Missionary Update: A&O Home

Update from Odali & Kathy Barros
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Hey folks!  Hope all is well with you all.  We are all doing fine.  We have had all kinds of things happening.  We thank all of you who have been faithful in your prayers and support.  May God richly bless each of you.

I went to the city were we have been working for almost 2 years.  The building that we have been building is almost done.  We need to put in the windows and door.   They are already using the building for services.  They are having an average of 20 per service.  They have a new young married man that is helping them in the church.  He is a Christian that came from Japan.  He live in this city, Alvorada do Sul.  It is nice to have someone that lives in the same city to help in this ministry.

This last Friday we had one of those special suppers for bringing visitors to meet us and for us to meet them.  This was the largest group yet.  On Tuesday night we had sand volley ball night.  And we had over 20 visitors also.  On Friday night we had over 30 visitors.  It was fantastic.  Here in this area it is not well accepted to go to a Christian church.  So having this group of people that are not Christians out is just marvelous.  Along with all the other visitors, we also had the elected mayor here.  He stayed here until almost 11:30 pm.  It is really neat to see the people that come out to eat stay around and talk after the eating is over.  Everyone just seems to enjoy the atmosphere.

We heard today that the mayor gave an interview on national TV.  He said that one of the very first things he plans on doing, is getting Alpha and Omega back and working.

Also we had an invitation today to work is juvenile detention centers in several cities around here. We would have to get a team together to work with this.  They would be teaching the kids all kinds of different things.  Please pray with us about this.  That if this is Gods will we will do a good work.   No decision has been made.  We are going to get with the Alpha and Omega board and study each detail.  We want to do God’s will!

We are excited and waiting anxiously for next week.  KathyLee and Dan and family are about to arrive!!!!  We are really looking forward to having them here with us. We are excited about seeing our grandchildren.  And looking forward to meeting Little Daniel for the first time.  He is almost 2 years old and Julia is 3 ½.  It had been two years since we have seen her also.  Well, it will be and exciting moment.

Also we have 2 boys back with us.  Cleber and Ari.  They have been back for 2 weeks.  We are their legal guardians.

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Mission Update: A&O Home

Dear friends,

Hope all is well with you. We are doing well. Things around here are calm. I have not written lately because there has not been any changes in the situation here. The judge still has not started hearing any one yet. So as we wait to see the out come of all this we stay busy with other things.

Here at the home there are 34 people. There are some adults and the kids that have turned 18 that are here with us. There are 5 that I have become their legal guardian. Some of the older ones that are still here are the ones that are in college. They help here and we pay for the college. There are 6 in college right now. Since the place is so big it takes several people to keep it up.

The church is using the part of the building where the school was. We have done several events in the church and have many plans for different ways to evangelize the kids in the neighborhood. There are new house going up all around us. It has been interesting to see how the area around us is really growing.

The leaders that work with our young teens have been making new plans to reach out to their school friends. This last Saturday they a special supper. It was really cute. Pray for the group because it is a much needy age to work with.

Youth Meal

We want to thank those of you who have been faithful in your prayers and support. Knowing that we have friends praying for us is a great inspiration. So many of you have written or called us and given encouragement. What a blessing. May God richly bless each of you.

As we wait to see what God has in store for us we will keep on serving Him in as many ways as we can. The command is to preach the Gospel to all, and that is what we are going to do. Some times we don’t understand God’s plans but that is not up to us any way. We must learn to trust in HIM fully and know that His plans will not be changed. We can be used by HIM or GOD will use some one else.

We are excited that our daughter KathyLee and her Husband Dan will be coming to work with us here. They are already working on their support. The Lord willing they should be here before the end of the year.

Here is our email. Write us any time. odali_kathy [at] hotmail.com

Odali and Kathy

Serving a delicious looking meal to the neighborhood kids!

A&O Home Update

Dearest friends,

Many of you have written to encourage us and to ask us how things are.  Knowing that we have brothers and sisters in prayers for us, the kids and the ministry makes the load lighter.  Through it all, God has given to me an unbelievable peace.  Tears come as the kids leave and peace and wisdom come as I have to tell them good bye. I try to encourage them and tell them that God has not left their side.  For those who have been abandoned so many times that is not an easy concept to grab on to.  Please pray for the children. Also continue to pray for the adults.  Odali is in Manaus right now.  He called me today. He is having a hard time with every thing going on.  I know that because of the family life that I have had it is probably easier for me to handle than him.  With the loss of the kids from other cities we have also lost some of the income we got.  This helped with lots of the everyday expenses with food and cleaning stuff.  We had to close the school today because we don’t have enough students, and the ones still here will be leaving.  The judge is only going to start the hearings once the kids are all out of the home.  So I guess the sooner the better.  We will have 3 that will stay. We are their legal guardians: Gisele, Emerson and Lalesca. The ones over 18 yrs will be staying if they want to help in the work that there will be to do. These are the ones that are in college.

