NTM

Hello Friends and Family,

It’s literally been months since I last updated this page. Life here has just kept rolling along as fast as ever. We are well into our summer routine here with Tim working 7-5 each day on many renovation projects as well as the daily responsibilities he has. I (karis) am continuing in the guesthouse ministry and we are preparing to move the guesthouse into an empty dorm builing, and have this as our permanent guesthousing facility. This is exciting for us, as we will be done with the never-ending job of moving and rearranging furniture and beds. Now, everything will be set up in it’s own place.
Well, getting back to what we’ve been up to the past few months… we made a move the end of May to another, much bigger house here on the mission property. Our new house, has 4 bedrooms and 2 baths. It has a nice front porch and big front yard with a man-made fishpond. The girls love the extra space, and so do we. If you ever want to come visit, we have room now!
Tim and I have been thinking about possibly taking a 3 month furlough during this time, next year. From the months of May-August. We will have been here in Brazil for 2 1/2 years, at that point. We are very excited about this possibility. Please pray with us about this. Pray that God would continue to show us if this is what He wants for us. Our desire is to be able to return home every 2 years, during the summer. This would allow for our girls to continue their education down here in Brazil without messing up their school year.
Well, that’s a quick update, hitting all the major points in our life and ministry here in Brazil. Thanks so much for your prayers, partnership and interest in our lives.
We love and appreciate each of you!
Serving in Brazil,
Tim, Karis
Sarah and Kiera Bennett

Hello to All,

It’s raining outside, on a quiet Monday night. Tim’s language helper just left, and I just got back from a ladies night. Lots of Christmas card making, coffee drinking and conversation having. But it sure doesn’t feel like Fall here. A season that we all love.
The weather is finally making her visible changes. It’s rained the past few days off and on. The grass is finally turning green again and the trees are bursting with fruits and foliage. A few of the fruits we have around here are Mango, Jabuticaba, Caju and Mulberry. Today, I (Karis) went mulberry picking with Kiera. Of course, there weren’t that many on the trees yet, as the rains will bring more. But, we had fun eating the ones we did pick.

Well, our daily activities around here have been quite normal. Nothing out of the ordinary, which makes me feel like there’s nothing worth writing about. (smile)
But we realize the importance of keeping you guys updated on how we’re doing.

Here’s a few of our daily/weekly activities.

Tim: Have Portuguese classes; Monday-Thursday – mornings.
Coach MK high school basketball; Monday,Wednesday, Friday -afternoons.
Language helper sessions; Mondays -evenings.
Men’s Bible Study/Language Time; Tuesday evenings.
Soccer/Language time; Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays -early evening.
Take Sarah to school and Pick her up; Monday-Friday. (this is a 3 kilometer bike ride)
Everyday, after taking Sarah to school; spend time in community doing language study with local Brazilian friends.

Karis: Work in the MK school cafeteria; Monday-Fridays -mornings.
Volunteer teach English at Sarah’s school; Monday’s early evenings.
Preparing rooms for guests when needed.

Sarah attends a local school for ages 3 years-12 grade. She attends from 1-5 PM. The other grades rotate times throughout the day. She is really enjoying herself there and her Portuguese level is approaching fluency.
Not really, but she is doing remarkably well. And her comfort level with the language is growing everyday.

Kiera is her smiley bubbly self. She is pretty much completely potty-trained. YahoO! She only wears diapers at night, and she goes days without accidents. She is so proud of her big-self

Both girls come home from nursery singing Portuguese songs and they are enjoying being here and it is home to them, for sure.

Tim and I just sat down with one of our Administration Board leaders today. This was a good time to talk through what the next few months will look like, as Tim finishes Portuguese study, and we prepare for our full time ministries.

Please be in prayer with us about all the choices/decisions that need to be made. Honestly, there are more jobs that need to be filled than there are people to fill them. This leads to an incredible need for flexibility and multi-tasking.
The jobs that we will possibly be filling this next semester are that of nursery worker, kitchen helper/cook, Guest-hostess, for Karis.
Overall maintenance, specific tribal support emphasis, handy-man and go-to man, for Tim.

We are in the process of talking through these things with our leadership. We are trusting God to find a good balance that will work well for our family and our ministry strengths.

Thanks to each of you for your prayers.
We want to thank those of you who partner with us financially, we are incredibly grateful.

