Snail Invasion

Three different times I had an invasion of poisonous snails called caramujo. The first time I found them hiding in my plants, I found over 50 a year ago after I moved here. Then my neighbor boy was helping with the yard work and we found a huge invasion easting my plants a few months ago. Once again I filled a bucket of salt water to kill the 100+ snails we found. Then just two weeks ago we found another bunch of them outside my wall among the tall grass. These pictures are the ones we found so after killing them in salt water. Most of these are very small, but a few were about 3 inches long. I bought some poisonous pellets and spread them around the yard. Now I find only a few empty shells.

Farming in Rural Campo Verde

Campo Verde is an agricultural town and the cotton capital of the state and country. They also raise corn, soy beans, and sun flowers. On our way to Agrovile, we saw the harvesting of soybeans. Some fields were still pretty green, but others were very dry and ready for harvesting.

As you can see John Deer is the major farming equipment company here.

Agrovile

Tuesday a couple in our church who works at company who
raises chickens and eggs took a group of us to Agrovile, one of the chicken farms that raises chickens for export. Each chicken house has 14,000 chickens that will then go to Cuiabá to be exported to China, Japan, US and other countries after being slaughtered. These chickens have reached the correct weight so be sold. Before a truck can come in to pick up the chickens, it is washed at the gate with spraying water.

Vacation Bible School for the Teens

The same week we had VBS for the kids with Roza and César, we also had teen meetings every night. It was such an encouragement to have 22 teens participate. This is great since as yet we really don't have a youth group and several who participated were new. After the worship and lesson time there was fun activities. On the last night Jessica and Thaimara did a skit. One night they played a game where if they rolled doubles they had dress up and eat chocolate cake until the next person rolled doubles. You can imagine how much fun it was and enjoyed byall.

Vacation Bible School - Children

Roza and César, a couple attending a Bible School in Bahia (a state on the coast), came for a week of ministry. They had a full week holding Bible school for the children every afternoon and for the teens every evening. And on Saturday evening they led a couples encounter. (Pictures of the teens and couples activities will be in the next blog.) Our theme was "You are important to God" , a study on the life of Esther. We also had two teens, Thais and Thaimara and their mother Bette come up from Cuiabá to help with the music. They were a great help and blessing.

The kids loved singing "Read your Bible, Pray every day" and doing the motions. They also love having our puppet, Ninho (César) visit each day. Then he brought his friend to VBS (Jessica).

Here are some of the kids wearing their crowns.

Zoe Peffer and Jessica (Roza and César's daughter) taught the little kids upstairs while the bigger kids remained downstairs. For the closing program the kids showed their puppets of the characters in the story of Esther.

IBB Christmas Program

Children's Christmas at Campo Verde church.
December 20 was our children's Christmas program. The kids recited Isaiah 9:6 and acted out serveral scences frm the biblical account while the adolescents read the scripture portions from the book of Luke.

Maria visited Elizabeth and then recited a portion of "Mary's song" (Luke 1:46-49)

The women of the church sang a Christmas hymn while Mary and Joseph took care of Baby Jesus.

And of course the angels appeared to the shepherds and gave the announcement tht Jesus was born. Then the shepherds went to the stable to worship our new born Lord and Savior as we all sang "O come let us adore Him".

Making Polenta

In December I was invited to the home of one of our church members for Sunday dinner. They were making polenta and chicken. Geny cut up the chicken and cooked it over the hot fire of a woodburning stove while others were roasting corn over the fire. To make polenta, they grated the fresh corn off the cob, seasoned it with salt, pepper, and green onion, then stirred it continually while it cooked over the hot fire until thickened and cooked thoroughly. it was served with rice and salad. The chicken and the polenta was absolutely delicious.

Little Fernanda (age 1 1/2) enjoyed eating it as much as I did.