Bits December

Merry Christmas (a little late) and Happy New Year! (a little early). We have had a great Christmas season in the states. It was wonderful being around Sarah’s family, getting lots of cousin time for the girls and relaxing with the whole family. Now we are headed up to Michigan for a couple weeks to spend time with my family. Also, Sunday (the 3rd) we will be speaking at Heritage Baptist church, our sending church. We look forward to seeing our church family! 

This past month we were also able to speak a couple times in some small groups; both in the Chattanooga area. We always enjoy sharing about Brazil whether it be one-on-one in a small group or to a large group. We have answered some great questions about living and working on the mission field. 

In January we will be speaking at Yellow River Baptist in Atlanta area and then possibly a couple churches in the Chattanooga area. I am also planning a prayer night with some of the Pastors from Brainerd Baptist Church for January 15th from 9PM to 1AM at the BX in Chattanooga. It is open for anyone and I would love to see various churches from the area represented. We will be praying for our community, churches and outreach. These prayer nights have always been really good for me spiritually. Come check it out!

Our building has started in Arcoverde on the church property! They have started on the outside property wall and will then move on to the foundation of the building next; but we still need lots of funds! Please consider a special gift to this project! If you each give 100,000 dollars, we will be able to build 500 churches; but we don’t even need that much. Our total we need for this phase is just 120,000 and we already have at least a fourth of that. Give what you can whether it be $10 or $10,000, everything will help. I checked the exchange rate the other day and it had jumped over 4, which means your money doubles what it could normally buy! What a great opportunity!

We are excited about how God is going to use American football in Brazil and our influence seems to be expanding. From May 31st to June 6 there will be a mission trip to Recife to run a clinic for several teams in Northeast Brazil. There are still spots to help out with this clinic. If you have experience with playing or coaching football and are interested in this trip or know someone who might be, please let me know. Also, if you are going to be close to me in the next couple months, I would love to make some videos that show drills or explain certain concepts in football. These would probably go around to all Brazil and we could use that influence to spread the gospel. I still think it is crazy how God is using football in a soccer country for people to hear about His Story.

You all’s love and support is humbling to us. We probably had one of our best years ever (without me verifying the actual numbers) as far as giving to ABWE to support us on the field. We love being on the field and know that you all’s partnership has enabled that. Thank you!

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, my sweet lovely Evelyn who worked hard this year to get an American girl doll and was so grateful when she received it, and our Anna Claire who understood Christmas a little more this year and so was able to really enjoy it. 

It's a baby!!!

Parents hopefully don't mind as I stare when newborn babies are nearby. There is something so beautiful about new life. I remember when my first baby Evelyn Grace was born and I held her close to me. I remember my tears as her little hand held my finger while she received her first shots and I told her that the pain was actually for her own well-being. Walking down the halls with her I showed her to whoever would see her because I was so proud! A new baby is beautiful to behold.

God chose to send a baby as His love gift. He sent His Son as a beautiful baby; as a new life for us and that is what Christmas is all about. But with Jesus it is so much more than the new life as a baby. The gift God gave to us as represented by Christmas is not just about the new life of a new baby, it is about life for all! Jesus came as a baby so that we could have eternal life with Him forever.

Romans explains it using a comparison with Adam. The first man Adam came, sinned and brought death on all of us. That is, separation from a perfect, holy God. But Jesus came and just as Adam through sinning brought death, Jesus, through faith, brings life!

As much as we look forward to family, fun, presents, food and a day off on Christmas day, may we look forward to the new life that God has for us through His Son Jesus Christ. There will be no January after this gift of life; we will continue in joy in Him forever. There will be no more separation from this beautiful new life; it will go on forever.

Jesus and Power Distance

A few weeks ago I heard a lecture on Power Distance. No, the term Power Distance does not refer to home run hitting. The given definition goes like this:

• “Power distance is a term that describes how people belonging to a specific culture view power relationships - superior-subordinate relationships - between people including the degree that people not in power accept that power is spread unequally.” - Hofstede
• Power distance refers to the extent to which less powerful members of organizations and institutions (including the family) accept and expect unequal power distributions. This dimension is measured not only from the perspective of the leaders, who hold power, but from the followers. In regard to power distribution, Hofstede notes, "all societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others."

I was intrigued by the lecture because I had never heard of it, yet it explained so much about government rule and how it affected the church. The USA has low power distance because supposively we elect our leaders, so essentially we elect what we want in government and that happens. (Again, this is in general; I have watched the news lately...) Countries with kings or dictators would have a high power distance because they say it and that settles it; the people have little control. 

