Skip to main content

We Survived VBS 2008!

January is our very wet, rainy, month and invariably we seem to “fight” the downpours each year during our VBS week. This year God blessed us everyday with just enough sun to keep us dry and going. In fact, every day, He held off the rain until just after our Bible School time. Only on the third day did it look like we were not going to escape without getting drowned. The clouds were ominous (and only if you've experienced a Brazil rain do you know what I'm talking about. Remember the storm scene in the Wizard of OZ?)! It was funny too because our theme was Adventure at Sea! and all of our games were water games. I told Ben, “It can't rain! If it does the kids won't want to play in the water!!”

With our trust was in The God who controls the rain clouds (cf. Job 26.8) we got just a few sprinkles at the very end of game time on Saturday (and some blamed those on my weak prayer life! But, if you could have only seen those clouds!)! Praise His Name! Just as we were doing the closing and getting our treats it let loose.

We had several children who made decisions during the four days. I spoke with two little girls on Saturday; Bárbara, and Maria Lis, and both (9 and 10) realized that they had sin in their young lives. Both were touched by the Bible story and prayed to receive Christ as their Savior. Sunday we had a special Sunday school/VBS time and had a few visitors. Eduardo and his older sister Marcia, who live right next door to the church, came for the three days of Bible School and were there yesterday morning too.

Theirs is an interesting story. Their father was a faithful member for a number of years at the Mormon church just up the street. He was also out of work for a number of years and decided to make a go of it by selling candy. His little store has been doing well for awhile now but because his store is open on Sunday he was expelled from the Mormon church. Pray with us that we might see Jose, his wife Eliana, Marcia, Eduardo, and their three younger siblings, come to Christ because of our Adventure at Sea!

Comments

  1. Would you rather have rain or all the snow in Michigan this year?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Twenty Buck Challenge

Well I went and done it! That's bad grammar I know. But I done it anyway. We've been having a Bible study with Esmano and Genesie and their two kids Jennifer and Jadson, for about seven weeks now. This week Jennifer threw out a challenge. "Let's memorize a verse!" I thought that was a great idea. I told them that if they did memorize the verse that I would give them each an American coin. Esmano, their dad usually sits in on the study but he hasn't really been a part of it. When I mentioned the coin idea his eyes lit up a little. I then reached into my wallet and said, "If YOU memorize that verse I'll give you $20 bucks! His eyes really lit up then! Was it a good idea? I doubt it. No one has ever offered me money for memorizing verses. However, this will be the first verse that this man has ever memorized. If he does it. It is not a conventional way of doing memory work and it could cost me a bill for nothing. But if God uses this simple chall...

What About the Property?

Some of you have been asking about the land purchase. In fact I got a note from my friend Tom asking about it just this morning. So, I decided to respond to Tom's question and send the note to everyone on my list.  Tom Funny that you should ask about the property. We talked about it last night in our team meeting. We see three options.  We could buy a piece of land near the neighborhood and build.  We could buy a couple of houses that are side by side and remodel or  We could buy just one house and expand as we grow.  We have R$37,000 ($22,000) available to choose our option. We decided last night to pray and ask God for specific guidance as we proceed. We plan to talk to a man next week about option one . There is a huge piece of property next to our neighborhood and we will be asking him to sell us a 600 meter square piece. If he does we will have our land but no money for construction. If the man say, "No" we will consider that God is closin...

If this is the kingdom of God, do I really want it?

If this is Kingdom Living, Do I Want it? Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. In a study of the Sermon on the Mount to this point we might be tempted to say, “I don’t want to be that happy!” If this is Kingdom living then I want to go to Disney World. This place is depressing.  What Jesus describes here seems to highlight all of the ...