Lots of Love,
Tim, Karis, Sarah and Kiera Bennett

P.S please pray for our friend Joanna Bergman, she and her husband Curtis studied Portuguese with us here in Brazil. She has a stage 4 brain tumor.

 We have a big prayer request that has been on our hearts for the past few months or so. Tim and I have been praying about this, just the two of us, but we wanted to share it also with you all and ask that you too would pray with us about this.

There is a missionary couple, and their parents who own a piece of land here, right next to the mission property. The land has two houses on it, a separate guest room plus another room and a pool. Over the years, God provided in mighty ways to allow this family to build these houses and make this property a place where other missionaries could go and relax and have a time away. The time has come for the parents to return to the states and settle into a retirement center that NTM has in Florida. They are desiring to sell this piece of property to someone who has a desire to use this as a place for fellowship and encouragement among believers.
Their heart is to see this place continue to be used in such a way.

Tim and I have the desire to serve in this capacity, regardless if we get this piece of property or not. But we have decided to commit it to prayer as we have both felt God individually leading us to pray about this. It’s like a huge mountain in front of us, we see no way that we could come up with the money to buy this amount of land and everything on it. But we are so excited to trust God in this and see what He has for us, in it. It’s a beautiful place, so peaceful,so nice. The most important thing we are asking from you, is that you would Pray With Us.

Just thinking about it all, makes Tim and I both emotional. We aren’t sure why (probably because we know in our hearts that He is prompting us to pray). The desire to have the property only came after we felt God showing us how He could
use this land in the same mighty way that He has used it up until now. The mission property here where we are living, doesn’t have a guesthouse building. The "guesthouse ministry" has been one of time and space in the past. Meaning, it would function if the time and space needed were available. God brought us here to Brazil with this ministry on our hearts. Something He was preparing us for long before we got here.

We are just asking you to once again, pray with us. Pray that He would clearly show us if this is something He has for us.
The price that they are asking is $120,000 USD. They are needing $90,000 up front as they will be needing to set up once they get back to the US.

Please, if you have any further questions about this, just contact us.

Thanks to all for your faithful prayers and support,
Love,

The Bennett Family

Well, we sure have been busy these past couple months. Not to mention, our internet has not been working properly therefore we haven’t been able to access this website and keep you guys updated like we would have wanted too.

We are doing very well. We are quickly approaching the end of our first semester of Portuguese language study. We had our first language evaluations about three weeks ago. We were very encouraged by the results. Tim, after less than four months of language study, is doing very well and is at a Basic High level in the language. Karis after the same amount of language study, plus a lifetime of Spanish language and culture is also doing well and has *clepped* out of the language course and will therefore not be needing to take formal classes next semester. This is such an encouraging thing for her and it’s neat to see how well her spanish background has really helped her progress and begin to gain fluency. She will still be doing self-study as there’s always room for improvment.

Last week we enrolled Sarah, our almost 5 year old, in a Portuguese pre-school downtown. It’s a private school and she attends Mon-Fri. 1-5PM. She’s loving it, of course..our social butterfly… She has 4 other little classmates who all speak portuguese. Everyday either one of us take turns riding her to school on the back of our bike. (pictures of the bike are in our new pictures we added, as are pictures of Sarah and her school). We were so thrilled with the opportunity to allow Sarah to begin studying Portuguese plus having her start to do some preschool studies as well. Everyday at 4 o’clock all the kids have a snack which in Portuguese is called a "lanche". (lunchie) This is like a cafeteria where she is able to buy special snacks that she can only have at school. Like cake, special juice boxes and other fun stuff like that. She’s always telling us about the fun stuff she gets at school for her lanche.

We will not be having classes this summer so it’ll be interesting to see what we fill our time with. Tim will continue to go downtown to Giomar’s house, a local man who is doing a house construction project. This is something that Tim has been spending alot of time doing. He’s been able to be a big help down there and at the same time begin to learn skills that he will use when it comes time to start helping build houses/building etc. for the other missionaries here.

We have been able to start buying appliances from a family who is leaving the field here shortly. We are thankful for this opportunity as they have allowed us to make monthly payments on the things we are purchasing from them. So far we have boughten a washing maching, a printer, a stove, Tim has been able to buy some tools, we have also boughten several smaller things from them as well.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers. God is continuing to meet our needs, however we are still at about 40% of our recommended support. We are able to survive on this amount but it doesn’t leave much room for reaching out and blessing others in the way that we so desire. We are praying about buying a vehicle in the future and also about longterm housing needs. Thank you to all of you who continue to pray, support and encourage us along the way.

