Carnaval-Day 3

During house church this past Sunday we found out that Daiana's smallest son, Ismael, was going to have a birthday the next day.

Ansley, Carys and Anderson made a cake and so on Monday afternoon, we went to their house.

Ismael was asleep when we got there. It gave us more time to get to know Daiana's family better which included time with her mom, brother, and little sisters.

Daiana's mom (Mara) told us that when Daiana returned home the day before she could not stop talking about her house church experience. How she saw, for the first time, a group of people who really loved and took care of each other. How people shared, confessed sin and really enjoyed being around each other. Daiana then told us that she has gone to church before but had never seen anything like what she saw the day before.

Ismael finally woke up from his nap. He was asleep on his mom and dad's bed. We found out later that Daiana lets the four boys sleep on the bed while she sleeps on the floor at night. They have a small house and this is their only bed.

Once he was finally awake enough from his nap.................Ismael was ready for his party.

We sang happy birthday.........

...........and then he got to open a present. We brought a Match Box car for each boy and a couple of little things for Daiana's sisters. Daiana and her kids share a house with her mother. It is one house but they've made it into two by sharing a common wall. Daiana is the oldest child (28) and her two little sisters are 11 and 6 so her sisters are more like sisters than aunts to her own boys.

Everyone liked the cake.

We had a great time. After a little while, the kids disappeared to play with Daiana's kids and Benay, Bronwyn and I went to see Ricardo's, Daiana's brother's, house which is right next to them.

Ricardo was very proud of his house. He showed me every inch of it. While we were there he even sang some Christian songs for us on his karaoke. His mom told us he used to be involved in a church and even sang in the church choir but has fallen away. God opened a door for us to invite him to be a part of our house church. Please pray that Ricardo accepts our invitation.

Just one more instance of us going somewhere in hopes of blessing someone........................and us coming home being the ones more blessed. On the way home Bronwyn and Ansley had the idea of throwing Daiana a surprise baby shower in the next month or two. I love what "being church" instead of "playing church" is doing to the mindset of each of our kids.