Answered Prayers

We spent the whole weekend praying for Eva and her situation in another city, Londrina! We have a friend that we met last year who moved to Londrina, the 2nd largest city in Parana- the state we are living in- and so it was our perfect connection in the city. He speaks English and took such great care of us for our fun, spur of the moment weekend getaway. We went to a large farm party on Saturday night that raised money for a charity as it was a requirement to bring a canned food to enter. It was a lot of fun to dance the night away with our favorite kind of music, sertanejo or country! Then the next day before returning we went to Mass in the beautiful chapel in the center of the city and we went ´swimming´ in some dirty, knee deep water to wrap up our short vacation! I always love how close I feel to the girls after little travels that we take together and it is always nice to get to know other cities in Brazil!
Monday we arrive at the program only to discover that Eva had decided over the weekend that she was not ready for marriage!!! We were told she created the idea to avoid returning to the orphanage but we also heard that her mom was forcing her into it- either way our prayers were answered and she came to her senses! She seemed back to her old self and happier than Katie had seen her on Friday- it was amazing. It never ceases to amaze me how God takes care of everything in His time. We spent a lot of time Monday with what we think is the equivilent of Child Protection Services here in Brazil, and I am wondering how we have gotten anything done without them thus far. They get things done so quickly and seem to be on top of every situation we presented them with! They are working on getting Juliano´s two younger sisters, Rosangela and Daniele, out of their mother´s house and back into the orphanage. Still not a great situation but I think they are much better off there than staying in that house and being exposed to so many things that little girls should never see. Hopefully next they will work on Juliano and Rogerio, who are now both missing both school and PETI- please keep them in your prayers. We also went with these women to the house of one of our new students, Taina. Another heartwrenching story, she is one of five girls and when we arrived the mother was hand washing clothes in a tank full of brown water. Taina´s little sister was wearing pants ripped from the thigh to the toes on one side and all of them had the dirtiest little bodies and faces you could ever imagine- we are looking into what more we can do for them so keep them in your prayers as well!
Tuesday night we went to a BBQ with a lot of people from the gym as Wednesday was Independence Day here in Brazil so everyone was off work. We went thinking the BBQ was to celebrate this holiday only to discover it was both a goodbye party for someone moving the next day and also a belated birthday party for someone else.. oops! But it was a fun night getting to know everyone from the gym a little better. I even met a women who has been wanting to try the martial art Muay Tai, same as me but I was too scared to do it alone, so we are going to give it a whirl on Tuesday.. yikes!!
We spent the holiday catching up on skype sessions, organzing things for the program and just relaxing. In the evening we went to a carnival/concert that reminded me a lot of the state fair. It was very hill billy, with rides and a live band and all kinds of cowboy gear for sale- lots of fun!
I know I mentioned a lot of keep in your prayers in this blog but I want to thank you for your continued prayers as they obviously help tremendously as you can see with the Eva situation. You guys are making a bigger impact in the lives of these kids than you can ever know! I also want to remind you that we do morning prayer each morning here and we would love to include your prayer requests in return. Feel free to email me at lzatkulak@yahoo.com so that we can do that!