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Discouraging

Last week was discouraging. We lost one of our most promising teens because of a comment that I made about baptism*. We had a low turnout on Saturday at Bible Club (22) and our Sunday turn out was very very low (8). Ministry is like that, highs and lows. I don’t like the lows!

Here are some quick prayer requests for tonight’s prayer sheet:

  • Restoration for João, Marcia, Josué and Jonatas
  • Salvation for Marcia, Luiz, Maria, Maria, Daniel, Daniel (no I´m not repeating myself), Benidita,
  • God’s direction for our church building (location and funds)
  • My English class that should be starting soon in the public school
  • Summer work for Abby and God’s provision for her return to Clearwater in the Fall

Along with discouragements came some bright spots. Yesterday, for example, we went to the Federal Police to pick up our “renewed” permanent visas (no that is not an oxymoron). We had applied for them in 2008 but the process became overloaded and took much longer than expected. Yesterday I expected to wait and wait some more but, God blessed our visit and we spend only about eight minutes at the FP. We also noticed that our visas really are permanent this time! That was encouraging.

gramma Another tremendous encouragement was that Ann, Jackson, Gabe and Abby all made it back to Brazil for a short visit! We are very excited to have them with us for a couple of weeks. We’re praising the Lord that both Ann and Abby were able to renew their visas too.

Another couple of blessing that we are watchinggraz are Juliana and Victor who asked Jesus to be their Savior just a couple of weeks ago. Waiting and watching because it is often easy for kids to say the prayer and difficult for them to demonstrate a true decision for Christ.

Saturday, though our Club turn out was low we participated in a special event. Thirteen kids recited Ephesians 6:10-17 to enter the new phase of club called Delta Sector. Hearing them recite Scripture was a thrill.

*João’s mom was recently saved so I mentioned baptism. That comment lead to the prohibition of coming to church.

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