Bits February 2025

Systematic theology. There was interest last year when I did a survey of our leaders. This month, we did a module, and now we are going to teach it every week on Sunday mornings, with an option for Thursday nights as well. The year starts this month in Brasil. Carnival is the mark of the New Year according to the Brazilian mind. Carnival starts March 1 and goes until next Wednesday, the 5th. For the most part, everything stops. 

Sarah made little boats with the nursery kids

On Saturday (tomorrow), we are having a baptism and cookout. We have a good group that will be there. It is also a time to complete house projects. I plan to help paint the house of one member who has been working on building his own house. It is a long-term project as he also works three jobs. His wife fell and fractured a vertebra and is supposed to rest for three months. Sarah is hoping to visit her once a week for encouragement. 

I am doing a couple of discipleships with people at the church. Philippe, who I mentioned in the last update just got saved, is supposed to get baptized tomorrow. He and I are going through a discipleship book. He is also doing the theology class, so he is getting some milk and meat at the same time. haha.

Talking about getting saved! 

Philippe’s brother Thiaggo was a big influence in his salvation. He has been accepting preaching invitations and will preach at our church in April. He also helps teach the youth. He started an online missions post-graduation degree through our mission’s seminary in South Brazil. I am excited for him and all he will learn. He is a young police officer who has climbed the ranks quickly and was just transferred to the station in our city, which means he has more time for his family and serving at church. 

I walk some mornings with Pastor Douglas, who left his previous church at the end of 2023 because of burnout. He came back to Arcoverde and started attending our church. After a few months, he started preaching again but has been hesitant about pastoral ministry. Recently, he has been more open to it and is accepting more and more opportunities for ministry. His wife sells special brigadeiros in the street, and that is how they have survived since the pandemic. His previous church stopped paying him, so they had to figure out a way to make a living. We are excited to have him with us and see him more and more involved. Pray for our church to be more and more giving so that we can take him on in a greater capacity! He has started receiving something already as he helps me with the Tupanatinga church. Every week he writes a poem based on the week’s sermon. It is pretty amazing. 

Thanks for your prayers! Pray for Batalha as it has been slow going! Pray for a women’s tea at the end of March as they invite unbelievers and talk about contentment. Pray for our small groups starting back up along with the Theology class. 

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, and my ESL teacher and swimmer, Evie and our artist Anna Claire. Both are working on small business ideas. :) 

Headed to the study in Tupanatinga

Bits January 2025

New baby in our church family

 “This is the only way for the church to grow.” These words from our boss have started to make more and more sense. Tribulation in life is not fun. The last couple of months have been just that; we have had some major struggles; the worst in all our ministry life. But through all this time God has shown His sovereign hand and we understand that we must pass through difficulties. 

On the other side of it (for the most part), God is sending blessings. Last week Sarah sat down with a young boy who was struggling with doubts about having blasphemed the Holy Spirit. After Sarah explained more to him, he eagerly decided to place his faith in Jesus. She is continuing with him in discipleship. Then this week a friend and regular attendee came in for a membership interview. On his membership form he didn’t have anything down for conversion or baptism. After a gospel explanation, he beautifully prayed to ask Christ to be the Lord and Savior of his life. 

Early this morning a friend from the neighborhood wrote asking to talk. In the early morning, we were able to talk about God’s work in his life in the middle of his crisis. Tomorrow another meeting is scheduled with an unbeliever who has attended our church some. 

Water park fun with the church

I would like to say that this is normal life for us; we would love for it to be, but it has not been the norm for people to seek us out for counsel. For some reason, God has chosen to work in these lives at this moment of time. This has confirmed to us that God has us where He wants us despite our own weaknesses and failures. God is good! 

This
month we had a grill out for the men of the church that was evangelistic. We had a great time playing games and talking. 

The cows looked at me funny as I walked
by with my grilling accessories

Sarah started reading a book on contentment with the women of the church. Almost twenty have been attending and learning a great deal! 

February 8-9 we have a module for starting Systematic Theology in the church to be studied all year. I am really excited about this as it can really help grow those in the church! 

Thank you for your prayers! We have had some sickness hit us this month. Pray for our healing from colds. We feel very blessed to partner with you all to reach Brasil for Christ! God bless.

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah and our swimmer and English teacher Evie, and our artist Anna Claire

Baby iguana at the house

Bits December

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We are having plenty of parties down here in Brazil. Now that we are connected to several church plants and a non-profit, we have attended several dinner parties. One that is going on its’ fifth year is the women’s Christmas tea in Tupanatinga. This year Sarah prayed for all the 60 chairs to be filled, which is exactly what happened. Sarah and Evelyn gave the devotional together and did a fabulous job. The women at the church in Tupanatinga look forward to this date all year and thoroughly enjoy themselves. They are great about inviting others. 