On Saturday the 8th of December, we purchased our airline tickets and have set January 15th as our departure date for Brazil.

All along the way God has shown us His plan for our lives..and always….one step at a time. Never choosing to reveal to far into the future, but providing opportunities for us to trust and walk by faith.

Philippians 4:6,7 (Weymouth New Testament Translation) Do not be over-anxious about anything, but by prayer and earnest pleading, together with thanksgiving, let your request be unreservedly made known in the presence of God. 7 And then the peace of God, which transcends all our powers of thought, will be a garrison to guard your hearts and minds in union with Christ Jesus.

Amen to that! Wow, God’s Word is full of promises. Promises we can hold onto and promises that apply to our everyday lives.

Right now we are hoping to leave Michigan the 26th, drive to Washington D.C to visit Karis’ brother, then continue on to Virginia and stay with some friends for a few days. After that, we’ll continue on down to Florida and stay with Karis’ parents in Sanford for about a week or so. Our flight leaves out of Miami on the morning of the 15th.

Please pray for us as we will be very busy packing, saying our goodbyes and spending valuable time with friends and family. Pray that our vehicle holds up well and gets us to Florida with no problems. Pray for much needed wisdom in all the details of everyday life and decisions for us.Thank you all for your prayer and financial partnerships. We value each of you and the vital part you have in ministering with us to reach the Lost in Brazil. 

On friday the 26th of October, our whole family will be driving down to Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania where Tim will be involved in helping with some building projects down there. Tim has made several trips to Jersey Shore this past year and enjoys visiting with the missionaries.

New Tribes Mission has a moilization center in Jersey Shore that is used to educate and expose college age students to World Missions.

We will be in Pennsylvania until November 6th, then on November 9th we will be flying from Lansing, Michigan to Orlando, Florida. We will spend 2 1/2 weeks in Florida where we will apply for our Brazilian Visas.

Please pray for us during this very busy time. Pray that we would be able to complete the visa process in the time we are down there. We will be staying in a guest house at the New Tribes Headquarters in Sanford, Florida.

Karis’ parents live in Sanford and we will be able to spend time with them, we are looking forward to this very much!! Tim will be able to help Joe work on framing the new house they are building.

We wanted to let you know you can praise the Lord with us….just this week we heard of three new couples who want to partner with us prayerfuly and financially!! What an encouragment to our hearts, God is providing and meeting out needs.

We’re halfway through September and our goal of reaching Brazil by January is seeming to be more of a reality. Just this past week we received the last of our four passports. This means we can begin the Visa process for Brazil.

Please be in prayer for us as it’s crucial that the Visa process be as smooth, quick, and uneventful as possible. We are asking the Lord to provide  Permanent visas for all of us, as we are unable to begin Portuguese study in Brazil unless we are granted permanent, rather than Tourist Visas.

Classes begin the last week of January and we are hoping to leave the second week of January.

We are currently still living here in Southern Michigan. It looks like we will not be needing to move to Florida. God seemed to close the doors on that and instead we are going to stay here in Michigan and make occasional trips to either Miami or Chicago, depending on which consilate we end up using.

Many of you are aware of the fact that Tim had three teeth knocked out a couple months ago during a softball game. Well after several trips to the dentist and several xrays and stitches, he is doing incredibly well. He was fitted with a "flipper" denture partial. This was a temporary fix that would allow his gums to heal and give him a smile to boot! Right now he is wearing the partial and in about two more weeks he’ll go back to the dentist and be fitted for a more permanent partial. This one will be a titanium alloy mix that will fit more like a snap-on metal retainer. It will still be removable, but costwise, it is much more practical than implants or a bridge.

We want to thank all of you for your prayers and support over the past few months especially. God met all our needs concerning Tim’s dental work and hospital bills. The church which he had been playing for was able to make a claim on their insurance which is going to cover the cost of the medical/dental bills. Also, thank you all for your prayers and support in general. We are seeing God provide for us and we are continually encouraged.

Hello to all,

How do you find yourselves doing this summer? Tim and I find ourselves in some what of a whirlwind of activity. We moved two weeks ago from Jackson to Leonidas, Michigan; it’s a small town where Tim grew up and our home church is. We’ve relocated here for the time being. Not sure how much time it’ll end up being…but we are here.

