Tim and Karis Bennett Just another weblog 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.
