Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Bits March

Do not boast about tomorrow because you do not know what will happen in a day. That is a paraphrase of Proverbs 27:1 and pretty direct about everyone’s life recently. We are doing online services as well and are cranking out the videos for services and studies. So with that in mind, we decided we could do a mini-furlough! Since you all are doing online services, we have the possibility to be just as present as you all are in your services! So here is our “not actually in the US” mini-furlough video. 

Along the same lines is kid’s church! At our church I sometimes teach and I have a personality called Dr. Kid. One of my friends in the US said he was planting a church and didn’t have a kid’s church for them to watch and so they did something in their home and so I made a video that can be used for kid’s church in English! Here is the link:

The world events have certainly affected us. We are doing online services and trying to serve our people while staying home. We have not had so many nights at home in a really long time! It was when we first arrived in Arcoverde in 2014 that we had very little to do at night. We have kept a fairly normal schedule during the day though as the girls are homeschooled anyway. Some of the daily activities have changed up but a lot was already online. 

Evelyn started a discipleship group on her own with some of her friends. We are really proud of her. They are going to study Proverbs. Sarah wrote up some material for them to use as well. The girls and I actually finished going through Proverbs at night. They have already started using the idea of not being a fool and being wise! 
Besides the virus this month, our neighborhood has dealt with flooding. There have been heavy rains in the region; rains they haven’t seen in 5 to 10 to 35 years depending on who you talk to. New developments in the city have pointed their sewage and water overflow towards our neighborhood and so we receive rivers flowing through and entering houses. Our house is at a high point and the church was built high, but we had one day in which the whole first floor of the church was full of mud. It was pretty bad. 

The praise in all of this is that God has used this time to open up the hearts of our neighbors. Roger and Marcy Smith as well as Sarah and I have had so many opportunities to minister. The neighbors have been more trusting as we have sought to serve them. Praise the Lord for these opportunities during this crazy time. 

As of this moment we have not heard of losing any support, although we understand that these times could bring major changes in many lives. Thank you for your prayers and continued support as we seek to make disciples in the Sertão!

All for HIS glory,
David, Sarah, my discipleship group leader as well as expedition leader Evelyn who likes to tout around with my animal lover Anna Claire (who has a cat, but recently a stray dog adopted us and stays outside our gate).