Hello from Brazil!

Things here have calmed down since the crippling “Truckers Strike” last week. They were striking due to excessive taxes imposed, again, on gas and diesel. Brazil has one of the highest rates of taxes in the world! Truckers everywhere blocked highways and crippled commerce and all aspects of daily life (post offices, grocery stores, airports, schools, bus transportation,etc)

We were pretty much forced to stay at home due to the lack of gasoline and blocked roads. Cooking gas was in short supply as well as groceries as no merchandise was getting through the roadblocks. We were fine as we had previously stocked up on food and used our wood burning stove/oven to conserve our gas tanks. Prices of many things have gone up but slowly things have gotten back to normal. If the gov’t doesn’t keep up to their promises they made to the truckers the strike can start up again anytime.

Two prayer requests:

Please pray for the two little girls from the favela that our daughter, Jessica, has poured her life into over the past several years. They spend a lot of their time in Jessica and Nate’s home and have a very strong bond with them. This past Sunday, when the girls were being taken back home as usual their mother suddenly and without explanation informed them that they were moving the very next day to a new neighborhood (with a boyfriend of their mother). The girls were hysterical and, obviously, Jessica and Nate were blindsided. Please pray for the emotional impact this is having on all of them and for the physical and spiritual protection for these two precious little girls.

Please keep “Rafa”, a little girl in your prayers….she is eight years old (but looks younger) and hasn’t been able to go to school due to the massive, oozing sores on her head and body. Her mother has so badly neglected her that the sores, created by the constant lice in her hair, have become infected. She has sores all over her body and the smell is horrible. Our daughters, Marcela and Jessica, have been cleaning her sores multiple times a day and today Pete took her to the doctor. She has a massive infection and is now on antibiotics. Taking these kids to the doctor can get complicated as we are not the immediate parents, there’s neglect involved, and social services could take her away. She is back at our place now, having a blast, getting better, and not looking forward to the day she has to go back home.

Thank you for your prayers for these little ones as well as for our team who has to face difficult situations frequently!

Blessings,

Pete and Jodi