Bits December

Happy New Year! What a crazy year it has been. We started out with a trip to the states from January to April, came back to Brazil hoping we would about be in our building which led to a big focus on construction and finally getting in the building in November! 

Since our first services in November we have kept going on some detail work in the building and then ferociously cleaning the building for use on the weekends. It has been a whirlwind of activity. We did two courses for two weekends and then we focused on our Sunday services and Christmas party. Cam Woolford, the director for Servant Leaders came and visited, saw what we have going here and taught a course with me on Processing your life biblically. We had a really good time. 

The Christmas party was fun! We had around 60 people at the service and dinner and enjoyed wonderful decorations and food. Sarah has done a great job with this organization, mainly because a lot of it was delegated (even though she worked really hard too). We have had several key helpers for events, which is key for the church! 

Sarah has also been running the kid’s programs and they did a little presentation on Christmas night at our dinner. The kids are loving their class and the space of the church, although one night we had 18 kids and it was already a little tight. Sarah has the focus of II Timothy 3 that says from a child we should know the Bible because it makes us wise to salvation (David paraphrase). 

We are grateful that this season sees a lot of people traveling and little activity. We have needed some rest and gotten some, although we have had quite a few party invitations. We told the church how they have been a family to us. It certainly is a blessing to be surrounded by many wonderful people. That includes you all who pray and support us. So many of you are faithful in giving and that means a lot to us. 

We are launching into 2018 with great expectations for what God will do in the church here. There are some great things happening with the contacts God has given us over the past few years and we look forward to the miracles he sends us as we work for His glory in the Sertão!

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah and our two little angels for our Christmas program. 

Evelyn playing her ukulele for the first time in front of a crowd. She played Jingle Bells on Christmas day while people were eating dinner. She played with her teacher Filipe. 

Evie at her ballet open practice

Bits November

I’m late! I always try to get the update out at the end of the month and the latest the first of the month! But I have learned that you can’t win them all. :)

Well, we are in our building! We started using it a couple of weeks ago as we started on a Saturday night and had a great group. We did more of a thanksgiving type service (more thanksgiving for being there then for the pilgrims :) as Brazilians do not celebrate that holiday). We had three of us give a devotional surrounded by times of praise and prayer. We feel so blessed to be able to use the building…even though it is not quite finished. We continue to work on it to have the finished product downstairs.

We also inaugurated having courses! Dan and Kelly Cook came from Recife to teach Good Soil along with a camp worker he is training. We had a good group and a great time. The students were all faithful to the classes and it was really encouraging to have them there. We are currently teaching another course with Cam Woolford, the director of Servant Leaders International. He has come down for a visit and to see where we live and minister. He has said it has already given him a good context for where we are. 

These courses are giving us a good feel for how course times, prices and logistics will work out. It will also help us determine our target audiences for the courses. We also were able to film the course last night and hope to start to populate our training site so that we can have more people using the content at a longer distance. 

God is good! We praise Him for His many blessings in our life. One blessing was after our first service having our last football game for the year and being able to go to the beach afterwards as our neighbors let us stay in their apartment close to the beach in the city in which we were playing. It was just a day there, but it was nice to get away. We have been blessed in so many ways, including you all who are reading this. I had the opportunity to speak at the Northeast Brazil’s Word of Life Bible Institute on Wednesday about ministry in our region and I told them about the blessing of having supporters like you all that pray and give and that it is a humbling blessing that really keeps us going. So a big Merry Christmas to you and a blessed New Year in which you learn more and more about what it means to be conformed to Christ’s image!

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, my braces girl that loves ballet and independence, and my little cat that has recently been painting her face to look like a cat….yeah, it is weird, but it is really cute. :) 

Living with eternity in mind

A friend’s mom just found out her cancer returned and has spread and it does not look good for her. One of our study group members is their neighbor and decided to have a service for her. She asked me to speak. What do you speak on in a moment like this? I cannot pretend to understand what they are going through. In a quick search I found out that it seemed like Paul knew what to say, as he wrote the perfect passage in 2 Corinthians 4. 

I started the message in verse 16:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not see. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 

There is a costly gift in experiencing this seemingly hopeless situation. The recognition that our living reality should be in light of eternity. We easily wrap ourselves up in our earthly life and lose perspective on our eternal life. Our constant longing and hope should be eternal life in Christ so that the weights of this world do not boggle us down. Lately I have worried myself with tasks that  need no worrying to accomplish them. This week in a Bible study my daughter’s prayer request was that her parents would not be so stressed out. ha. Thanks baby girl. It was only slightly embarrassing as I have already come to the conclusion that the list is long of my deficiencies, but it did provide some reflection as to my mindset. 

