Lees in het nederlands hier
It´s been way too long again since our last message! Anyway, I´ll try to keep it short, probably a lot will be the same for our newsletter which I´ll have to write this week as well…………
This month we have had 2 birthdays! On June 10th I, Melanie celebrated my 30th birthday. I had a small celebration with some close friends enjoying a chocolate-fondue!!! Also I got spoilt with many presents! Today, the 21st is Efraims second birthday. But we´ll celebrate it next month when my parents will be here so we´ll have a double party! We´ve already come up with an idea, it will be an orange/Dutch party, (too bad Holland didn´t work along today in the European championship…… ) 
We took Efraim to a little zoo today, to have a small celebration of his birthday! 
The prevention work is going really well, Mirjam and I go to a favela in Fortaleza weekly, where we work together with project Shine (also from YWAM base Fortaleza). With a small group of girls we do creative activities, but we also talk about different subjects like sexuality, relationships and marriage. We´ll continue with this same group until the end of June. After the holidays we´ll start a new group of girls. Also we already have plans to start up the prevention program in 2 other locations. On Wednesday mornings we go to the street to work with some streetgirls/prostitutes. We´re working on gaining their trust first. One of the girls, A*** is 18 years old and pregnant of he second child. She lives and sleeps on the street as she can´t go back home because of a drug-debt. Inspite of her pregnancy she is still using crack, also she´s still prostituting herself, like the other girls, many times during the day. We often feel so powerless, as at this moment there´s not much we can do to change their situation. That´s why we´d really like to start a house where we could take care of these girls. We´ve already found the prefect location for it, ´still waiting for the rest…. (take a look on the projects´ blog for more complete story about A***, also for pictures of the location we´ve found! http://vidanovafortaleza.blogspot.com/search/label/english)
Also Jander is doing weekly street work as well. Every Friday-afternoon or –night a team goes to different place around Fortaleza that are known to have groups of street kids hanging around. How special it is to see that sometimes the boys of the farm, that used to be living on the streets themselves, now are coming along with the team as a living prove that it is possible to change and that there is still hope!
Efraim is already becoming a big boy! He´s almost 2 years old now! He loves playing hide and seek in his little house (big tv-box), or sometimes he gathers a lot of plastic cups, containers, spoons and starts ´cooking´. He is very active and we have to keep an eye on him every second or he will even climb the computer desk! 
We have a lot of activities coming the next few weeks:· My parents are coming over for 6 weeks
- July 18- August 8 a GOteam of 8 Dutch girls is coming to the base, Jander and me will be responsible for them
- July 18-25 july the wonderful Hawaiian team is coming back, they come every year to do medical, dentist care, and lots more, it´s always a busy but great week!
- July 18 we´ll have a volunteer from the States at Vida Nova
- Juli 5-22 we´ll have a mini-dts on the base.
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We are kindred spirits! You entered the giveaway at growing in Grace Magazine and I am the owner. also am the Director for a 12 month discipleship program for women in California, USA.(The Sarah Home for Women) We disciple them for 12 months as they get their lives put back together. My eyes welled up with tears as I read this entry from you. I know it certainly does make you feel powerless, but we can only do as much as the Lord allows and as women seek the change from the Lord. Don't give up no matter what. For your rewards will be great in heaven! ((hugs))
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