Seek God and Live: The Best Birthday...ever.

Today I turned 25. I think this is the first birthday in my life where I am surprised at my age for being older than I feel. But this is also the first birthday I've spent outside of the United States and the first birthday I've ever had in warm weather. Today was absolutely incredible. It began with me leading devotions with the team this morning bright and early at 7:00am. I talked about the attitude of worship, preparing our hearts to be pure. I also shared Psalm 27:4-8, my favorite verses.

After devotions we spent a long day in the gorgeous Brazil sun working on the sanctuary again. What a blessing to work alongside members of the congregation! Oh and by the way, have I mentioned the food is absolutely delicious? I find myself going back for seconds and thirds every meal. I can't get enough of it!

After dinner we walked a few doors down to the current sanctuary for the Wednesday night service, one of 4 services during the week (wednesday night, saturday night, sunday morning, sunday night). This one seemed to be a bit more relaxed. We sang (I listened) to a few songs in Portuguese and Russ, our leader, got up to speak about having adventures with God. He shared multiple memories he has had with the Lord where he stepped out in faith and the Lord continually provides in amazing ways. It brought me back to my outreach in Mexico and Central America where God continually provided in miraculous ways for me and our team.

After the service a few guys invited Greg and me to join them for a game of pool, an innocent idea and fun way to get to know some guys (or so I thought). After playing a few games we then went back to where the guys are staying. I walked through the door and to my surprise everyone (our team, members of the church, and people I hadn't even met!) was waiting in the dark to yell SURPRISE! Lo and behold...I had my first surprise birthday party, ever. And I'm going to go ahead and say, it will be the best. They even got me a gift! Brazilian flip flops with a little Brazil flag on them. I absolutely adore these people and am blown away by their warmth and generosity. They had cake, snacks, and drinks and apparently it is a tradition for me to pass out the first piece of cake, which I obviously gave to my amazing mother who planned the whole thing in secret by the way. After cutting some cake and saying thank you to everyone who would listen, we played a crazy game of Uno. And for everyone in America...Uno may be a boring game to us, but down here..it's serious. Rules are different and it is intense!

Sum it up all to say...best birthday ever. Thank you everyone!!!