The eternal is much more important than our earthly light afflictions. Verse 16 had started with the word therefore and so we look at the context above to show us why we can have this eternal mindset that does not let us lose heart. Paul emphasizes the gospel in the whole chapter. We do not handle the word of God deceitfully, we know that Satan blinds the minds of those who do not believe, and we do not preach ourselves. We are not the answers. In moments like this, my lack of words makes this entirely obvious as I do not have a clue what to say. But the gospel shines in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We have a treasure knowing that the power does not come from us, but from God.

For these reasons we can suffer but not break down. We have hope in Christ that stems from the resurrection. Just as Christ raised from the dead, so those who believe in Him will also raise. This hope sustains us! This grace sustains us to the glory of God! So remember when suffering through the reality of everyone’s mortality that it does not matter! To be absent on earth is to be present with the Lord for those who believe! And let these moments remind us that we are to always live in view of eternity, as a friend used for his ALIVE ministry slogan. 

Bits from Brasil

Every three years all the ABWE missionaries in Brazil get together for a 5 day conference in a different part of Brazil. Last week we went to Foz do Iguaçu which is a city known for huge waterfalls. Part of the conference was going to see God’s beautiful creation and the display of His power at the Falls. The conference is always a great time to catch up with colleagues, see what is happening within the ABWE world (we just got a new president!) and be encouraged. We do a little course in the morning, have afternoons free and then a service at night. 

Evelyn made lots of new friends and had a good time being independent from her parents. She has been busy with homeschool, ukulele lessons, ballet and then in her spare time playing with Anna Claire. She has also been busy trying to get Anna Claire saved! She is very sensitive and generous! 

Anna Claire just walks to the beat of her own drum. She loves playing. After the conference where she had classes each day with Jim and Susan Cook who travel the world working with kids (mostly missionary kids), was the first time where she looked like she could be understanding the gospel. It was neat to see and reminds me of how much investment has been in her life. 

Sarah has been working hard with hosting and cheerleading. We are also doing a discipleship/counseling with a couple in our church that she has mostly been organizing. Sarah keeps busy with Evie’s homeschooling and washing all my work/sports clothes! She also is a constant encouragement to church members staying active in our groups. 

I have been doing a lot with church construction still! We are near being able to use the building for our services (pray our money stretches here to finish what we need to do). In football we won our final season game (putting our record at 3-1) and made the playoffs. We have the semifinal game in a couple of weeks. 

We are going to start our Servant Leaders program next Wednesday! I am excited about that! Pray that we are able to get a good amount of leaders to come out to the training center! Later this month we will be doing the Good Soil seminar with the Brazil director Dan Cook and then Cam Woolford, the Servant Leaders director will come and do some seminars at the end of November! We are excited to have different partners for our training center! The first teacher will actually be another Pastor from Arcoverde! 

Thanks so much for your prayers and support! 

All for HIS glory!

David, Sarah, my big girl who now has a retainer, and my little wanderer who now is doing well with portuguese! 

Bits September

It is game day! One of the things I miss most in the US is sitting around watching college football, snacking and hanging out with family on Saturdays. My brothers and I (and Dad) used to even go out and play a game of football in between games or at halftime. Today, our team gets to play on a Saturday afternoon into evening underneath the lights. This week we had to come together as a team and go after sponsors for our game. It was neat to see the team work together outside of the lines. Last night at our team dinner I talked from Ephesians 4:16 about unity, working together and love. I told them football needed to be a stage in which they worked on not being selfish, working together and loving one another because once they get a family the stakes are much steeper. The football team has been a great opportunity for us to reach into the lives of these players as well as our community.

Once again, construction has dominated this past month. There is great progress though and Lord willing we will have pictures of a Bible study going on in our building for the next update. Not for sure though! Please pray for everything to come together. We had a workday with our study group members this month and it was fun and profitable! They were excited about what the future holds there! 

I participated in a Servant Leaders Strategic Planning weekend meeting over Skype this month. We are excited about what God is doing with SL. We are in charge of the translation and training for Brazil as well as helping out with organizational development and curriculum. Below is when we did a grill out and taught the Conflict Resolution seminar for the group that had finished the Processing Life Biblically class. 

