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Our Bible club has been exciting recently after nearly dying. We were down to around 25 kids when Alexandre came up with the idea of changing our theme. We went from “normal” club to Sector Alpha! Just like that. As I mentioned in a previous post we have a weekly Mission that we have to work on as a team. Last week’s task was to bring five kids with the same name to earn our 5000 points and complete the mission. Even though we fell one kid short we still had TWO Grazieles and TWO Jonatas. Three of the four were nearly yanked from their homes by our own Graziele (left). She is our little missionary and always ready to seek out that unknown kid. GREEN came close to winning our first Gold Star but the blue team took the day again. We had over 60 kids at club. The mission has already been given for this week and it included a bombshell for Sunday. All of the kids that came to club on Saturday had to return Sunday morning for Sunday School. EVERY ONE OF THEM or NO points were giv...

Working on a missions team has its wonderful benefits and God has allowed my family to do just that for a little over eleven years now. Needless to say we have learned a lot. In fact when God helped me to realize that He was calling me to the mission field it was because a visiting missionary, during his slide presentation, mentioned that he was going to work in Brazil as part of a team with his brother. I talked with him after his presentation that morning and now, eleven years later, am still a part of that team with Shawn and Donna Alexander and Ben and Dani Jacobs! Granted, the team has changed over those years but the goal has remained the same. We want to make and mature disciples of Jesus Christ who reflect Him in every aspect of their lives with the goal of becoming disciple makers themselves (cp. 2 Timothy 2.2). One of the many advantages of team work is that we often find ourselves serving in different corners of the world simultaneously. Take today for example. Shawn is head...

National Assistance, this seems to be the catch phrase of the year. Every news cast talks about "bailouts". Leaving us wondering about where all of the money will come from. We have been hearing the "Trillion" word a lot lately. So much so that we barely blink anymore. But how much is a trillion dollars? I found this information by doing a Google search and clicked on the first entry on the list: "What's a trillion dollars? A trillion dollars = $1,000,000,000,000.That's 12 zeroes to the left of the decimal point. A trillion is a million million dollars. The U.S. government spends more than the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Australia, China and Spain combined. If you laid one dollar bills end to end, you could make a chain that stretches from earth to the moon and back again 200 times before you ran out of dollar bills! One trillion dollars would stretch nearly from the earth to the sun. It would take a military jet flying at the speed of so...

Saturday at Bible Club we had eleven boys and girls and Eliana came with her kids again. Mara and Carlinhos lead singing and finished telling the missionary story. I brought some games and decided to play one with the kids. BIG mistake. The game I chose was a running game and I was actually trying to get little five year old Sabrina involved. She didn't want to play so I grabbed her hand and started to run. Just as I did I felt an awful shooting pain in my hamstring and began to tumble out of control to the ground. I almost landed on top of Sabrina while actually throwing her down. She scrubbed her knee and as I tried to console her I was thinking... WHAT ON EARTH HAVE I DONE NOW! I got up haltingly and staggered to the wall. I sat there embarrassed and hurting like a dog. But after recovering my composure a bit I was able to share some more Gospel with Eliana. The story that Carlinhos gave was exactly what I needed to ask her THE question, “So, when are you going to accept Chris...

We had a busy week with the 18 man BJ soccer ministry team here from Thursday until Sunday afternoon. There were several exciting opportunities to share the Gospel and literally hundreds heard the message. Many were talked to one on one and several made decisions for Christ! (That is Gil with the kids from next door at right.) Wow! That was refreshing to write. Things around these parts are definitely getting exciting. Which makes it even harder to think about leaving for a year! Our Sunday school class had 10 kids for the second week in a row! And that with 4 visitors. Jose Carlos, a little boy I met while talking with the kids next door, and who basically lives on the street, brought his parents to church last night and both raised their hands for salvation! Carol, Ana Luiza's friend was back too and she also raised her hand at the invitation. Man do we have work to do. I am so thankful for all of your prayers and look forward to sharing what the Lord will be doing in the near fu...

When one is off the net one tends to grab time when one can. As I type now, I am sitting in Ben and Dani's echoing house. I just finished painting the babie's room. Don't panic, there is no baby yet, though I wouldn`t be surprised if one doesn`t come soon (just a guess). Anyway, while contempating life disconnected from the internet I am realizing that one can live a good and productive life with out it. I believe that my spiritual life has improved. My communication with my wife and daughter has improved. And it is refreshing. I am the type of person that can get on the internet and go from one thing (whether, artical, software site, or blog) to the next without much planning or forethought. What was a tool becomes a stumbling block. In fact not long ago I said to Dawn, "Why on earth do I need to know what is going on on the other side of the world?" Not that "keeping up with the news" is necessairly bad, but it can be addicting and a become a time wa...

A MK is a missionary's kid, a PK is a preacher's kid, and neither are easy roles to fill. Abby (Amy and Annie too for that matter) has the tremendous privilege of being both! Being a PK or MK, I believe, is apt to bring on the BIG-shoes-to-fill syndrome. It is the pressure and trauma of having an aura to fulfill. The same thing happens to movie star's kids (would that be a MSK?). There is the mistaken idea that because the parents are "huge" personalities, the kids are different, and have to be huge too. I grew up in a "normal" family (though some would definitely debate that!). I had a normal job at GM for 22 years. Dawn and I spent many years in "normal" ministry at FBC in Lake Orion, MI . It so happened that God worked in my life to the degree that my family and I became missionaries to Brazil. It wasn't until after our second term that I became aware of the fact that we had an "aura". I never saw it in the mirror for sure! I...

As Christians we know that One person has made a difference in our lives. We often forget that through Christ we too can make a difference as "one". We remember Adam and the difference that he made. One that we would love to forget. We remember Moses and the difference that he made. Men like Abraham, Noah, Paul all tell stories of one man who made a great difference. Not to forget the ladies; we remember Eve, Sarah, Hannah, Rebeca, Rehab, Mary, Priscilla. All women who made a great difference in the course of their history and ours. When I am tempted to get discouraged I remember these characters and many others in the Bible, and in my life, who, as one person against the odds, made a great difference. This past week, June 4 to be exact, was the seventeenth anniversary of the massacre in Tienanmen Square. To my shame, I lived through that event but never really paid much attention to it's significance until this past Friday. As I was looking at the headlines I noticed one...