Ariela:
We recorded!!! Yes!!! I hope all of you heard somehow or read about our opportunity to Record our first CD in Atlanta last November.
All is going well, the CD has been sent to São Paulo with the Art to a company that is responsible for sending it to the Amazon (where most recording companies press their CDs). Everything is very new to us, so every step has taken twice as long than it would have taken if someone else was doing it for us, but we are growing in understanding of the Music Industry. It has not been easy, there is much more burocracy than we imagined and this can really wear you out, but with God in control we take hold of the promises He has for us and see that these are just the steps we need to take to grow. We are loving it!
Christmas was intense in our church. We, together with Social Service Ministry of our church, handed out clothes, jewerly, toys and food baskets to around 200 kids of some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. It was great because Jesuan had the chance to be a manly influence in their lives since most of the fathers have left them abandoned with their mothers to raise, being many of them in families where they have 4-6 brothers and sisters. We sang songs, read Bible stories, did skits, danced to loud music, ate popcorn and hotdogs, and at the end of the day enjoyed the smiles on their faces as they opened up presents, and all this time, I can not forget to mention that I was dressed as a clown running around and loving on them. This was such a great experience for them as well as for us. We truly appreciate life once again when we see others that have nothing and are still happy.

To enjoy time with our family, we took a week at the beach and enjoyed the great summer weather!!! Love it! We also, J&A and Anselmo to São Paulo to visit the place where we are sending the CDs to be pressed. It was a great chance for us to understand the steps. We spent New Year’s eve and New Year’s at our church where we had a service that ended at midnight with prayer and started the year at 1am with a banquet. I was responsible for organizing the banquet which was an American style banquet as we call it here where each family brings a platter of the dish of their choice. This is the time we feel like a true family because there are many that come to these type of events because they don’t have a family, or they don’t agree with the practices of their families and have nowhere else to go. So we embrace and receive them, and eat with them just like Jesus did with everyone. Jesus loved eating in feasts and enjoyed good fellowship time, so we do the same!
I have started driver’s school here in Brazil, which now consists of 45 hours of theory classes and 25 hours of driving classes and I’m pretty excited!!! We are still leading worship at our church often, and giving seminars on worship to those joining the worship team. Our songs have been playing on the city radio which reaches around 400 thousand people!!!

Jesuan:
It is really cool to hear the songs on the radio, it’s even better when you hear someone singing it. I was helping out a friend, his family was moving into another house, when between the boxes and furniture, the lady that works at their place, began to sing “Garrafa de Lágrimas” / “Bottle of Tears” , I was like: “Wait a second… I know this song!” She explained to me how it was her favorite and that “EVERYBODY” was singing it…hahah, it was definitely a cool moment. The rest of the day was just packing and singing from our songs, to Brazilian songs, to even Backstreet Boys’ songs, haha… anyways, we had a great time laughing and moving.
We pray that our songs will touch many lives for Christ, that it can be a joy in their lives, that songs like “Garrafa de Lágrimas” can meet them exactly where they are and speak to them in a very specific way to their hearts. Like my sister said, we’re almost through with the CD process and soon enough the train will start moving a little bit faster, very exciting times!
Unfortunately, I decided to go through with my shoulder surgery now… better now than later when things get moving! Please be praying for a quick recovery. Thanks guys!!
We’ve also been writing more songs… they just keep coming, so I might have future plans with them, but there are also possibilities of getting some Christian Brazilian artists to record them..we’ll see what happens. I love writing, composing, so I believe I will be investing a lot of my time in that later on in my life. This was at my birthday party...yes I am now 23!
Here at the church, besides worship training and worship leading, we get to have some fellowship as well… we had our annual Carnival retreat, and it was great!! We not only had fun playing games, singing, scoring some goals in soccer (me of course..hehe), but we had the privilege of receiving 3 new souls for Christ, we didn’t do anything besides praising our God, God already had plans for them, He took them there, and gave them new life!!! Praise be to our Lord!!!

Better than any goal scored, or song sung, is to see live’s surrendered to His Love and Forgiveness!!
After all of this, all we can say is… God is good. Too good to be true?! Definitely, the only real God is too good, to great, to infinite to comprehend… yet simple enough to want to be with us.

Thanks guys for everything, the prayers, the support, the love..
Please remember to pray for my shoulder, hehee, also for our next steps and new beginnings.


Blessings
We love you all!!
Peace and luv...;)
Jesuan and Ariela Sol

Hey... you can check out our songs at
www.myspace.com/bandaeko
we have 4 songs there!!!