Bits August

 “It’s a miracle.” Chico and Rodrygo said about Richard, their friend who has started coming to church in the last year. Richard was practically voted most likely to not be in church about a year ago, but due to some life circumstances he started coming and has gone all in. A couple weeks ago we had a preaching class on a Sunday morning that Chico is attending. They live in Tupanatinga and Richard came with them for the day. We did a church feijoada (traditional Brazilian meal consisting of beans and pork essentially) for lunch for people to come pick up. So they all came for the day. Padim didn’t want to say anything in the class, but he ended up really interested. He bought a Bible for himself and his wife with whom he would like to get back together. Pray that God uses the Bible in her life to transform her just like God is transforming Richard. 

A couple new people have come to the church since we started up after the pandemic. Mathew is even taking the theology class and doing a good job keeping up with it. Sarah finished counseling a couple of ladies recently. Most of these situations are confidential, but it is really exciting to see how God is using Sarah and this way of making disciples. The counseling is basically a discipleship for people in crisis. Really, we could all use that type of counsel. Sarah is super busy!!! Pray for her as she juggles all these events. 

We started a new Bible study in a new town (Pesqueira) on Thursday of last week. The intention is to make disciples there and see if eventually there can be a church. Our contacts there are with a couple guys that were on the football team. We plan on starting slowly as we are busy elsewhere but an advantage to having a long term vision for reaching a region and staying in the same place over the long run is that you can work on multiple plants at once. I just edited our Outback Vision page of our blog to talk about the advantages of having a long term vision of staying in one place and reaching cities around you.

We are excited about the leadership training phase happening around us. The next two Sundays we will have two men from our church preaching. They are in the preaching class Roger Smith is teaching. The theology classes are going slowly but surely. On the 12th and 13th of this month we are going to do a module for those serving in our church. The Theology and Practice of Servant Leaders is great material and we hope this will launch into a great season of service for the Kingdom. We are going all out on the event in preparation that it will be a time in which our people feel very blessed. 

Two disciples that we are excited about as well are Evelyn and Anna Claire. They each like to help out in their own little way. A house they frequently play at is our neighbor’s, Ana Paula who announced during the pandemic she wanted to be a member of our church. Sarah had a good talk with her a couple months back about salvation but had not really heard anything, but in her membership interview she talked about how she had decided to follow Christ. Sarah has now started a long, deep discipleship booklet with her. Pray for her in her new faith as well as her husband who says he wants to start coming and even wants to put in a pool at their house so they can get baptized in it. There is no doubt that the lives of our little girls played a role in her coming to Christ.

We are so blessed! As all the memes about 2020 being a disaster are so true and we do go through trying times in the church and ministry, we understand that the blessing of God has been abundant as well. Thank you for your part in that blessing. 

Evelyn's new glasses

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah and our sprouting fifth grade Evelyn who should pass her father soon enough and our puzzle queen Claire bear.