Sarah and the girls are going with me to Tupanatinga once a month (I go every other week) and this last week we had a bouncy ride out to a rural farm. We met a new family and their relatives and talked about what it means to be a disciple. 

In our Arcoverde study group we have had more families coming, which is neat to see. They are excited about being in the building soon and many offer to help in various ways. It is good to see a big part of our group wanting to serve. In many churches 20% of the members do 80% of the work. We all need to make sure we do our part and work together as the body of Christ!

Sarah’s cheerleaders will be on the field this afternoon! They are really cute. Check Facebook for a video soon! Sarah has also been able to go to an English school and teach recipes. The kids all enjoy that! Thanks for all you do so that God’s kingdom can grow here in the Sertão! 

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah and our little gymnasts; although Evie started ballet again, the girls spend free time playing with polly pockets and performing the floor routine in the kitchen with the youtube gymnast routine music. Also, Evelyn turned 8 last week! 

Bits August

This month we finished our 7 week men’s study on Processing Life. The group seemed to grow as we went which really encouraged us as we look to the future to implement Servant Leaders, our leadership training course. For celebration, we decided to grill out last night as well as do another study on Conflict Resolution. It went really well and girlfriends/wives came and enjoyed themselves as well. 

Last weekend the football team had a road game, a good 8-10 hour drive away. I was able to have some good conversations. One guy told me how he had been pretty much an atheist (I would probably say agnostic) before starting to come to the studies. Now he really enjoys them and doesn’t like to miss. On gameday I gave a devotional on David and Goliath, presenting the gospel once again to the team. We had over 40 players there and they pay attention and are respectful. As I continually evaluate how long I want to be involved with coaching football, I think of the quote by Billy Graham that says, “A coach will impact more people in one year than an average person will in an entire lifetime.” I am not sure how accurate this quote is, but I do know he has a great point. Coaching these guys has been an important place of influence for lots of lives that would be hard to achieve in any other position. Oh, and we played in a World Cup stadium this last game, which was a really cool experience. 

Sarah has started a discipleship with a woman who has gone through some marital issues. She also continues to do a lot of hosting in our home. Frequent hosting in our home might not last too much longer though as we will soon be moving some of the studies to the church building. Maybe not this month, but October will give us a good chance to have some studies start there. I have decided to start the Servant Leaders program November 1st at the building as well. Pray for us as we coordinate the electrician, dry-waller (actually we don’t have dry wall, but the equivalent here), window maker, and tile layer as they come and try to have the building ready for us to use soon. I am in charge of the painting and will be busier carrying out that task this month. This morning I was applying sealer and walling mud. 

This month we were also able to report to our partner/mother church in Recife during their missions month about what God is doing in the Outback. They were excited to hear and I hope challenged in the area of missions. They have been a great partner as we seek to establish a church planting base here. 

Thanks so much for your prayers and support! God is good and keeps working on us! I hope that He has been busy working on you as well!

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, and our two little ballerinas that are stoked about starting ballet classes soon. 

Prayers and football

I have messed up and just now I am starting to see it. In 2014 our family moved to a small interior town in Brazil and looked to start a church. Seeking contacts in a place where we knew no one, american football fell into our laps. I started out as offensive coordinator and quarterback and ended up as head coach as of November of 2015. Coming from the states I have been hesitant to force my Christianity on the football team as a whole. Starting out they all knew why I was in Brazil and knew they were invited to studies, but it wasn't until our first game in October of 2015 that I realized they were ok with praying. Before our game in the locker room the players asked me to pray for the game. Since then they have been ok with saying a few words, giving a few challenges, as well as praying. 

The work here did not spread right away. Few players came to studies at the beginning. I even thought it might not be worth it for a while and thought about seeking out another way of meeting people. But slowly more and more players have come to studies. Eight weeks ago I started a study for men on Wednesday nights where we went over the seminar Processing Life Biblically. We had a good group of ten guys the whole time, several of them from the offensive line. They have been faithful and since the study started the OL has played better. They argue less and are stronger mentally. I did not correlate the two until one of the players commented on how the climate has been changing. 

My conclusion has been that the best thing we can do for these players and for the team is to introduce them to Christ. Of course I always knew that, but because of being american I have been nervous about forcing them to hear about God. Fortunately in Brazil on a club team, this is not a problem. They have welcomed it. Emphasizing character has improved the lives of these guys off and on the field. Our mission is not just to win games but to win at life.

