Current News


September 2007


Lar Batista Update!


Dear family,

I have been thinking of you as a Nation and all that you have gone through in the last 6 years. The terrorist attacks to your country left a bitter taste that has been hard to forget. However in the midst of all that, you as a Nation, especially the family of God in America, have never ceased to bless or amaze us with your love, time, dedication and generosity. You are in my prayers and I can only pray God's blessings and protection to you all in the USA. We read in Galatians 6:9 "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." And that is just what you have done and we praise the Lord for you!

It is always difficult to put into a short text all that the Lord has been doing in our midst. It is my joy to tell you that we had a wonderful summer/winter here at our home. Summer for you, winter for us.

We were blessed to receive the interns as well as Grace and Wayne in the middle of June. Wayne had not been here in a while, so it was so good to see him here again! Our new children really enjoyed meeting someone they had heard so much about!

Our interns quickly became part of our family and we were blessed to have them here. Sarah and Ali. We hope and pray we were able to bless them in return! They are in our prayers.

During those 6 weeks we received two teams here, one from Northshore Christian Church in Seattle, and another one from Fellowship Memphis, in TN. Those were blessed weeks of fellowship, family and ministry to us all. Together we visited several schools and presented a Bible School! It was a blessed thing to see our children working with the team, running the puppet show and as a result of our combined effort, to see hundreds of children coming to receive Jesus. Sometimes our children would come home and tell us of children whose parents grew up in our home, that were in the schools and came to receive Jesus and that was a highlight of my time.

As usual, it was a huge blessing for us to see friends that had been to Lar Before and also meet new ones. It is the extension of our family which is what we pray for.

With Fellowship Memphis, we were blessed to have Pastor Brian McCurry come and see us. He preached at church and every time he finished, the whole church wanted to hear more and more of what God had to teach us through him. Brian had a message of hope and heaven which he learned in pain, with the passing of his mother earlier this summer. I believe that was the connection point with our family, because he identified with their pain and suffering of losing family! Two of our workers in construction, Marcelo and Marcio also lost their mother earlier this year and it was a blessing for them to hear the messages Pastor Brian had to share. The team testimonies were also a blessing to us all!

Together with our team in Brasil, FM got to offer an EXTREME MAKE-OVER to a family who would soon be bringing back a child who had undergone open heart surgery. It was a blessing to be able to do that. That was only possible because they were flexible enough to adjust to the changes we needed to make. At the end, the house looked so much better and the child came home to a descent place!

While we were prayer walking with our dear teams, we mentioned that we still needed the final papers from the street where the chapel was to be built. We stopped in each part of the campus and simply prayed to God. We finally were able to break ground for the construction of the chapel on June 29th, the day before Grace and the interns left. By faith we also attended every town meeting when the final votes were taken on the street, and by faith, last week, we were given the final documentation DEEDING the street to Lar. That was nothing but a miracle, bathed in 3 years of daily prayer and faith that the same God who gave Jericho to Joshua, would be able to give a little street to His servant Joaquim! Would you be surprised to hear that God is faithful? Not me! Now we are in the process of building the chapel of Christ and we ask you to pray for us in that as well!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank each one of you who came and invested in the lives of our children with your resources, your time and above all, your love to them. That is what really makes a difference.

Thank you all who gave financially for the projects we have going. We need help and we are glad you have herd God's calling and come to our rescue! We are so blessed to be part of your family and we are moved to tears with the news you keep sending our way. God has been blessing you and we are blessed in the process as well.

Thank you for trusting us with your prayer requests and we rejoice with you in the answers to prayers you get.

Here are some of the feedbacks we have received in the last two months:

  • We bought a house!
  • We are having a baby!
  • We are getting married!
  • We are not adopting right now anymore because WE ARE EXPECTING!!!!
  • I am going into the mission field full time!
  • I lost two teeth, but it is ok, I got some money! (4 year old)

All that to say, we are a fun family and we are so glad that you have decided to be part of it!

Blessings to each of you and keep us posted!

Much love and prayer to you all!

Pai & Mae

Jeremiah 33:3