by Donna
Benjamim entered the Best Original Song Contest in Macau this month and the family was present at the final. Ben sang a heart warming rendition of his own “Flower of the Field”. Among other strong contestants and talented arrtists, Ben emerged victorious with the prize for Best Performance of the night, an award based on audience voting. Our votes went to Ben whose performance was first place in our book!
Jason continues to play soccer with the Black Panthers soccer team. With Brazilian coaches and Chinese teammates, it is a great intercultural activity and good exercise at the same time. His Chinese is improving rapidly as he continues his lessons and has increased opportunity to use his language skills.
Gloria has been finishing up her high school requirements and is dealing with uni opportunities. It is a time of waiting and decision, a time of trial and testing, but we are sure that the Lord will show her the right path on which to proceed and give her the grace to follow!
Mom enjoyed a very Happy Mother’s Day, with almost all her children in tow to share fellowship, food and creative games with! She is an extremely blessed and happy mom! Congratulations to all mom’s who celebrate mother’s day every day as they serve and love their families! May the Lord endue them with the power to embrace motherhood, embrace their femininity to be the women in Proverbs 31. Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

Ben at concert interview

Jason with football academy

Mandy at mothers day celebration

Bel Bel happy at mothers day fun time.

Mre mothers day fun

On another front, during the month of May, I was able to meet with Hison Khang and his family, who came to visit Macau. It was a blessing for me to get to know him, his wife and his two children. As you know, Hison has developed and delivered to us Wordproject  IOS App now available at Apple store. In spite of being a doctor by profession he has found the time to dedicate himself to developing tools for God’s Work. Praying for him and his family there in Korea.

The Khang family in Macau.

I also met several times with Raj, in Zhuhai, as we had to make several corrections to the Tamil Bible text. Subsequently he recorded the new verse section of our online Tamil Bible, now available here.

Raj, Julie and Rishanda are right now in India visiting with relatives. They are a great blessing and encouragement to Wordproject . Pray for them.

The New updated text and audio of the Punjabi New Testament has been finished and Anil, who has been recording it for several months, sent us the last batch just before I travelled. Those audio files and text are to be processed and uploaded as soon as I get back. Bless you, Anil.

Anil editig Punjabi audio Bible (New Testament)

Our English app for Android is reaching the 100,000 downloads soon and at the moment we have over 20,000 active users of that app. The comment sections continues to accumulate good reviews, some short and sweet like this one:  ‘To learn to walk in the presence of God is very good, and the Bible is the way on earth to lead us to God through Jesus. This app is very good! ‘

Wordproject Android App stats.

Wordproject Android App –

I am writing on the road, as my visit to Portugal continues, for now I do not have a permanent address so I keep moving.  After one week back in this beautiful sunny country, I have slept in 4 different places. This is the first time I write a newsletter in a Hotel room.
To give you a brief summary of what happened so far, I visited with my sister, who is very ill and due to the gravity of her state could hardly recognize me. I hope I have brought some encouragement to her husband who works tirelessly to take care of her along with some helpers. That has been the most heart wrenching part of this visit, as I claim God’s grace and watch and pray for this distressful situation.
Mostly I have stayed with Cristiana, who has been gracious to put up with her father for most of this time. Together we have enjoyed several walks around downtown Lisbon, full of tourists at this time of the year, and the company of some of her young friends whom I found to be very idealistic and in different stages of life – during the yummy dinner served by Cristy, we had some amazing conversations about changing the world and making it better and the different methods of reaching that goal… we have not reached the final conclusion but we sure will let you know if and when we do.

Jorge and Cristiana in Lisbon

I visited Dr. Alvarenga, who is an old friend from Macau, and lives now with his wife 100 km North of Lisbon. We had a fantastic talk about life and death and how the Word of God is the key to strength and  guide us through troubled times.  Religion and the up and downs of different denominations were one of the topics as we agreed that Jesus Christ is what we need not any particular denomination.  John 12:32.

I also attended a meeting of my old high school colleagues from Mozambique, held at a restaurant in the nearby city of Evora. I only recognized a few of my old colleagues but the meeting was inspiring with about 150 people talking for several hours  about old memories. I was blessed to leave several Audio Bible samples with my old friend. They seem to appreciate it and I am sure I will hear more from them from now on.

With old friends: Abilio and Regado

On the other hand, and at a different venue, I met with a Pastor friend from Mozambique, who has been visiting his family here also, and we discussed the in and outs of our possible supply of audio Bibles to his region. Pending a contact with a Chinese company, which he hopes will let us include some packages of bibles in their containers from China. We agreed to pursue that or other possibilities to get the Bibles there.  Along the same line, right before I left for this voyage, still in Zhuhai, we paid half the price on an order of 300 Portuguese Audio Bibles, which are now being manufactured . These are to be sent to Mozambique and Portugal. The shipping and the subsequent delivery through customs are part of the challenge we face, which is yet another reason for me visiting here. This next week I have other meetings scheduled related to this matter.

These went to Mozambique.

Ready for Portugal the audio Bibles I manage to bring with me.