Her name is Ana , a very tall blond Brazilian from the south of Brazil who I met a couple of years back at some birthday parties of mutual friends. Ana is the mother of 4 beautiful Girls, Larissa, Camila,Julia and Isabella. Every one is always amazed when they see Ana and husband Everson and 4 girls. I mean 4 is a lot, I have two and they are a handful, could not imagine 4. A few months after we met, Ana started coming to our church and we became good friends. I was so amazed by her passion for God’s word and how important it was to tell her friends about her faith. She is so organized, and always on time, even in getting 4 girls ready for a party, totally not me and I have come to learn that the best people I get along with are usually the people totally opposite me, like my college roommate Kim who now lives in Italy and my good friend who was my coworker, Fernanda while I taught in Brazil and my very good friend Diana who lives here in the States. They are all very organized, neat,soft spoken,calm and I guess we balance other out cause I am a little wacky lol. Well Ana has made a very difficult choice, yesterday she will left her 4 girls and husband behind to return to Brazil in order to take care of her mother who currently has Brain Cancer and has no one to take care of her. I kept thinking and my husband asked what would you do? You see Ana’s green card has been approved but has not arrived yet and she does have the risk of not being able to come back to the States, so how long will it be? What will happen to her mom? how will her girls handle this? And will her husband survie?  All these thoughts came to my mind and in her place I would be terrified. I called her and said we must do a family shoot before you go and when I arrived at the park and saw this beautiful family, I actually arrived first for once, she was 10 minutes late, when I saw them, so peaceful, loving and so together, my fears seemed to fade away with the strong wind that Saturday morning. Her passion and love for God uplifts her in this hard choice and her desire to share the Gospel with her family in Brazil and to care for her mom is so inspiring. Us Christians usually ask in a situation, what would Jesus do? and when I think about that in this case, Jesus would have gone also. Her daughters are so beautiful and different one from another and her husband is a hero in my book. Let us pray for this family, pray for Ana’s mom and for the oldest daughter Larissa who will be with the girls this summer. The day was perfect, blue skies, clouds, lots of green and the wind I so love. Recently God has laid in my heart that I should pray for every family I photograph, a ministry perhaps, not sure. All I know is I want to be used by God anyway I can. Such a life lesson in all of this and I am so thankful that I can be a part even for a short while in the lives of families, strong beautiful families. Makes my heart smile and I hope some of these shots makes your heart smile as well. Don’t forget to checkout the ***SLIDESHOW***  to see all the pixs of this great blessed family.

I was taking pictures of Ana and Everson when I turn around, I saw the girls all sitting down watching their parents- so cute.