In the states the worst thing we have done is take God out of everything. We need God. We need his blessing. We need His grace. We need to be bold in taking a stand for prayer, a stand for God. I am not talking about being Crusaders and killing everything in our path; I am talking about being firm that we are for Christ and that the world needs Christ. Our teams will grow from this and better men will be produced!

Grateful

This morning in my timeline on facebook, a memory of us at the beach showed up. Last week we went to the beach as well. Vacations are fun and I think we take them for granted sometimes. Maybe we have always done them and think they are our right as Americans. But not everyone can just pack up and go to the beach.

I do not post much about my family on facebook, but I love them so much and we have a wonderful loving family. We had a lot of fun last week. Many families are broken and unhappy and might not have time for one another. I am grateful for what I have in my family.

Just being able to read a blog on the internet means that you are a couple steps above many people in the world and we all need to be grateful for where God has put us.

What can you be grateful for today?

Blessings!

Bom dia! Hope you all are having a wonderful summer! We have seen many of your pictures at the beach, visiting family, enjoying the sun. Here in the semi-arid desert we are experiencing an abnormal rainy, cool season. Last year it didn’t even rain and the last 7-10 years have been more dry here, but this year God has blessed with a couple months of lots of rain! Lots…We are not allowed to complain about rain in the desert, so I won’t, but I am grateful that we have a beach vacation scheduled for a few days in just a couple of weeks. We are looking forward to the sun and being able to get away for a little bit!

                                                                                             Sarah's Surprise Birthday Party       

We started a men’s Bible study this month on Biblically Processing Life. It has been incredible. I originally had a couple guys in mind for this study and ended opening it up and we have had more than ten guys the last couple of weeks! The study is really good too. It is available in English and very solid and practical. If you are interested in seeing it; I can send the notes, the power point, a video of it. Please just ask! 

I have been more involved with the overall organization of Servant Leaders the last couple of months and am excited about how SL’s vision of supporting the local church, serving with resources and training. Some of the same guys involved in SL are the ones that I am working with on my master’s degree. The current class is administration and my project has been putting together a policy manual for the church. This is a practical step that will help us with our decision making! It has also inspired our Sunday night Bible studies where we have talked about our own spiritual growth, how we grow together and serve each other in fellowship. We are ramping up for moving into the building soon.

Construction continues….continues to help my sanctification process! Most days I spend a portion of it going to the building or store or doing something with this process. It is coming along and will soon be ready for use. My hope and prayer is two months for now….but you never know! Pray for us to have the right resources for finishing it up (resources mainly being proper workers and then buying the right material). 

Please pray for our Tupanatinga trips (that are going well), personal discipleships (Sarah and I are both doing) and opportunities to get to know more people. 

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, my second grader who just started school, and my little hair comber who can brush her hair for hours on end (well, maybe not hours). 

Bits June

Little girls are loud! :) Sarah is putting on a clinic this week for cheerleading! She has girls ranging from three to ten years old learning to cheer as well as learning about character. She is doing a great job and so far all the girls have loved it. This has been a major project for Sarah and she has done awesome. 

Before this major project she put on a party similar to a harvest party here. June is the corn harvest and the weather is much cooler and we have more rain. So there are lots of bonfires and parties. We did a Bible study with the fire and fellowship attached to it and had a really great time! Sarah did a great job decorating. 

This month I have been busy taking care of the construction, getting the football team ready for our first game of the national league next week, doing studies for Sunday nights and our bi-weekly trips to Tupanatinga, preparing for a men’s study to start next Wednesday night, helping organize the weekly area Pastor’s meeting, working on Servant Leaders Brazil and going through my master’s class on Church Administration. 

Servant Leaders has taken a step up in priority as we are close to starting our program here in Arcoverde as well as reorganizing at the international level. We are wanting to be organized as a team as we develop the resources and partnerships we have. Servant Leaders offers free resources to churches to train their own leadership. God is opening so many doors that it has been hard to keep up with all the work that needs to be done! We are grateful to God for this and look forward to the fruits of the labor which will be developed church leaders across the world. Please pray for wisdom for us and resources (human, financial and time resources).

Thanks for all your prayers as they have sustained us! Pray we would continue to separate time as a family through all the busyness and that God will multiply His harvest!

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, and our two little cheerleaders; one being the loudest and most exciting and the other maybe the most distracted and randomly interested, but both as cute as can be!

Bits from Brasil May

Rain! Normal May/June months in the Sertão are rainy. However, last year’s climate was really dry with little water. Lots of cattle have been sold as the brown vegetation has not changed for almost two years. This month has been different as God has sent a good amount of precipitation our way! A true blessing from above. Since being here we have often compared the rain to God’s blessings and both the rain and spiritual blessings arrived this month.

