Today we left Exu for another city in another state- Petrolina, Pernambuco. It is home to the Reiner’s, but it is my first time outside of Ceara since coming to Brazil. We woke up around 7:00, packed our stuff, and ate a breakfast of French rolls and butter, cheese, goiaba juice, hot milk, and cake. We quickly ate and loaded up, moving on to our next destination which was several hours away.
Tag: Church
Day 39: Jesus, Our Very Best Friend

Today was such a great day of ministry. It started when we woke up, ate a quick snack of bananas, and left the house shortly after 7am. We drove about an hour away to the small town of Ouricouri, the location of our morning ministry.
On the way there we practiced our music for the service. In the back of the SUV, William pulled out his guitar and I got out my violin and we started playing and singing together with the girls. When we had finished practicing our songs, we started playing other songs just for fun, and the Reiner’s joined in with us as we sang “I’ll Fly Away,” “When We All Get To Heaven,” etc.
Day 38: Sad Day
Today was a sad day for a couple reasons. First of all, it was sad because we left Crato today, my home for the last five weeks. It only took five weeks for me to become fairly involved in several ministries and begin to develop many friendships with both Americans and Brazilians. But the next phase of our ministry requires us to move to Petrolina, so we started in that direction today.
Day 32: Rejoicing and Weeping
Romans 12:15 says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (NKJV). Today was one of those days when I saw both themes in action. It began with much rejoicing, and most of the day was that way, but it ended in sadness.
Danae and I practiced our trumpet/violin duets sometime after 7:30, and they sounded good! We quick ate breakfast altogether, and I cannot remember what we ate. I know we had papaya, but I don’t remember what else we had. Oh well…
Brazil, Day 25: Sweetbitter Ministry
Ahhhh! What a great day this was! It easily ranks up there as one of the most exciting days of the year for me. We had our first of three orchestra concerts last night, and the other two were today. Our first concert was this morning at Batista do Novo Juazeiro, the largest regular Baptist church in Juazeiro and perhaps the largest one here in the valley. It is the home of Pastor Renato, the aforementioned director of the Semana de Musica Sacra.