On December 1 we had a baptism for the Arcoverde church. It was neat baptizing a family together and several others. Ricardo and Camylla have plugged right into the church. They shared their testimony of a party life with another member. He later started coming to our church and told them they needed to as well. After coming for several weeks, Stefan sat down and shared the gospel with them and they said that is what they needed. They have been very faithful and helpful! 

On Friday we had a workday to start installation of the new flooring. We had a good turnout and got a lot done. There is still more to be done and money to be raised within the church. We are trying to get the church to be self-sustaining. For the most part it is but projects like this have been slow going. Pray the church would learn the importance of giving! 

Our supporters have been very generous. We appreciate you all. Our accounts are healthy (if we wanted to finish the flooring using our mission accounts, we could!, but we want to make sure our people are taking care of the church they belong to). Continue to pray for Batalha; we are hoping to soon make some moves with land there, but this has been a slow process. There is some land in view, but there are high-tension power lands close to it and we need to find out where we can actually build as well as a fair price. Batalha is a community where there is not a high demand for land and building and so it is difficult to find the actual worth of the land. 

We pray that you all have a great New Year and that Jesus will continue to grow in your hearts!

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah and Evelyn, who spoke at the tea, and crafty Anna Claire who made several Christmas presents this year, including bracelets and then my peanut and skittle dispenser. 

Bits November

Happy Thanksgiving! We are grateful for you all! God is good and has blessed us with great people around us. Tis the season for decorating. We are in full swing of decorating the house and two churches! 

Our member training continues as we schedule modules for next year. In Arcoverde, we are going to try to get through our Systematic Theology course! It is a big one, so pray for perseverance! In Tupanatinga, we finished the Old Testament Survey and started Christian Family. We really had a good time sitting down, conversing, and getting through this solid material.

Not everything we do is mainly pastoral. This month is Christmas prep. I have picked up woodworking as a hobby. It has been useful for some things, like spending our money and trying different wood projects. I also have been working on a much-needed paint job of the whole Arcoverde church. This has been a steady project for the last few months as I paint when I have an afternoon or morning free. There are two big buildings and an outside wall with aluminum fencing. Talk about a lot of manual labor! But we all know that missions is about painting buildings! haha. 

Arcoverde had an administrative meeting in which we dealt with some people who have stopped attending and also read a letter from a couple who left our church. This month has been hard on church conflict. Please pray for unity in the church and for people to prioritize their walk with Christ! We all depend on Christ for our everyday growth and sanctification.   

We are organizing our calendar for the next year and are excited about what God has in store for us. Pray for focus and momentum through the New Year! Both churches constantly have visitors. We still have plenty to work on as far as having healthy churches. Thankfully the leadership has strengthened. When scheduling the preaching for Arcoverde for next year I had six guys I could put in the rotation! Very cool. Now we need to continue in the vision of planting more churches. Batalha has been slow, but we see some progress. Pray for understanding of the gospel there! 

Have a great Thanksgiving and holiday season. Merry Christmas (as I probably won’t send another update before Christmas). We love you all and are thankful for you all! 

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah and our big girl learning to drive, and our little organizer

Bits October 2024

We started off the month with a Biblical Counseling module taught by our regional administrators of Brazil, Randy, and Cindy Richner. He also effectively taught some of Sarah’s master’s classes. He went over several topics, such as marriage, trials, suffering, and how to be an effective counselor. Pray for wisdom for us as we decide on next year’s modules! 

The following week was kid’s day on Saturday. The Arcoverde church puts on an event each year; this year we had a lot of volunteers. Evelyn was up front leading music, jumping, and dancing away after which she led a group of kids around to different activities. David ended up with a virus and he and Sarah had to be substituted! 

The following weekend Sarah took a discipleship group to the beach. They had a great time getting to know each other more and bonding as a group. The trip was a reward for reading the book “Pride to Humility.” David sent the challenge to the discipleship groups and Sarah’s 3 groups all read it within a couple of days of the challenge. For more lessons on positive peer pressure, talk to Sarah. We are big believers in good books! 

A couple of days after Sarah returned, I (David) flew to the US to hang out with my brothers for a weekend. They annually get together to hike, and do different activities, but mainly talk. I only get to go when I am in the states every few years, but this year I was encouraged to go after a conversation we had regarding things we miss out on in being missionaries. It ended up working out and we had a good time. 

Next week we should finish Old Testament Survey in Tupanatinga. We go on Thursdays usually and this has seemed to work for our local church leadership training. There is so much to do and I am excited about a time to slowly make it through the material we have available. 

We have been blessed so much by friend’s and family’s giving, enough so that is has been a while since we have made any financial requests on this email. Thank you for those gifts to ABWE that allow us to live and minister in Brasil (or wherever we are). 

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, and our hardworking girls, whether it is teaching English or making play vending machines or different types of art.