Today it is really calm around here. There are only about 25 people in the whole home. All the others that are still here went on a trip with the church youth. They will be gone for 4 days. They went to do a youth rally in a city about 5 hours away. Pray for them. We were really excited because Gisleide had been taken to a home about 11/2 hours away from here. She had practice so hard for the trip. We talked to the people from the home and they let us pick her up so she could go on the trip. The consular from the home was really concerned about her. They said that all she does is cry. They want to give us the legal guardianship. What they don’t know is that I had already placed my petition for her. So it looks like we will be getting her back with in the next few days. So when we take her back to the home on Monday I will talk to the judge where she is from.

Please continue in prayer. We will keep you posted. If you have any questions just write us. Love to all.

Kathy

 

 

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Odali & Kathy Barros April Update

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We hope that all of you are well. We are doing fine. God has sustained us though all our difficult moments. We know that we are blessed to have so many friends around the world praying for us and the children here at the home. Things are quiet for the moment. The official judge is back and reading all the processes. There are 4 volumes of paper work to read though. Each volume probable has around 1000 pages. Well I’m glad I’m not the judge aren’t you.?!! Pray for the judge as he studies the documents, that God will give him wisdom. Pray for us and the children that we Do what he wants us to do. Pray for the children that left. We know that some are not doing to good. Their homes just aren’t good situations for them. But at the moment we can not take any one in.

There are a still some things that we need to do to get the home were it needs to be according to the Health department. For sure not as much as there was. Thanks to so many of you we have accomplish many things. We are going to try and get some more things done while we have fewer children. We still have several roof that need changing are major fixing to do. Rooms need to be painted again. Actually the rooms need to be paint every year. We you consider that you have about 25 to 30 living in a Hall “house”, you can understand why it needs painting every year. Some of the floors need the tile replaced. The money for the dinning room floor has already been donated. We are getting granite for the dinning room. It can take all the wear and tear. On the outside of the home other things need to be done. We have not a whole lot because they are not a priority. But for the health department that is not so. I’m sure you understand. The facilities where the animals (pig, chickens, ducks and any things else) are the facilities that were here when we moved here. So obviously laws have changed for farm things. We need to get that in order also. I know that for many of you that may not sound to important, but when you live with 100 kids you need all the activities you can possibly get to keep kids busy and out of trouble. Because what most people do with kids is just put them in front of a computer or a TV. Trust me, that is not what they need.

While all that is going on there is tons of things going on with the church. The church is relocating. The structure of the church is old and the fire department was starting to give a hard time. Since the building was bought some 25 years ago there the area around it has changed. Because of the big businesses around the church, regulations have changed for that the area. We started checking the price to make the changes and it would we pretty expensive to do the work. So the church decided that they would buy part of the land where Alpha and Omega home is that has not been purchased yet. This decision has really been interesting. There has always been people from church that were not involved with the home but since we have moved the services to the home it has been interesting to see the changes in attitudes. Today we are going to have a big activity day. A big group is going to visit the areas around the home to let people know the church is at the home and another group is having an activity day for the youth and teen that come to church from the neighborhood. The party hall here at the home is being prepare a little each day for the services. The sound equipment, benches brought from church building, some painting done, etc. Every body is getting involved. This is really exciting. With all the facilities we have here at the home we want to use it more to reach the children and teens that need help and need Jesus. There are so many that need help and don’t need to live in the home. Pray for us and the church as we try to reach these kids. We have many people from church and friends that teach in the public schools and they tell us how bad things are out there. Pray for us!!!! Pray for the church!!!!! Pray and see what God would have you to do!!!! We love and appreciate each of you. We would love to have you visit and see for your self what great things God has done. We are excited to see what more great things God has in store. Want to be a part of this??? Feel free to contact us at any time. We would love to hear from you.

May God bless each of you. 
Love in Christ,
Odali and Kathy Barros

Contact Info:
Av. Victor Hugo Boaretto S/N
Garça, São Paulo 17.400.000

OdaliAlfaOmega [at] hotmail.com
odali_kathy [at] hotmail.com

www.aohome.org

Tax Deductible Offerings:
725 N. Green River Rd.
Evansville, IN 47725