On Mother’s Day we had a service/party at our house. Sarah put in long hours decorating and preparing to make the day special. We had a great group including several couples who had never been to a study. One was a neighbor couple we had invited over the previous night for pizza. We have been able to socialize with several of our neighbors this month. I heard from a Pastor whose church recently decided to separate Sunday nights for the members to intentionally schedule dinners/events in which they could meet their unchurched neighbors and friends. This vision for the unchurched excites me as it is our vision as well!

A few weeks ago a training was held for the Samaritan’s purse Operation Christmas Child program. Our colleague Roger Smith is on the national board of directors as the Prayer Coordinator. Within our Pastor’s group he started explaining the children’s discipleship program and the Pastors were soon excited. Although my involvement was very minimal, my excitement was through the roof as 17 different ministries were represented by around 60 people! Why so excited? This area rarely has cooperation between ministries. One of our main goals through our training center has been to train people from different areas to reach the Sertão. People came from all over our city and region. Several different towns were represented. This gave me great hope for what we want to do with our training center. It seems as though different people will be willing to come here to be trained. 

Our annual football camp happened this past weekend where we had seven coaches come from the US to Recife at Camp Paradise. Their character challenges were accepted by more than sixty athletes that showed up to learn more about american football. For me the most exciting result was in the facebook posts that followed where several athletes emphasized the spiritual teaching they received as being a main highlight of the weekend. I posted a bunch of photos on my facebook page in case you are interested in seeing the impact. 

Construction has ramped up on the building and we hope to be using the incomplete facilities in a couple of months. I have started being more involved with the construction and go there and to the store most days. 

Servant Leaders development is going well and the site seems to be getting quite a few views per week. We are getting close to translating as much as we can before the other courses are fully developed. I am excited to start these seminars and courses here soon. I feel like our influence base here is going well as we have developed our relationships with the churches and people here. 

Excited to partner with you all in this ministry in Brazil! God continues to blow our minds with the doors he opens up! God bless you all!

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, my little coach who also started Ukulele lessons, and our arts and crafts major

Bits from Brasil

A week before we left the US this month we all talked about being ready to be back in Brasil. Our time in the states was fun as we were able to spend some quality time with family and friends and see many friends from churches that support the ministry here in Brasil. We live a very blessed life. Our trip home went smoothly even as we traveled with a bit of luggage. Evie was a big help and cause of your prayers, we were not pushing all our bags all over the airport, but the pick-ups and drop-offs turned out being close to each other!

I did not expect for us to jump right into the routine here, but that is what happened. We arrived late Saturday night after coaching a football game in Recife. On Sunday night we invited our Bible study friends to come over for a get together and we packed the house out and had a great time talking with everyone. On Tuesday night we started a Bible study with a couple that had started in our studies when we first arrived. He invited his Grandma and we met at his aunt’s house. The study went well and we were told we could return. Breno did not grow up in church and is not used to that kind of setting, but is open to in house studies. Pray that they go well with him!

On Thursday we went in the early afternoon to Tupanatinga. Sarah and Bia caught up while the girls continued playing. The study at night went really well with a good group. We are excited about what the Lord has for us there.

My current class is Team Dynamics and I have learned so much in it. Part of my project has been meeting with our colleague Roger and talking about team. We feel really good about what we have been discussing and the future of the ministry here. Please pray for synergetic work that pushes God’s work forward here. One aspect of our conversations has been the construction. Pray for us as I will be more involved in working together with Carlos in getting the building ready. We are putting together priorities to 1) get the building usable 2) finish this phase of the project. We will be seeing how much money we have available right now and what that can finish and evaluate how we will manage that. If you would like to participate in not making the money matters an issue, let me know! :)

Our service this weekend went well and it was good to be back in that rhythm. Normally we do not have services at our house, but due to the location being unavailable, we had it here. Sarah has started projects for the kids to give to their mothers on Mother’s Day. She received some new craft ideas while we were in the states. 

Well, one of my friends said I write too much, so I will stop for now! :) Thanks for all your love and support for the ministry here! 

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, and our two little gymnasts, one girl with the janelinha (little window…referring to her two front teeth being out, the second being pulled in the airport forcing a dilemma for the tooth fairy giving in dollar or real), and the other girl who is going to start learning portuguese and is unsure of what to do when someone speaks portuguese to her. 

