Felipe with his family

pay for.  Back in November ’08, Felipe trusted Christ as his Savior through our discipleship program at the church. At the time we did not know that he had a problem with drugs. Within short order, he told his parents who then came to us, the church, for help. When we got to the bottom of the problem we realized that we were not equiped to deal with his type of chemical dependency, so we researched our options and found a christian organization in Curitiba, Parana that we felt was biblically based enough to send Felipe. Felipe packed his bags and after many hugs and tears from his family took a long bus ride to the rehab clinic. I wasn’t sure if he was going to make or not, especially when the statistics of cases of young men like him don’t play in his favor, but God worked a miricle in this boys life and he made it through 6 months of rehab. His family and I drove down to the graduation and to bring him home. Now is when the trials will start. He is back in his old habitat, surrounded by everything that is evil in the hard east zone of Sao Paulo, but he has the Holy Spirit within and the Word of God to guide him. Pray for him to make it, and pray for the church to take him in and provide a place for him to grow.

This past month we were able to host a medical missions team who put on 4 medical clinics in four different cities over the period of a week.  We did not know what to expect in Bahia as we had never taken a missions trip there before. When it was all said and done, we saw 613 people come through the medical clinic and we had 158 salvation decisions in that same time period. Every night of the clinic we held an evangelistic service in which I or Josh Daniel preached teh message. It was great!

On a few nights, in Sao Jose do Rio Grande, we had people packed into this little church building in the center of the city. It was as if everyone from that little town came to see what was going on at the little Baptist Church.  From the pulpit I saw no empty seats, I saw people standing outside the windows that lined the little sanctuar, and I saw people sitting on the sidewalk just beyond the front door of the church. These onlookers from the sidewalk and others sitting on the other side of the street, had a clear view of the preacher and heard every Word preached that evening. We were surprised to see alot of people in the service and watching from the sidewalk wearing identical uniforms. After the service we discovered that several of the school teachers wanted their students to participate and hear the message so the nightclass teachers brought all of their students to the church to participate in the service. We thank God for the opportunity and the results, which were clearly worked by Him, are a testimony to His grace that knows no bounds. 

During that same week we had an awesome opportunity to present the Gospel in public schools in Barreiras, Bahia. We took one night to get into one of the high schools in the church’s neighborhood and we were given total freedom in sharing our testimonies, sharing the gospel and even having an invitation for people to make a decision at the end of each class period.  On another occasion, we spend a morning and an afternoon in a middle-school doing the same type of stuff: sharing testimonies, sharing a Bible story, and ending each session with a gospel invitation. 

We want to thank each person that came down for this trip. You made an impact in just a short time. Thank you for giving of your time and money to come and serve Jesus Christ in Brazil.

I just wanted to write and share a special opportunity that is opening up to us.

The house next door to the church in Barro Branco, Sao Paulo is for sale and we would like to purchase it.  We have functioned without this space for nearly two years but our communication and efficiency in the classroom setting of our Sunday School will be greatly enhanced with this space. Those of you who have had the opportunity to visit us know exactly what I am talking about.  For the rest of you, just imagine a family of 5 in a 1 bedroom apartment and that will come close to the currently reality of our church space.

We currently have one multi-purpose room that doubles as our Sanctuary and Adult Sunday School Class, and two other small class-rooms. We split our Sunday School hour in two sessions (morning and afternoon) so that we can proportionally distribute the space with the people we have. The house next door would expand our over-all area by 33% giving us an additional 5 class-rooms and room to expand vertically in the future.

Why else is this purchase such a great opportunity? Well the U.S. Dollar has risen sharply over the past four months driving the local cost down. Now, we can purchase this house for $9,800. Four months ago, the price-tag would have been nearly $15,000.

What part do the locals have in all of this? Well, they don’t have the money that’s for sure (average household income at our church is around $400/month), but they will be paying for all of the remodeling, and doing much of the work themselves. If you can give anything towards the purchase of this house please let me know ASAP. Prayerfully consider what you and your church can do.