Bits September 2024

 “Get to know Koinonia” We had a new class before church for people new to our church. The turnout was great; we answered questions and discussed how our church works. We went through our doctrinal statement and told how our practice reflects our doctrine. Praise the Lord for visitors and new members being a constant at the church. After one of the services, Heitor asked Jesus to be his Savior. He adds to a list of several more for the baptism service we will have in November. 

The Tupanatinga church had a baptismal service last week. Four people were baptized. One of our first families saved in Tupanatinga is Rodryggo and Danielly. Danielly has held Bible studies, prayed, talked, and invited, etc… her three sisters to attend church. Dayse has been in and out of church for several years but really picked up this past year. She had several reasons to not be baptized including a doctor’s order after her eye surgery the previous week. But she bandaged it up, put on goggles, and insisted on being baptized. Her sister Dani was in the water baptizing her together with me. It was an emotional moment! Also, Chico and Bia’s daughter decided to be baptized almost ten years after her parents made their decision. It was a long time coming, but we are glad she could decide on her own to follow Christ.  

At the end of last month we had an evangelism module and this month we put it into practice. We went to the park during a parade day and were able to have some good conversations. Then we did a Saturday service at Batalha where we hope to plant a church. A couple from our church did the evangelism presentation (they are also teaching the youth this weekend). How cool to see people being trained for the ministry and having the courage to preach the gospel. We had a better turnout than we expected both from Koinonia and from the community of Batalha. Some women who had said they wouldn’t give up their night to drink to go to a church service showed up anyway. 

Evelyn volunteered to teach English at the children’s support home. Recently a missionary couple from South Brazil (the city where Evie was born) joined our church. At the same time, they were taking over a non-profit that serves higher risk kids in our city. They have around 25 kids that receive breakfast, teaching, and then lunch. Most of them wouldn’t otherwise be eating that many times a day. The church has come alongside them by supporting them, sending people to help in different areas, as well as being on their board and other involvement. Pray for Kaleb and Viviane as they get used to the new non-profit, raise support, and serve these children (their vision is actually much more than they are actually doing). One day Evie said she would like to help there and later in the day Kaleb asked for someone who could teach English. His other request was also provided by another member that same day! 

Evie turned 15 this month. We are very grateful for her. She is a freshman and so we talk more and more about her future. We are thankful to serve a sovereign God whom we know will direct her path as she continues to trust in Him.

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, our linguist Evie (she speaks Portuguese, English, does well in Spanish and has dabbled in French and sign language as well), and Anna Claire who beats us in Mancala pretty much every time. 

Bits Agosto

The ladies in Tupanatinga have enjoyed getting more involved in teaching the kid’s class. Here are Julia and Mary, new kid’s teachers in Tupanatinga. This month we had a time to call up the kids and pray for them as they head back to school. We have seen growth and excitement in them to learn the Bible. This month they will have a chance to say all the books of the Bible and earn a Bible; which will help them then be able to look up references in their class time. 

Stefan had a module on Evangelism he wanted to do and we were able to teach it this past month. We had a great group of people wanting to learn. He did a great job and had an interesting, illustrated way of teaching the gospel. We plan on putting it to use in town on the day of the Independence Day parade. We hope to have a good group from the church there. 

In a couple of weeks, we are doing a church service in Batalha and one of the couples from church is supposed to do the presentation of the gospel. We are excited about it! Pray for conversions; as we do not know of any in the community that are actually saved. They all have faith in God but don’t understand the gospel and do not really know much about the Bible. That is really common in the culture. High in faith in God, but low in Bible knowledge (unless they are in certain evangelical churches). 

This month we had another police training with Jeremiah Cook from Rescue 82. He is a full-time police officer in Chattanooga, but travels to several countries a year to do humanitarian relief and police/first aid/shooting training. If you know any first responder that is interested in trips like this, feel free to ask me how to get in contact with him. They have made trips to Ukraine, the Bahamas, and Central America and have others scheduled as well. 

We have a good group of guys in the church with varying skills. Jailson is a huge help to us in preaching and teaching, both in Arcoverde and Tupanatinga. He also welds and works on wood projects. He and a few other guys who like to do projects like this, worked on a sound booth for the church. We now have a nice-looking sound booth and the projector and a monitor in the rafters! It feels like a big upgrade. Soon we will finish the flooring at the church. We have challenged the church to raise the money for all of this and it is coming in, slowly but surely. 

Thank you for all your prayers and support! We feel so blessed to be ambassadors for the gospel in Northeast Brasil!

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah and our soon-to-be 15-year-old Evelyn (Sept 20) and Anna Claire. Both were daring in our vacation/adventure/celebration of Evie’s 15th birthday- a trip to a water park. She chose to go on a trip rather than have a big party. 15 is the coming of age year in this culture and we are very proud of the young lady she is becoming. Right now she is on a language learning kick, trying to advance in her Spanish and now picking up French.