on the Brazil Bairs.  Here we go!!

-Lucas has been preaching about once a month at our church. In his mentoring of our pastor, Geferson, he is spending some time helping him develop his preaching.  Part of that has been them preaching through a different book of the Bible each month with Lucas doing one of the messages.  It has been really encouraging to see Geferson’s expository preaching style develop and improve each week! This coming Sunday Lucas will be preaching on Titus chapter 1.  It is a great exercise for our continued portuguese development…and he’s getting better everytime!!

 

-Teresa began teaching an 8 week series on the Titus 2 woman at the weekly ladies Bible study.  After observing these ladies in Bible study for several weeks, God laid it on her heart to offer teaching this series, and so far it has been well received.  Several of the women who attend do not yet know Jesus as their personal savior so the gospel is being strongly offered each week.  Preparing a study weekly for the next two months will prove to be a challenge, but Teresa is really looking forward to the opportunity and the potential ways God can use this study!

 

-A new visitation program is in full swing!  Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday night, Lucas takes a different man from our church and is going into homes of neighbors, family members, and people who have visited our church at one time or another to build relationships and share Christ.  It has been exciting to see how receptive people are in the Rincão and how God is also getting these men excited to share Christ!! Teresa is going out on Sunday afternoons with a woman from our church to visit her neighbors as well.  God is putting a passion in the people’s hearts of our church to win the Rincão for Christ!!  Please pray for us as we go out to share Christ and encourage our church people to share as well.

 

-On March 19, Teresa will be the speaker our church’s evangelistic ladies tea event at the Rincão community preschool.  She will be sharing her testimony along with God’s calling to be a missionary and the drastic change He made in her heart.  They are hoping to sell at least 50 invitations to the event!  Please pray for clear portuguese and that God will use this event to impact the women of this community!!

 

-On the homefront, we have begun the househunt again.  The energetic Bair boys are bouncing off the walls without a yard, and the addition of 2 large puppies has not helped.  So, we have started looking for a new place to rent with a yard.  It seems a little overwhelming since we just moved into this house, but we expect the process to be a little slow and these boys really need some space to run…outside!!  Please pray that God will lead us to the right home and that we can stay in it for a while!

That’s the latest on the Brazil Bairs.  Thank so much for your continued prayers. We rely on them and are certainly seeing answers to them!!!

I’ve been getting alot of questions lately about what the latest is on my health.

I love knowing that so many of you are praying for me and concerned for me.

Thanks so much.

Anyway, I haven’t really wanted to answer.

I know, super nice, huh?

Here you are praying for me, and here I am avoiding you.

Its not you, its me.

I mean that.

No, we’re not breaking up.

Anyway, here’s why.

My last doctor visit, about a month ago, was to a thyroid specialist.

She looked through all my results of all my tests and all the wonderful notes all the doctors have written.  She confirmed that, without a doubt, I do not have a thyroid problem.  Praise the Lord, but we weren’t really too surprised.

She proceeded to tell me that I’m crazy.

Ok, she didn’t, but that’s what I was feeling.

You see, I had an “attack” in the mall food court that felt like I was going to die.  Over the course of the next 2 weeks, we called the doctor several times and went to the ER 3 times.  We thought my life was at risk.

I thought I was dying.

She told me I had anxiety.

Yes, anxiety.

Here’s what she thinks…

For who knows how long, I have had pangastritis, inflamation of the stomach wall.  Pangy(as I will call her) was sound asleep.

Then, October 13th, 2009, we moved to Brazil.  6 days later we became full time language students.  The week before we graduated we moved to a new city.  For 3 weeks we did not have a kitchen.  Within those 3 weeks 4 of us got H1N1.  One of us cracked his head open.  Then our adopted family member moved away.  In the midst of all of that I became a homeschooling mom.

I surprisingly remained quite calm throughout most of it.  God was very gracious.

My stomach seemed to feel a little differently.

She believes that the stress of all that happened over those 13 months “awakened” sleeping Pangy from her deep sleep so abruptly that she was kind of grumpy, henceforth bringing on such severe acid reflux that it caused inflamation in my throat giving the sensation of anaphalactic shock.

Are you following me?

She thinks I was stressed out.

I went to the ER three times because I was stressed out.

Ok, ok, I’m being dramatic. I do, in fact, have a condition that actually made the throat sensations real. But, to sit there and have her tell me its all stressed related?

