What a lovely time of year! The trees have that lovely new green, there are buds and flowers everywhere and there is a sweetness in the air you would love to bottle! Even after a less rigorous winter than normal, spring is marvelous; a time of hope and joy.
Here in Brazil that hope is in the air too, even though our days are cooling down instead of heating up. Autumn is when the refreshing rains come after a long hot summer and everything sprouts anew. Our children in the Miriam Home are bursting with energy and expectations too. Today we have ten children in the home and all of them have dreams. God is making many of those dreams come true! 
Cleberson, the baby of our family, is content in this safe little world, but we believe God is opening an even better door for him. During the National Youth Congress held in Campo Mourao the end of February, a couple from an AFLC church Curitiba came to visit the Home and met Cleber. A bound formed almost immediately and the couple are now working with the juvenile authorities here to receive a temporary guardianship, the first step in adoption!
On the other end of the spectrum is Caroline. She has been with us less than a month, and it is wonderful to see the changes that have come about in this young ladies life. Caroline is 15 years old, when she arrived she kept to herself, avoided being where the other children where—she reminded me of a wounded animal, trying to protect herself. Caroline’s mother wanted a boy. From the time she was a baby, that is how Caroline was raised—dressed as a boy, educated as a boy (she only learned to use the toilet sitting down here in the Miriam Home). When Caroline went to school she picked on and laughed at by the other children and when she was at home she mistreated by her mother. When she arrived here she expected to be the outsider and it took some days for her to understand that she wasn’t going to be called names, hit, excluded and ridiculed. To begin with she didn’t know how to deal with that, and she still covers her mouth to hide a smile when she is complimented. Today one of the house moms brought her a pair of earrings; she couldn’t believe they were really hers. Yesterday she asked me to take her picture - this frightened child is starting to bloom!
Diane has been with us quite a while, and it is likely that she will be going home this week. Before she leaves she has a lot of preparations she needs to make, but the biggest the plans are for her baptism! She has found new life in Jesus Christ and wants to be baptized before she goes home to her father and step-mother, but even before that she has asked for me, Odete and Altair (her god-parents) to go an explain baptism to her parents. She wants them to understand the commitment she has made to the Lord, because she wants to see them at peace with the Lord too!
Yes, Spring is a wonderful time of year!
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