Thursday, February 29, 2024

Bits February


We are excited! The new year in the two churches has brought a lot of excitement. Last year was a time of transition with us being gone half the year and then getting back into the swing of things and trying to put everyone in the right spot. We don’t have all of our ducks in a row yet, but enough to feel like we are organized and ready to roll. The New Year in Brazil struggles to start until after Carnaval every year as people vacation and school is out.
 












This year we decided to test some programming during Carnaval to see if people would come. The Arcoverde church went out to Tupanatinga for a Saturday Baptismal service and time of fellowship. Many spent the night and we had a fun Sunday morning with breakfast, Bible study and another service before we wrapped up the weekend with a traditional meal together (feijoada). On Tuesday we regathered in Arcoverde and did a short module and ate again! I would like to say that I got smoked in dominos on Saturday and Sunday, but on Tuesday I won a couple of games (probably because I had an older experienced guy as a partner). 



This month Evelyn started an apprenticeship. We have had a close relationship with a local English school for years. Evelyn can’t work yet, but she can help out and she started doing just that a few weeks ago. She goes in on Thursdays for a few hours. We are excited for this opportunity for her to get out, learn more about teaching and to have fun as well. 


Our new Brazilian colleagues are on their way! Stefan is making the five day drive from South Brazil and left on Wednesday. Pray for his trip! Then Julia and their three kids come next Tuesday. Pray for them as they adapt to the new culture and find their roles in the church planting vision here. 


My brother Dan and his family came this month for ten days. It is so neat to have family down here. They were very encouraging and were able to participate in some ministry. We were able to take some time off to hang out with just them. It was an amazing time together. Here are a few photos. 


All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, my busy working Evie and my living the life of a twin (cousin) Anna Claire 

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Bits January

This month we did an experiment as a church with sabbath principles. January is Brazil’s summer and so a lot of people vacation. We decided to put a pause on ministries and focus more on studying the Word and meditating on the gospel. The book Gospel Primer has been very influential on our family as far as applying the gospel to every area of our lives. We translated the 31 texts that he has and I posted that each day in our church group as well as on social media. Instead of our praise band on Sundays, different individuals led music. Instead of kid’s service, the kids stayed in the auditorium. Other ministries did less as well. This Sunday we return to normal. This past Sunday there was a good group and good spirit. Pray that keeps up! 



Sarah’s parents Bob and Ginny Hall visited us for two weeks. We had a great time. Her dad, also known as Coach Hall because of over 40 years of coaching different sports, but mainly baseball, did a men’s event in both churches on “Dare to be a Daniel.” He grilled chicken and served their famous white sauce along with a traditional barbecue meal. The guys liked it, tried to get the secret white sauce recipe, and paid attention as he told the story of Daniel and gave a challenge towards trusting the Lord in all areas of your life. 



Usually around the New Year, we look forward to what we would like to accomplish in the following year. This year in Arcoverde we want a more established leadership and a congregation that thrives around the gospel. In a little over a month, we will have an assistant Pastor arriving whom we will partner with to also plant a church. We are excited about this opportunity! 


In Tupanatinga we would like to get more and more people involved. In a couple of weeks, we will have another baptism and several desire to be baptized. We have mostly new Christians in our congregation and are still figuring out some basics! Praise the Lord. We have started studying the Old Testament stories and will be in that series for a while with the goal of laying a base for beliefs. 



Sarah has done a great job on our midweek studies with the ladies. In Tupanatinga she is teaching on emotions and a good group of ladies are showing up! The same rings true for Arcoverde and their study of a Jen Wilkin book about the Ten Commandments. The men have studied Nehemiah. The next couple of days we are reviewing our studies of Nehemiah and Daniel and trying to apply it to our lives. Pray for men with integrity who are proactive in changing their communities! 


We have been so blessed. Pray that God would use us for His glory!


All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah and our soon-to-be English school apprentice (Evie will start helping out at the English school one day a week), and our bouncy cat lover Anna Claire



Thursday, December 28, 2023

Bits December 2023

Tea time. Each December the church in Tupanatinga does a women’s Christmas tea. This year, (the 4th annual tea), the women of the church were more involved in the planning and setup which really excited Sarah. Forty-five women, most of whom were family and friends of women in our church, heard a clear presentation of the gospel. 



Six days later two of the Tupanatinga women drove to Arcoverde to participate in the first women’s Christmas tea in Batalha, a community our church is heavily involved with located close to our church. We have helped the community more and more through our social ministry and they have asked for more and more spiritual help. While we haven’t had the human resources to have a weekly gathering, some ladies in our church have started a bi-weekly Bible study. Soon, with the arrival of Stefan and Julia, we hope to have a weekly presence there. On this cool Friday night, the women of Batalha heard the theme of listening to God. 