Doesn’t she know I’m a missionary?!?!?!

We aren’t supposed to have issues like that.

“Hello, pride?  Its me, Teresa.”

I think we all know I have issues.

And that I’m not the only missionary to have issues.

And that all of you reading this have issues.

No offense

Anyway, I guess at first I was a little embarrassed to post on here what the final “diagnosis” was.

Then I had a realization.

I

am

normal.

I have a feeling all of you get stressed out. You may not all rush to the ER, but you have probably felt the same inner panic at some point that I felt for those several weeks.

And you know what?

I’m thankful it happened.

God got my attention!

He used those first 2 weeks to really draw me to Himself.  I was in the Word and praying more during those 2 weeks more than I had been in while.  My walk with Him has been more consistent than it has been in a long time.  He revealed to me that I still have some areas in my life to work through when it comes to fear and death.  He showed me that I have a few control issues.

He reminded me how totally awesome my husband is, how much he loves me, and all he will do to keep me safe.

Love you Lucas Bair!

And now?

My diet is pretty much normal, except I’m still avoiding fishy stuff.  We still plan to pursue a little more testing to get a more solid answer about that potential allergy, but other than that, the testing is done.  My stomach med for pangy runs out tomorrow, so we’ll see how I’m feeling over the next few days. I may be searching out a stomach doctor to pursue another med.

I am full of thankfulness for the medical results and spiritual results.  God is so much better than I deserve.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers.  I suppose many of you will start praying for my sanity after reading this.

Really, I didn’t even know I was stressed out

Way down here in Gravataí, Brazil, we have a Word of Life camp.  It is an amazing, beautiful camp.

It is also very expensive.

Back in October, we had been doing some research on their website about prices, and low and behold, for a limited time, if you had 6 kids sign up it was only R$30 a kid!!

Not quite.

The registration fee was only  R$30, the rest of the fee was R$200.

That amount is not really doable for the families of our church.

Unfortunately, we didn’t figure this out until we had a list of kids who were planning on going to camp…for the first time ever.

Grrrr.

We couldn’t just leave them with nothing, so in a month’s time, we planned a 2 day retreat out at Geferson’s dad’s farm!

We had about 12 kids from our church(their friends included) and 8 from a sister church, Comunidade Cristã Sitio Gaúcho, to join us for the 2 days. We started out at a public pool that had a couple of water slides, then moved on to the farm.

There were some challenges throughout day #1.  These 2 groups of kids wanted to stay 2 separate groups of kids, as in, they didn’t really want anything to do with each other.  We even had a couple of fights during a soccer game.

At lunch time we had them pair up with someone from the other church and told them they had till that night to get to know their partner for a “how well do you know your partner” game.

The looks on their faces were priceless.

“What? You mean I have to act like I want to know something about this person? Are you serious?”

But, we started to see them talking a little more to each other throughout the rest of the day.

That night we played the game. They were asked a question about their partner, if they didn’t know the answer, they got a pie thrown in their face.

There were a lot of pies thrown. (And yes, I was forced to throw a pie in Lucas’s face. Forced.)

I left that night before the message and campfire time to take the boys home to sleep. That’s right, I sacrificed myself so the boys could sleep in their own beds instead of with all the spiders and mosquitos and all the other creepy crawly things out there.

I did it for the boys.

I’ll confess my sin of lying later.

Anyway, when I came back the next morning, something had changed.

The feeling in the air was different.

The looks on their faces were different.

They were smiling.

At each other.

They were interacting.

With each other.

We no longer had 2 groups from 2 different churches with a long and complicated history, but one united group of kids who understood and loved each other from all sorts of different walks of life and backgrounds.

It was a night and day difference.

The 2 boys who had fought the day before in a soccer game were totally hanging out together.

Groups of girls from both churches were sitting around sharing about their lives.

They were having fun…together.

They were sharing about what God was doing in their lives…with each other.

By the end of the retreat they were collecting emails and cell phone numbers from each other. They even started planning a grill out together!

The next day, all 8 kids from the Sitio Gaúcho church took a bus over to the Rincão to celebrate one of the Rincão teen’s birthday.

Amazing.

God used this retreat in many ways in these teens lives.

But, the most obvious one to me, was how He showed them that they could help each other. They realized that they understand each other, and that the church baggage from the past is not theirs to carry.

How many of us need to learn from them?