Bits October

I preached a city event for
churches in Tupanatinga

What a terrible month. Ever have those months? So it wasn’t that terrible for us personally as much as bad things happening with people we love around us. Poor choices have tough consequences and pastoring during those times can be difficult. A good bit of time, prayer, energy was spent on a couple different situations this month and so it was good to have a time to get away this last week. We had an ABWE meeting to go to in another city which took us out of town for a couple days and when we flew back to Recife we stayed at the beach for a couple days while we waited for a Pastor and his wife to arrive and help minister in the Sertão for about ten days.

Relaxing time at a rural
house in Tupanatinga

Dr. Ken and Amy Lowe were missionaries in Portugal for 17 years and we connected through Servant Leaders. He has a similar vision for Leadership Training within the church. He teaches courses and I invited him down mainly as a mentor, but also to help teach modules and cast a vision for leadership training. On Tuesday we are gathering some of the main leaders in the church to talk about leadership. We hope to have elders and deacons in the future but have taken it slowly. Pray this meeting goes well for us! 

Kid's day! 

Thursday he will be helping the pastors of the city work through some of those ideas and then Saturday and Sunday we have a module on Bible Study Methods. It is neat to see our church sign up and participate in these modules. We were interrupted some this year, but it seems like we have a good group that likes to participate. We would really like to have a good group that practices what they learn and grows in their leadership in their home and with their friends and family. Sometimes we see evident growth, sometimes it seems like we are taking steps back, but overall we can tell that God is developing a good group of disciple-makers and it is neat to be a part of what God is doing. 

Construction progress! From no dirt to filled in!

The Tupanatinga church has seen visitors most services! The construction is moving along as well! Pretty soon I will be making more urgent requests for financial help with it, but for now we have seen some Brazilians being active. One member of our church in Arcoverde decided to donate ten sacks of cement per month; another member of the Tupanatinga church paid a larger bill and said it was his donation. Others from the church have been involved in getting things organized for the construction. The guy who designed the project and is overseeing the work refuses to be paid even though things are tight for him right now. There is a good excitement in the church and for good reason. 

So I started off saying it was a terrible month, but we had some great events happen as well. We did a concert at our church that went well one Saturday night. Then we had a big activity for kid's day that was lots of fun for everyone. 

Thanks for your prayers! They are sustaining just as God’s grace is sustaining. 

All for HIS glory,

Girls and their books

David, Sarah and our home editors; I guess you need to watch about home edit to know what that means, but basically the girls have gotten into house organization