Bits March

This month has been our main travel month. On March 4 we went to North Carolina to be with Calvary Baptist in Raleigh and First Christian of Ramseur. We enjoyed catching up with each of these churches who have supported us since our pre-field ministry. I was able to preach Calvary’s two morning services and then spend time in a home group at night. On Wednesday night we talked about our ministry and answered questions about what is happening in Brazil. We also had our friend Alison from Brazil down here as well and he got a glimpse of what we do while we are in the states. 

The following Monday we headed north to Michigan. We usually split up our trip as we can spend the night with another Brazilian Alisson who lives in Louisville. We studied at college with he and his wife Christina and were able to see their small group the night we stayed with them. A couple days later I was able to meet up with my friend Jeff who I grew up with and is a youth pastor. It has been a blessing seeing many friends involved in ministry whether it be as full time ministry workers or church leaders. Speaking at our sending church, Heritage Baptist, was a big blessing. There were so many people there who have invested heavily in my life. While there we had a great time with our family and friends. 

We have been blessed with our sending church ever since we have gone to the field as they have supported us for a good percentage. They raised their support to match that percentage and so we are technically only 15 dollars short on our support to get back to the field. I was also able to meet with the missions Pastor and senior Pastor and deepen our relationship, especially in regards to accountability and involvement. Dave Graef, our lead Pastor spent years as a missionary with ABWE and is one of the main developers of the Servant Leaders ministry. It is great to have someone that understands where we are in ministry. It is also important to have sending church accountability. 

On our way back from Michigan we swung over to Virginia where we visited more college friends, Jonathan and Michelle Watson who we went to college with. They had visited us last year in Brazil and it was neat to see their growing church! 

This month we leave for Brazil on the 20th. We speak at our church in the Chattanooga area Sunday morning the 9th, but for the most part we will just be wrapping everything up. In fact, as I write this, Sarah is at Home Depot grabbing our favorite black and yellow tubs to take back to Brazil and we are going to do some packing tonight. 

Thank you all so much for your prayers and your support of the ministry to the Sertão! We are looking forward to our next email we will send, probably asking for prayer the day we are flying out!

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, our second grader (Evie finished first grade a few days ago), and our big four year old (Anna Claire turns four on the sixth)

Family! We love seeing family. A main reason we have done more frequent furloughs is so our families can see each other more often while our girls are younger. However, we were able to fly up to New Hampshire this month to see my brother and his family. Dan has twins Anna Claire’s age and a nine month old. It was our family’s first time to ever see them in person and we all had a lot of fun. We also enjoyed attending a service at their church. 

Our second family trip was to LA! Lower Alabama. Sarah’s mamaw lives down there as well as a couple aunts and uncles. We had some good talks there and were able to visit Silas First Baptist, a church that has been involved in our ministry in Brazil. 

While there I finished a class project for my Strategic Thinking class. These classes have been very practical to ministry and this was no different. I developed a strategic plan for implementing the Servant Leaders ministry in our church plant. When one looks at disciple making it can be divided up into evangelism, discipling and leadership training. The Servant Leaders ministry at our church will help all parts of disciple making, but it is mainly designed for leadership training. Please pray with us that God will already prepare hearts for leadership. 

Servant Leaders for Brazil continues in its development. We have someone translating seminars and then I am working on a new website, power point development and planning for using it. 

On Saturday we leave for North Carolina to visit two supporting churches. Our friend Alison from Brazil is flying in for a few days while we are there and then we will pick up some football equipment in Huntsville, Alabama. After he leaves we head up to Michigan for a couple weeks. Sunday March 19 we speak at our home church, Heritage Baptist. The following Sunday we will be in Appomattox, Virginia. No we will not be ending anything there from our mixed marriage. We will be speaking at our college friend, Jonathan Watson’s church. After that we will head home and should be mostly in Chattanooga until April 20 when we head back to Brazil. Please pray for safety for us as we travel! 

The construction in Brazil is making progress. We are looking to prepare a couple rooms in order to start using the building. There are plenty of details to be working on and we need around twenty eight thousand more dollars to finish this phase. 

We are always looking to the future. If you or your church are interested in going to Brazil, we would love to host trips for VBS, English camps, football, cheerleading or any other specialty. We will have a training building that can be used to teach special skills that can be used as an outreach to the community! 

Thank you all for your sustaining prayers and support! 

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, my little story writer Evelyn, and her student Anna Claire who is learning to write letters, though not exactly cohesive 

Cousins in South Alabama

Which one is mine??????

Ice skating!