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The time between Christmas and New Year’s Day is weird! Just a week ago Sunday we had over a 100 in church to see our Cantata 2010 . This past Sunday we had 19. What was that all about? Was your church service sparsely populated too? We attributed the lack to the Holidays. Tomorrow we will be taking a group of 21 Juniors and Teens on a hike . Our Omega group from Bible Club earned this hike by doing their best in their Bible memory work. We’re going to a farm about an hour away where we’ll spend the day. We discovered this farm via our Cantata. One of the ladies who was watching at the supermarket was really thrilled with our kids. We made a visit on her and she and her husband offered the use of their farm for a day. So, we’ll be spending Wednesday with this family and an American guest who is staying with them. This will give us a great opportunity to share Christ with them. Friday night we will be going to Calvary Baptist Church to pray in the New Year. We will also be baptizi...

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...

Seminary and excitement are two words that don't seem to go together. Unless, that is, you are really excited about serving the Lord. Ronaldo has really been realizing God's call on his life lately. His salvation story is really incredible and I'll have to have him share it with you in a future update. God brought this man from the brink of destruction to Salvation as only He can and Ronaldo is seeking God's perfect direction and will for he and his family. He lacks two years of seminary training and would like to complete that at our seminary in Curitiba as soon as God opens that door. Currently the family is living on a shoestring ($384 per month!) so God's provision will definitely be needed. The other day he called me and said, "Pastor, I had the day off today and said to myself, 'I'm not going to just sit around and do nothing today. I'm going to hand out tracts in my neighborhood!'" So for the next few hours he did just that and had t...

A fundamental doctrine of the Baptist church is that of potluck (though we cringe at the use of the word "Luck" we all understand the term). Whenever there is food at church there is seldom a dissenting vote cast. Potluck is a staple of our faith. All kidding aside, there are many many examples of Jesus using a meal to teach great truths to His disciples and others (it is an interesting Bible study). Ever participate in the Lord’s Supper? Yesterday, at Hope, we tried something a bit different. We had a "Fifth Sunday Fellowship". Each month with five Sundays this year we will have our regular morning activities. It is in the afternoon that we've changed the routine. Shortly after choir practice concludes we all gathered for lunch. Yesterday's meal was: baked chicken, rice, beans, and salad, with various desserts. It was good! A meal has a way of bringing people together. The fellowship seems sweeter over supper doesn't it? Our church folk need more sweet ...

It started early Monday morning at the hospital and ended with me leading games at Youth Group (Dawn didn't like that). It actually seemed like a short week with the one day hospital stay and the day of "recoup". We had a pastor's get-together on Friday with all of the local pastors participating. Saturday we had Teacher's training with four different classes. And then Youth Group. It was fun! Sunday morning Carlinhos taught the memory verse for the first time! He's growing. In fact he brought his brother Walter to Prayer Meeting in Wednesday. He says that Walter has seen such a difference in Carlinhos, that he wants to know what happened. So, Carlinhos has offered him a Bible study! In the top picture, Abby tries to catch a cheese-it in her mouth without using her hands, as part of the team challenge games we had on Saturday night. In the other pic, pastor Davi is taunting my father-in-law with a big juicy steak, that he was cooking at the pastoral get togeth...