Baptisms & Spring Break

AVA Baptism Service
Friday, April 15, 2011

On Friday, April 15th, eight young people confessed their faith in Jesus and were baptized at the AVA pool. What an amazing testimony of their faith!

Dennis talks with Tiffany, whose mom gave permission for her to be baptized just minutes before the service started...an answer to prayer.

Sisters, Rahel & Nadine, have an identical stance as they wait to be baptized.

Jerry & Victor read some Scripture during the service.

Each student read their testimony before they were baptized.

The AVA family came to celebrate this step of faith with these students.

Congratulations to Andrew, Alek, Jerry, Victor, Nathania, Rahel, Nadine & Tiffany! May you continue to grow in your faith!

Spring Break

Salinas

April 16-20, 2011

We celebrated Dennis' birthday by heading to the beach.
We stopped at a tourist rest area for some frozen fruit drinks on our way out.

The beach is one of our favorite places to be!!
And it's even more fun when all your friends are there too!!

The "Beth" Friends

Rachel Elizabeth, Bethany & Elisabeth

Walks on the sand...

...and on the Rocks!

Sea Creatures!

Beach Time!

The Atalaia Inn Hotel
It doesn't have very many stars given to it, but it's right on the beach, so what more can you ask for.

Rota do Sal Restaurant!
(Route of the Salt)

Excellent Food!

Rota do Sal's Kitchen

One meal we ate at Rota do Sal, there were 34 people from the AVA family! Great times!

Boogie Boarding!

Wave Jumping!

Picoles (popsicles)
We kept the picole man in business.

Paddle Ball Games!

Sand Fun!

Sand Castles!

High Tides!
We were there right after the Spring Equinox and at the Full Moon, both of which cause extremely high tides. The water came up into the hotel's area.

Beautiful Sunsets!

Family Memories!

Three Teens & a Tween
Loads of fun!

Salinas has been our favorite family vacation spot while living here in Brasil.

High School Trip ~ April 2011

São Luís, Maranhão

High School Trip
April 25-29, 2011

Sao Luis is the capital city of the State of Maranhao.
It is located on an island. Called the "City of Tiles," it is a beautiful city with tiles everywhere - walls, floors, buildings, stop lights, and more. It is a more modern and cleaner city than Belem.

A look at our bus and part of the city.

A beautiful church set on a hill. We wanted to get in to see this church, but it was closed. Dennis and I did go inside a cathedral in the Historic Old City. It was beautiful, filled with gorgeous paintings, gold overlay, and fancy tiling.

An artistic structure built by a famous Brasilian architect.

The Historic Old City of Sao Luis was fabulous. It had a very European feel to it. It was founded by the French in 1612 and taken over by the Portuguese in 1615. It is said to be the largest and best preserved heritage of colonial Portuguese architecture in all of Latin America.

Quaint streets and fabulous buildings.

The Cooleys in the Old City.

Lots of steps leading to the joining streets.

Beautiful!

The park by the historic cathedral.

Tiled wall on a museum in the Old City.

Amazing Tiles

Some tiles dated back to the Portuguese era.

Tile flooring inside the cathedral.

Amazing detail work on some of the tiles

Our group enjoyed our time in the Old City.

~~~

Lençóis Maranhenses National Park

Wednesday, April 27th

Lençóis Park is a National Park that is approximately 1000 square kilometers of sand dunes.
Fresh water lagoons are all throughout the park, as the park has a regular rainy season.

We chartered three Toyotas from a nearby town to take us to the dunes.
We had to take a small balsa (ferry) to get across a river.

The Toyotas were VERY fun!
They were equipped with snorkels so that we could drive through VERY deep waterways on our way to the main park. We all had a BLAST as we drove through water that covered the hoods of the Toyotas, covering our feet in the back. The kids all said it was well worth the 4.5 hour bus ride to get to the dunes.

Running down the dunes was tons of fun.

Incredible blue, fresh water lagoons waited at the bottom.

Jumping was like flying!!

A sand landing was gritty but fun!

What goes down...

...must come up!

Dennis wrote a big message in the sand for me.

Another view of the glorious creation our God made!

~~~
Ministry Outreach
Thursday, April 28th

We did a ministry outreach event at a local church that had a school. We were expecting a group of 20 kids and ended up with a group of 200.

Our kids are very flexible though, so we quickly did away with the craft project we'd brought and organized a chapel service using elements we'd done at a previous chapel service & outreach we had done at AVA.

A skit about Jesus raising Jarius' daughter was a hit. The kids had done it in English at AVA, but were easily able to change it to Portuguese for the audience's benefit.

~~~
Acampamento Batista Maranhense

We stayed at a great camp that was just minutes walking distance from the beach.
The facilities were great and fit the needs of our group perfectly.

The gal's "bedroom." Hammocks were the bed of choice...the only choice actually. The camp had a nice "cabin" with the guys on one side and the gals on the other. Bathrooms were in the middle, dividing the two halves. The open ceiling made it interesting, as you could hear most conversations from any room in the cabin.

Irmao Rafa (Brother Rafael) was our "food dude." He catered all our meals with delicious food, helped us arrange our ministry outreach, and blessed us in many ways throughout the week.

Great food and Guarana Jesus at every meal!
~~~
The Beach

Our last evening in Sao Luis was spent enjoying the beach.

American Football was played with great gusto!

Lizzy & Bethany were posed for a picture when the ball was snapped.
So much for my picture - they were back in the game.

The women sponsors serve up some yummy ice cream during our last night there. Senior night (a time to honor the seniors), games, impromptu skits, & songs...

Our whole group under (and in) a cool tree at the camp.
The High School Trip for 2011 was a great success!

This is the balsa (ferry) that we took to get to and from the city of Sao Luis. We spent WAY too many hours on our chartered bus, but the kids were great with all the traveling. Even with getting lost several times, two blow-outs on the bus, and bus a/c that didn't work efficiently; the trip to and from Sao Luis was a good one. The Lord watched over us and kept us all safe, blessing our time in many ways.