Cindy Cook and Ashley Salyers were present from Chattanooga. Cindy brought the tea idea four years ago and was happy to see it continued here. Sarah and the girls had a fun time with them preparing cookies and wrapping presents. Due to some friends' generosity, we distributed lots of presents to kids this year. Our partnership with non-profit ministries has grown some this year. Thankfully our church social ministry has done a great job of being creative with fundraising and been able to help out as well. 








A couple started back attending our church and asked for a visit. She said that she feels there is a hole in her life that needs to be filled; she feels directionless. She sought that direction in church. After hearing both of their life stories I shared the gospel. They said that is what they want. Pray for Bruno and Maiara that they will be firm in their decision to follow Christ. We don't always share these stories, sometimes because this update goes online and we are not sure about who will read them. But there have been some neat stories happening. 



We had a great fellowship at our Christmas meal this year in both churches. The end of the year is always festive in Brazil. We also had a couple days of rest in our home with just the four of us. We had been looking forward to that and a little bit lighter week. 


We pray that you have had a Merry Christmas and wish you a Happy New Year!

God bless!


All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah and Santa’s little helpers Evie and Anna Claire 

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Bits November

Christmas time is here. Just don’t think cool weather for us. Well, kind of; it got to the low 80’s for a bit and even rained some this week! Thanksgiving is a great time to remember how much God has blessed us. You all who read these updates and pray for us are a great blessing. This year our colleagues Dan and Carol Cook came from Recife to celebrate with us. They stayed three days and so we were able to catch up, have a meeting, and then stuff our faces for Thanksgiving lunch. We even got to watch our Lions lose on the big screen, a Thanksgiving day tradition. We had a couple of other visitors as well, Mike Smith (Roger and Marcy’s son) and his two kids, and then Marvin and Rebecca from our church (Marvin lived almost 20 years in the states). 




Last month we asked for prayer as a Brazilian couple would be visiting us and praying about moving to Arcoverde to help with church planting. Stefan and Julia had a whirlwind trip. We did two prayer meetings at each of the churches so that they could meet some of our members. We had some good conversations. After praying for a couple of weeks they have decided as a family to come to Arcoverde! What an unexpected blessing. They plan on helping out in the church in Arcoverde as well as helping advance another possible church plant. They will come as missionaries sent out of their church in south Brasil and so they will spend the next couple of months raising support. They will start with a two-year term and then see what happens from there. I hope to have more information on how you could help them financially in next month’s update.


Jailson, an elder in training, has been quite involved in preaching and trips to Tupanatinga. He suggested we take the Arcoverde youth group to Tupanatinga. That happened this month and everyone had a great time. The youth went in Jailson’s kombi, played music, games and listened to a lesson on what it means to be a disciple. Then we had some pizza. The event really encouraged both groups. Pray that we would have a youth group that brings energy to the church. Sunday night three of our youth led the music for a prayer meeting. That is exciting! 



The last six months have been a lot of organizing and structuring and working through conflict. Sometimes we feel like we are making little progress and other times there is great hope that the churches will burst at any time, in maturity and growth. Whatever happens, we are not called to grow churches, we are called to be faithful and to make disciples. Please for us to remain faithful!


Sarah and a young lady
wanting to know about baptism

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah and my two favorite Bible students. This year we are going in depth on the Old Testament and have studied spiritual disciplines, devotionals and now are doing a hospitality class as well. 

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Bits October

Monday fun day

Some people have asked if we will have new partners in ministry since our colleagues are not on the field anymore. We are not actively recruiting anyone, but if God sends someone, we will analyze and see if it will work. We were introduced to a Brazilian couple from South Brazil that are looking for a new ministry. They are interested in church planting and our boss told them about us. We have had a couple of conversations regarding philosophy of ministry and such and they seem to be a good match. They are attending a wedding in the Northeast this month and by a neat act of God are able to come and visit us next week. Please pray for wisdom for all of us in this decision for Stefan and Julia!
 


The last two weekends we had modules. We did our Gospel and Marriage module in Tupanatinga and had a good turnout and good discussion. I asked a couple of the guys this weekend how their week of marriage went and they said it had been a good week. haha. So at least there was some short-term success.

Module group presentation


This last weekend we did a module on conflict, in general, and then specifically in the church. You think when you sign up to Pastor that it is mainly to preach, but it is actually mainly to resolve conflict. haha. We have had a fair share of that lately and letting the church know how we deal with it was good. The gospel applies to conflict quite a bit and our immediate answer to conflict is the gospel. We were able to order more counseling books this month. There are sets of short counseling books that address many different issues using proper Biblical context. Pray for us as we counsel many different issues, whether it be through quick conversations or weekly meetings. 


