27301 Schady Road Olmsted Township, OH 44138

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.  - Philippians 2:1-2 NIV

We want to thank you all for one more tremendous year. I can’t express how encouraged and loved we feel by your prayers, and your faithfulness. So I make my joy complete in sharing with you the good news of all our Lord has done for us and our hopes and prayers for this coming year.

We ended the year joining our two cell groups for a night of festivities and celebration. Even though the host’s of our cell groups are a part of our larger church meeting at Tom’s house, recently many of our regular participants have been relatives, neighbors, or friends, many of whom do not know Christ as their Lord and Savior…YET! This makes the coming year very exciting for us, as we think on Jesus’ transforming power and the many lost who are hungry for Him.

The youth group brought in the New Year in one of my favorite ways. A few days before Christmas we returned to the same orphanage/ half-way-house that our youth group, together with Harvest Church mission’s team, had done an outreach at earlier in the year. For our Christmas bash we joined together with a sister house church and were able to give each child a present that they wished for and plenty of treats too! We also pulled off an improvised skit that amazingly the kids adored. Our prayer for our Youth group this year is that through our outreaches and activities they would not only be rooted firmly in Christ but also be overflowing with His love for the so many that need His touch in their lives.

Sagares, Ryan, Kyle and I were blessed to be able to take some time off and travel (12 hours) to the interior of Brazil to visit Sagares’ parents and family. Sagares’ dad hadn’t met Kyle yet so this was very important to all of us. We arrived on Christmas Eve and stayed through the New Year. We had a great time!

We also experienced a miracle! We were going to make a stop at Sagares’ sisters house and then be on our way home when our car’s clutch completely failed   It was one of those moments that you have to laugh so you don’t cry. Anyway, luckily we were on a toll road so the tow was free and we were only 15 minutes away from my sister-in-laws house. Here’s where the miracle comes in. We had paid our whole trip with plastic and were now looking at the possibility of not being able to fix our car. We waited out the weekend praying the only way we knew how… “God you know all things, we trust You, we know You will take care of us.” Sure enough God is God! We received an offering above and beyond normal and were able to not only fix the car, pay for our trip, and some construction material, but also we’ll be able to get Kyle’s American documents, which is something we have been praying about for some time. We need it all in order to travel to the US.

We are already looking forward to our family’s trip to the Amazon. We will go after our carnival retreat in mid February and stay till the end of March. We will be part of a trip to the interior, to the same tribal community that Sagares and I helped drill a well for. This time we will be building a medical house that will adequately store medicine and vaccines. Half of our airline tickets have been given to us already and we are trusting in God for the rest. Everything in the Amazon is very expensive, food, diesel, etc. So if you feel God leading you to give specifically to this trip you can give tax deductably to IAM (please attach a note that says it is for Sagares and Melissa’s Amazon trip). We always prepare for an intense spiritual battle when going to the Amazon. We are going into territories that are very isolated from the gospel and the devil can’t stand it. So please be praying for us and the ARC missionaries that live there.

Last year we were greatly blessed by so many of you in our homes continual construction. This year we have a goal. We have decided to concentrate on a section of our house that we can live in without finishing the whole house and our goal is to move in by December of this year. Pray we can reach this goal, we know that God is always faithful!!

We are planning to go to Ohio this summer. I can’t wait to see everyone. I am sure we will be giving many thanks for all the prayers that God has already responded to!

We thank you all again and pray that God would pour out His presence in the lives of each of you this year that we may all live in His fullness.

God Bless,

Melissa, Sagares, Ryan & Kyle Martins