Bits October

 It was the sweetest little prayer I could hardly believe. Due to a Covid situation we have a mother and daughter staying at the church and we have had lunch together the last couple of days. The daughter asked to pray yesterday and thanked God for our family that was teaching her about God; of course the way she said it was super sweet and encouraging to hear. 

Prep time. In the last couple of weeks I have been working on strategic planning for life and ministry as well as preparing for our official organizational meeting followed by a baptismal service next weekend. We are also preparing for the furlough of our colleagues Roger and Marcy Smith who will be gone for 8 months and leave a huge hole here! We are working on training leaders that will step up and help out with the load. 

Sarah has kept busy with counseling, discipleship and classes. She has started some new extensive discipleship material with a couple of women and they are doing well with it. She has also counseled a couple of ladies regarding baptism and we are having a baptismal service on the 8th. We have around 7-8 people to baptize. We will also have a church organization meeting the day before to officially start the church legally. We are working on getting all the legal aspects in order and so this will be a big step. Then the baptism service will be the next day and serve as a celebration time as well. We rent a place with a pool, grill and space to spend the day and are looking forward to a great time. 

Every other week I do the Story of Hope Bible study in the city of Pesqueira with my friends Wilker and Ricardo. They have really enjoyed the study and seem to be learning a good bit. Ricardo is reading the Bible through as we do the study. Wilker is very studious and so he has done some extra study as well. 

This month we are taking the 10 hour drive to Fortaleza and going to a big water park with some friends. It was originally scheduled for Sarah’s August module, but pushed back to November cause of Covid. And actually the module will be on zoom, but since we had already scheduled everything we are still going. We are feeling the need for some rest and so we hope that we also get another couple of days off this month or early next month. 

Next year looks to be the year in which we offer a certificate through a US Bible college for Servant Leader’s curriculum. I am working on organizing a team, material and logistics to pull this off. If the system is good, it could take off in Brazil and we could have a good impact on leadership training. My main prayer is that we have a few people in our church that go through with the program and will feel more confident in leadership roles. We have some great people around us and see how God could really raise up leadership and use our church and leadership team to impact the region for Christ. This week some famous pastors in Brazil went viral for teaching false doctrine. Although apparently Brazil is growing in evangelicals, the doctrine is all over the place. Not that God can’t use people with different doctrine than we have, but the doctrine in Brazil needs some solid biblical influence. We pray that we can be a part of that positive influence here that will help grow healthy churches within Brazil. 

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, and my little fish who are ready for Beach Park