We had a unique opportunity this month that generated interest from our members. A teacher contacted one of our members about her class visiting our church for religion class to see what an evangelical church is like. We gave them a tour of the church and then had a mini kid’s service where Evelyn and Anna Claire led the music. I talked about the priority we place on the authority of the Bible and then Evelyn came up to present the gospel with the wordless book. We also had the wordless book colored bracelets for them. The kids loved it. Evelyn did a great job with the gospel presentation. 


Friday nights at the house are pizza nights. We invite one family from the church over to the house to give more attention and hear how they are doing. We are almost all the way through the church after four or five months of this! We start over in January. 


Thank you so much for your prayers and support. You all are a blessing! 


All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah and my little teacher (and babysitter for the modules) Evelyn and our helper in everything, Anna Claire

Discipleship group baby shower


Friday, September 29, 2023

Bits September

This last Sunday we entered the new auditorium in Arcoverde. This project started while we were in the US. Since arriving we have been putting the finishing touches on what was mostly ready thanks to Roger and Marcy Smith. This past Sunday in the new building we talked about stewardship and using the building for God’s glory.




This was the first month in which we started doing a morning Lord’s Supper service. We wondered how it would go; would people show up? Culturally, services are at night, so it is harder to get people to come to something in the morning. But another cultural difference is the importance of the Lord’s supper here and the love for food. Since we attached a potluck to the service, this brought a good group to the service. So the first month of this format was a success! 


Under this format, we are in one service per week in both churches. The once-a-month prayer service has also been a blessing. We have felt that this format has allowed us better contact with both churches. 


Sarah has run into issues fitting women in small groups! They have been very popular among the women and we have seen good spiritual growth in some of their lives. 



In family life, I struggled with shingles the first couple weeks of the month but the effects are almost gone now. Anna Claire picked up chickenpox from me and had a rough go of it for a couple of weeks. She is better now but still waiting for all the spots to disappear. We celebrated getting over our sickness along with Evelyn’s 14th birthday at the beach. It was nice to rest for a few days and play in the waves and sand. Shingles taught me that I need to play sports again (for destressing) and not work as much. Maybe I will listen better this time. We tend to think that a lot depends on us and our efforts and that if we are not working overtime God won’t be able to accomplish as much, but the reality is that God never needed us in the first place. He can do what He wants when He wants. Jesus promised to build His church; we are fortunate enough to be along for the ride. 


Thank you so much for your prayers and support. We are very blessed to be doing what we are doing. 



All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, Evelyn and Anna Claire

Thursday, August 31, 2023

Bits August

Would you care for a cup of tea? Sarah and Cindy Cook put on a couple of teas for the churches this month. Jeremiah and Cindy Cook visit us pretty much once a year and this last month they came for three weeks. Silverdale Baptist in Chattanooga, TN (where Cindy is on staff) holds an annual tea that reaches many in the community. She spoke on hospitality and used Ephesians, which we are preaching through in the churches. 






Jeremiah was able to speak four times at local police stations. He always prays for their protection and wisdom as they make decisions. It is neat to serve local law enforcement in some way. 



We also had another family, the Derksons, visit for a week at the beginning of the month. They take their kids on international trips once in their teens so that they get a different perspective on the world. It was fun showing them around and they were an encouragement to us. They participated in our first gospel prayer meeting. We had a good group in Tupanatinga, who seemed to enjoy the different format. Later in the month, we had one in Arcoverde as well. We plan on having them monthly.


Since returning we have worked on leadership development. Part of that is holding modules. This month we did the module “Processing Life Biblically.” We had a good group for that and significant interaction. We have also started book clubs this month. In a couple of days, we will have a meeting with most of our leaders in Arcoverde to do some vision casting for the future. Please pray as we shoot towards strengthening a team leadership culture. The Bible shows the need for a plurality of leadership and we want that to practically play out well. 


A couple of weeks ago I started experiencing some weird symptoms. Last week my face broke out and we discovered I have shingles. It has been painful and unfortunately, it is a virus that takes some time to get over. Please pray that they will go away soon! According to a lot of sources, they are a result of stress. That is disappointing for me as I don’t want to admit stress levels. Pray that I can find a good healthy balance here that doesn’t result in any more shingles!



The girls are doing well in school and church. Evie starts teaching another Bible study for Anna Claire and her friends next week. Thank you for your prayers and support! We feel very blessed!


All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah and our tea photographer, and our kitty cat lover