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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...

We had a wonderful week! It's great to be able to spend this special time of the year with good friends.  Wednesday we visited João’s mother Marcia. João was baptized last week and his mother was touched by the message. During the visit our coworker Joelma shared her testimony and Marcia made a profession of faith! That was a VERY great start to the Easter weekend. Friday we showed the film Thief in the Night . Do you remember that movie? It was hard for me to get over the goofy clothing and old cars. Did we really look like that back in the 60s? Our group, however,  thought that it was a very interesting film and they had questions about Christ’s return. It was a rainy night but we still had ten that watched and ate popcorn. Saturday at Club we had about 38 kids and teens on another rainy day. Bible  Club is in a bit of a transition. We now have three teams in what is called the Alpha Sector ! The teams will compete for rewards, special outings and a promotion t...

There we sat, surrounded by smelly tennis shoes, and sweaty teenagers, in awe of what was taking place. Dawn and I were in a missions conference weekend and we had been invited to participate in a Gym Night activity with the teens of the church. I had given a Bible challenge, on increasing ones faith by giving our all to Christ, when something unexpected happened that really increased MY faith! Another missionary couple was there too. His challenge was about allowing the Holy Spirit to fill us with His life giving breath so that we might serve and live for Him. His presentation was dynamic and gripped our attention. It was what happened next that took me by surprise. Pastor Steve divided the missionaries by couples and called for his teens to surround each couple. They were to place their hands on us and pray for us. As the teens were beginning to take their places I selfishly begged the Lord to have at least some teens come to us. Me being the "Old Guy" I didn't want to...

Saturday we had the double blessing of having the quarterly youth rally (Hope, Calvary, New Life, and Bible Baptist of Jundiaí) at our church. We had 40 young people present for games, fellowship, and snacks. e also had missionary pastor Divino from Mozambique Africa with us for an evening mission challenge. With the addition of the adults for this special service we had over a hundred present to hear of the work in Africa. It was a challenge for our people who have never been exposed to a real live missionary (other than us Americans). Divino is a Brazilian who felt God's call and has really pioneered the field of Mosambique for our movement. There were several testimonies given in our Sunday morning worship time of the blessing received from that challenge.

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...

The weekend was a special one for two reasons. On Saturday we stood up for Juliana as she married Mario at Calvary. The wedding was lovely and we praise God for the miracle that only He could have orchestrated in putting this young couple together. Mother’s Day was very special at Hope. We had good attendance both morning and evening. Abby has been working on a cookbook for the last few weeks as a school project and she gave it out to each mother present last night. Along with the book full of their own favorite recipes they received a photo that I had taken of their family yesterday morning. The mothers and daughters sang as a choir and there were special numbers by Kristen, Emily, and Hana Alexander (trio), the bell choir, and Adailza and Jan on the piano. It was Adailza’s first “solo”. Abby and I took Mom out to Chinese for dinner (three Americans, eating Chinese, in Brazil, talk about a cosmopolitan meal!). We each got a “Fortune cookie”. Two of the three were right on: “All of you...

We recently had puppies! Five furry fluff balls were born just two weeks ago and they are growing in such a way that leads us to believe that Sheba crossed with a St. Bernard. We know that she didn’t because we have seen few St. Bernards since our arrival ten years ago. The puppies are, however, growing quickly. Of course one of their days equals one of our weeks, doesn’t it? Lately they are beginning to take steps. Looking like little old men and little old ladies they wobble, stagger, and drop their way from one side of their box to the other. Unlike little old people we know that their time of running and jumping is yet ahead. They are learning to walk one step at a time. This is similar to church growth. It happens gradually. Though I often want to see instant results it doesn’t happen that way. We take our first wobbly steps then fall flat on our face. We get up and try again only to take another nosedive. Praise the Lord our church has never really taken a stumble. We continue st...