Evidence of Grace

Last night we had a good group in our service. The regular group was there along with 8 visitors. The numbers certainly are encouraging, but they point to something much greater: evidences of grace. You might assume then that the visitors were believers in Christ, but most of them were not! The evidence of grace we are seeing is in the lives of those who have believed in Christ and are bringing their lost friends. Anderson and Valéria, a family of 5 picked up his sister and family - a family of 4. Can you imagine 9 in a 2 door Ford Escort?


Kelly shows evidence of grace in another way. She has begun to contribute a lot like the Corinthian church. She brought some clothes and the believers were all able to benefit from them. So she brought more along with a waterjug the church was needing. On top of that she had a ceiling fan that was not being used and thought the church could benefit from it. You should see the joy in her face as she contributes.

Several have offered their help to clean the church weekly, including Anderson who went to another man that has been attending and asked him if he would help him clean the church this week. Two men cleaning the church - can you believe that?


Last night, a 72 year old lady came uninvited. She has been looking for a baptist church close by and really enjoyed the service. She told me after the service that she will now be attending our church saying that she was affected by the message. "I actually understood the message because it was well explained and very clear". May God be glorified.


My greatest joy last night was to see the power of the gospel. The message centered around: "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink." (Jn. 7:37) Adriano and Gislene were affected and commented on the message with me. May God awaken thirst within them and may they be saved. Lord willing there is a personal Bible study in the making there.


There were more evidences of grace - these are just a few. Glory to God.

What We Did the Last Two Saturdays

The past two Saturdays, I had the chance to attend a CEF seminar on evangelizing and teaching children with three of our church women. I'm so glad they were able to go. The younger two are relatively new in the faith, but are growing tremendously in their spiritual walk and they made a big effort to be able to attend this event.


One of the assignments of the seminar is to witness to two children and turn in a report about the experience. We all have to do this in order to get our certificate for completing the course. I think it was a great assignment because it helped these two women to see how important it is to share their faith with others, and that they can learn to articulate their faith so that a child can understand it. They both gave testimonies during the session today of their experiences and it was so fun to see their joy over giving the gospel to others.


I had given one of them some wordless book bracelets and key chains on the condition that she explain the meaning of the colors to whoever she gave them to. Today, she asked me for more because she has already given them all away. She said one of her teenage nephews who has been baptized at another church was shocked to learn that his baptism didn't save him from his sins. Pray that God will continue to use these women to be a shining light in their families and in their neighborhood.


On a side note here, we are really enjoying having a building to meet in. Even though they are currently in the States on furlough, Christen wrote a great blog, pictures included, of how God worked so many things out for us. Please check it out here.

A Meeting Place

We are so happy to announce that God has provided the church (IBS) a place to meet! Our church family has been praying for months in specific ways for a place to meet, in a good location, in God's timing according to his will. I confess that I felt as though God had shown us to keep meeting in our home and that I should stop praying and pursuing a rental option. My brother James and I had spent hours looking at possibilities, but they always fell through - one place of which was rented the day before we decided to go for it! But we kept it before the Lord.


So this past Wednesday, one of our converts said he had seen a real nice place, but that it may not be the best location. Little did he know that James and I had just been in that area a couple weeks ago looking ourselves! We went to look at this place yesterday at noon. The owner was there so we went in and immediately the place screamed at me - this is it! The owner shot the price at $150 more than we wanted to pay. I though "so what, everything is negotiable in Brazil." So I went home, prayed and called Agostinho, who has helped us greatly in our ministry here. He came over and we went together to speak to the owner again. After a bit of negotiation, Agostinho was able to talk the guy down to the price we wanted to spend! Thank You, Lord!


Please pray with us that God would use this place for His glory and bring many to repentance and faith. We don't want to get comfortable, as our desire is to buy land and build. But this will definitely be a big help as we get started. Thank you all who pray for us, but please don't stop.

"Until Soon"

For the past two years, we have been blessed to work as a team in ministry with David's brother and sister-in-law, James and Christen. I don't know how we would have done much without them. God knew we would need each other in a brand new place, starting a brand new work. There's no price that can be put on having someone close by to work with, laugh with, talk to, share burdens with, encourage you when you're down, help when things are harder than usual, share birthdays and Sunday dinner with ... Everyone should have friends like that in their lives.

This Monday we said "goodbye" to them at the airport as they left for furlough in the States. We will miss them greatly during these next 8 months, but such is the life of a missionary -- always saying goodbye, it seems. One of the church women here pointed out that they will be back, so instead of saying "goodbye" she said, "até breve", which translated literally is "until soon."

Jer and Gabe

Juliana and Hannah

At the airport

A little farewell party after the service Sunday night

Enjoying Brazilian pizza one last time

Sisters and Coffee

I love my sisters. I have three of them. It's been over three years since I've seen them. For a while after we were all grown and married, we all lived in the same city. One of our favorite things to do was to spend an evening at a coffee shop, flipping through books and magazines, talking and laughing our heads off, and drinking fancy coffee drinks. I miss my sisters a lot and I miss those fun nights talking and laughing over coffee.

My sisters and I a few months before I left for Brazil.

For the past four months, Christen (my sister-in-law) and I have been having a weekly Bible study with our little group of church women. Since this was Christen's last study with us before leaving for furlough on Monday, we decided it would be fun to take the women to a coffee shop and do our study there. The women were so excited because they had never been to one before. Plus, it was a chance to get away without any of our kids and THAT doesn't happen very often.




It was so fun to introduce them to cappuccino and whipped cream. We had a great time and laughed a lot over our delicious drinks.



We were able to do our Bible study because even though we were sitting outside and the place was pretty crowded, our tables were in a back corner and there weren't very many distractions. I think we were all challenged and convicted about sins we need to be putting off, and to be longing for the pure spiritual milk, which is God's Word.




Not to sound corny, but I am thankful for this new group of sisters God has placed in my life. None of us are biologically related, but because of the blood of Jesus, we have God as our Father, and that is a family bond that will last forever.