Bits June

And we are live

Two weeks ago we had our first live service of the quarantine through Facebook and Instagram. We just had the musicians and pastors present. This past Sunday was our first service to have people present and for further prevention we had the service in the afternoon on the church lawn. It was really nice to be back together and have that option. The crowd was about what we expected since kids and adults older 

Lawn service

than 60 were not allowed amongst other restrictions. 

The quarantine gave us an opportunity to evaluate ministries, structure and leadership in the church. Because of how busy we have been we started to look down the road to when we will not have our colleagues Roger and Marcy and to the times we will be gone and to what we would like our church to look like leadership wise. So we decided to dish out some duties in the church. We are looking at long term transitions and so we are praying, analyzing and looking for the right times to talk to our members as well as train them in different areas. This has been really exciting. So far we have a social ministry director, librarian, kitchen lady, worship co-leader, kid’s ministry leader, events coordinator, outdoor facilities director, head of security, treasurers, and more in mind for the future. 

Roberta organizing books

Roberta was saved around five years ago and has changed her life perspective. She enjoys reading and is one of our more frequent attenders to the library. She has secretarial experience as well and so when she was asked to be the church librarian she was thrilled. 

One night Sarah had two of her discipleship group members over to plan their split from the group! They are going to start their own together and Sarah sent them off two by two. This is huge! Vivi and Luciana are really excited and Sarah has done a great job preparing them and we have seen so much spiritual growth from these two. On the same night Vivi’s husband Raphael came as well and we went over his message for next Sunday! He is going to preach for the first time. He is involved in a class that was just started With Pastor Roger preaching homiletics. We have four men in this class and look forward to them developing their preaching skills. 

The three mentioned above and two more have been involved in a Systematic theology class that was started during the quarantine and is done mainly online. I have filmed ten minute videos and they have a discussion forum they participate in. We did meet for a review and their first test! We found out they had indeed learned some important truths and they all scored in the 90’s with one ace. The pilot class has been successful and did leak out leading to more interest. Next week I am starting an open class. We have a few people from around Brazil already and a few from our church. We have space for more and so pray the right people will get involved. 

Test time

Recently I read a post about the difficult things missionaries go through. I could relate to every point, but I have not thought deeply about them lately because I feel like our life is super blessed. We have so much more than we deserve. Even in this chaotic 2020 that quite frankly needs a reset button, we feel God’s grace and blessing in our family and ministry life. Thank you for your prayers and partnership that makes all this possible.

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, and my two beach bound daughters who are excited about playing in the waves, sand and pool starting tomorrow until Sunday morning :)