Our plans are to work on further deputation, setting up meetings with local pastors and being available to people here in our home church. Tim quit his fulltime job and we are trusting God to keep up busy enough to make ends meet and trusting that our financial support will go up and we will be on our way for Brazil. Yes, we are still going to Brazil! God hasn’t closed doors, rather He seems to be redirecting us and we are trusting this is because he has new and different people and churches for us to connect with.

As far as plans for leaving for Brazil, we are hoping to be ready to arrive in Brazil by January of ‘08. This is when the next school semester for Portuguese study begins. Currently we are not at a place financially where we could leave yet. Our support level would need to raise by about 30% more before we would consider heading over(this would put us at about 60% of our total recommended support). This is so as not to be a burden to the field of Brazil and the individuals down there.

We desire to have a ministry that would allow us to encourage and support other missionaries through giving and providing a comfortable and relaxing environment for them when they come out from their tribal ministries. Whether this be through a guest house ministry, or by simply opening our home to them. We want to be able to share with others what God has given us. (just a personal note of what some of our desires are for our future ministry.)

Anyways,
just wanted to let you know what’s going on with us. We covet your prayers! Pray that we would stay encouraged and not loose sight of what we believe in our hearts God has for us. Thank you all for your love and prayers and support. We truly are a team working towards furthering the gospel in Brazil and encouraging others along the way.
Because of Him,
Tim and Karis Bennett

Please, as you read this, keep us in your prayers as we are preparing for many changes in the months to come.

First, we are wanting to know God’s timing for each part of our lives and the decisions that need to be made.

For several months now, we have felt that we should set August as our departure month for Brazil. There are several reasons for this, the main one being that several other new couples will be arriving in Brazil for their 18 month Portuguese language study, and we too wanted to start our language study at that time, with them. These are fellow students who graduated with us from the MTC in May of 06.

As we see that April is quickly moving along and we are left with 4 short months before August arrives, we are contemplating what this means for us and our desire to be in Brazil by August. 

First of all, we still have yet to go through the application process for our Brazilian Visas. We have been told that we will need to move to someplace other than Michigan, preferably Florida. This will make the whole process much smoother.

Equally important, we are only at 27ish% of our total recommended support. We are encouraged by the interest of local churches, friends and family but have yet to see God provide an adequate amount of financial support for us to head towards leaving the country.   

To tie this altogther, we need God’s leading and direction on when to move to Florida, where He would have us live, would Tim have a fulltime job? Or would we be involved with a local church down there? We will not plan on leaving Michigan until/unless we have a church or job lined up for Tim. We don’t feel that leaving our network of churches here in Michigan is a good idea unless God has a way of meeting our support level needs in Florida.

Please remember us in your prayers. God is faithful to provide our needs. We know this to be true, His Word is true. Stepping out in Faith has never been more real to us than at this time. We desire to lean on Him, and not our own understanding.

Thank you for your prayers and support.                           Tim, Karis and girls.

We just wanted to share with you how we are coming along financially. This past month we reached 25% of our recommended monthly support. This is a huge encouragement to our hearts!! God is providing and continues to bring us along on our journey towards Brazil. We wanted to send a special thanks to those of you who partnered with us financially and for those who faithfully partner with us through prayer and encouragment.

In February we were able to visit with three different couples who had been in the Missionary Traning with us. It was exciting to see how God has provided for them, and how He is showing each of  them His plans for their lives and ministries. New extensions of the Body of Christ, reaching out and going to the "uttemost parts of the earth" to be involved in World evangelism. That’s an exciting thing!

On Friday March 9th, Tim and I are going to drive to Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania where we had our 3rd year of Mission traning. Our reason for going out there is because one of the couples on staff just lost their daughter to cancer. Their names are Kim and Vivian Walden. Kim was Tim’s Personal Campus Ministry(PCM) instructor. Tim and Kim had grown close during that year, and we wanted to be there for their daughter Olivia’s Memorial Service. She was only 18 years old, and had a heart for missions herself. Her parents had served in Papua New Guinea for several years, and Olivia was passionate about missions and tribal evangelism. Please keep Kim and Vivian and there 3 remaining kids in your prayers.

Thank you again, for all your love and support. We are encouraged and pressing forward!

If you would like to be added to our Newsletter Mailing List, please email us at tim_bennett@ntm.org thanks.