Thank you so much for all your prayers. The Lord has been blessing Stenio, Soraia and Vitória so much since our last update in April. They spent their last day in the city shelter at the end of April
and May 2nd we moved them to a two bedroom apartment in São Lourenço owned by Rogerio and Jaçi, one of the couples who helped start the church in São Lourenço. As the Lord was guiding us, the apartment is almost directly across the street from the church building.
Members of the São Lourenço church embraced Stenio, Soraia and Vitória and in a couple of weeks their initially empty house was filled with a bed, refrigerator, stove, sofa, chairs, and lots more! The family is attending worship services in São Lourenço and having Bible studies during the week.
Stenio-&-Soraia-in-SL.jpg
Both Stenio and Soraia are extremely grateful for all the help they have received. However, they have yet to take that final step of fully entrusting their lives to Christ. Both admit to struggling daily with the craving for drugs. Stenio has been working at a construction job in Recife and, unfortunately for the last several weeks, every Friday he has blown his paycheck on drugs. The situation sounds desperate and it is. Please keep praying they will yield to the Lord’s call and bow to him as Lord and Savior… Pray also we can find him a job in São Lourenço.
This is a photo of Stenio & Soraia on the porch of their new apartment in São Lourenço with the São Lourenço church building in the background.
Pray also that, if Stenio is not going to yield to Christ that he does not become a stumbling block for Soraia. She has said she intends to follow the Lord whether Stenio does or not. However I have seen too many times where one member of a couple who could not or would not break free of their chemical dependency wound up dragging the other who was escaping back into drug use. They have come so far, please pray that she at least (and Vitória with her) will not fall back into Satan’s grip.
Pray for little Vitória. She has been having problems with asthma. She spent the last two weeks in the hospital and was thankfully released last Friday. This is very stressful for Soraia as she sometimes has a hard time taking care of herself and Vitória’s constant health needs have become a real strain on her.
Working with the “unchurched” is always a challenge. There are so many things we are used to being able to say or do around “church” folks that can easily be taken the wrong way by people unaccustomed to our “church” ways. Please pray that as all of us learn to interact with those who are still “of the world” we can relate to them in such a way they know they are loved and called by the One who is beyond the world.