High Power Distance     Low Power Distance

So Americans generally view organizations with a low power distance mentality and generally disagree with high power distance society's. Think of the family. I am serious when I say if I am the head of the family, my wife Sarah is the neck that pretty much controls the head. Women have fought for equality in society to the point where having a female president is a very real possibility. 

Churches also deal with Power Distance. I grew up in a more High Power Distance type church where the Pastor had a lot of control even though there was a board as well (deacons). Recently I have seen many churches go to more of an elder led Low Power Distance type governance. 

So when you study the family or government or church; what is the right way to go? The lecturer (whom I am not able to name due to security issues) talked about his experience in both settings, both in country and out of country where he served in a high power distance society where Americans were going in and creating unsuccessful church governing systems. 

He discussed how the Bible addresses both sides of the issue. Moses learned from Jethro to have people help lead, but that still didn't turn out too well. The New Testament encourages church members to submit to those who rule over them. (Hebrews 13:17) The Bible also emphasizes the Kingdom of God; meaning a land with a King who rules...

But it doesn't end there. Jesus says, "you call me teacher and Lord" and then says that He came to serve. So yes, Jesus is Lord! Jesus is King! But He says to use that power to get down and lift people up.

Personally I learned a lot from this lesson. I don't need to be afraid to lead and make decisions cause people look for that from leadership. But when I am making the decisions I need to serve people because that is Jesus' example. He uses His power to lift others up. I also need to submit to the leaders in my life. God has put them there and I need to follow their lead. (Of course, we need to be careful who we are following). 

Bits November

Spoiled. That is how we feel when we are home sometimes. This month we were able to speak several times. Before speaking Sunday morning the 8th in Prattville, AL the Pastor took me to the LSU-Alabama football game. That was fun! The 22nd we spoke at our church in the Chattanooga area, Cloud Springs Baptist in Fort Oglethorpe. Then the 29th we were at West Huntsville Baptist. This is the church that sent a group down to Brazil last year. It was great seeing all of them. Each church has been a blessing to us and we really feel encouraged each time we visit.

Holidays are one of the few reasons we chose to do a furlough at this time. Thanksgiving was great. Evie and Anna Claire were with their cousins 75% of the week and loved it. Now it is the Christmas season and we are glad to be here with family. We were even more excited when we found out that Sarah’s sister Anna and her family will be home from China for Christmas. Then after Christmas we will be headed north to Michigan in hopes that Frozen will be replicated for our Elsa and Anna. It is looking like most of my family will be there and we are looking forward to some tubing, New Year’s parties, and family time. 

This month I also went to the NextGen Leader’s conference in Miami. There were around 75 leaders representing 24 different countries from all over the world there and the week really impacted me. I have written a couple blog posts about some of the ideas during the week if you want to check them out by scrolling down after this update. The conference addressed soul care, prayer, discipleship, mentorship along with other tools to use as leaders in different capacities.

This month I have also used to work with Maicol Venter, an ABWE Brazil colleague, on our Servant Leader’s project. We are building a resource website for churches to better train leaders. Pray for us as we find materials in Portuguese, translate other materials and put together a site that will be helpful to churches around Brazil. We are excited about the direction it is taking! 

It is the end of the year! If you want a nice tax deductible giving opportunity; we have one that is paying more dividends than usual. The fence/wall around our training center/church property has begun and the exchange rate is almost 4-1. It is double the average it has been during our time in Brazil. A video of the architecture project is towards the end of our furlough video if you haven’t seen it yet; click on the link and check it out! This month we have received $5500 so far in gifts toward the project! 

Merry Christmas to all and to all a great December. 

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, my summer girl that lamented having to wear long sleeves and pants all the time and is grinding out 1-2 Christmas present projects per day, and our energetic little one that is speaking clearer everyday now and enjoying life on the farm with the cats she picks up and dog she hugs but is bigger than her. 

The goal in disagreement

Last week I was at a conference full of content; and although I would have liked for all to have been there, that wasn't possible, so here is another phrase to talk about:


"The goal in disagreement is not compromise, but what Jesus says."

I can't tell you who said that (for security reasons), but he discussed some deep thoughts. He talked about n=1 which basically says that there are a certain amount of minds in a room. In a marriage there are two; in a small group there are 4-8; in a church there are who knows how many, but usually a lot of different people with a lot of different ideas. So finding a compromise is difficult. But when you do want to find a solution, generally you want to appease as many as possible...and actually make a sensible decision. This is difficult to say the least. So what do you do? n+1 says that you need to reach the mind of the +1 or the mind of Jesus.

This makes a big difference in our decision making. Plans usually have ulterior motives, but when you decide what Jesus would decide, then it is hard to get to those motives. Now deciding the mind of Jesus obviously means much study of what He would do.

Another phrase that speaker threw out briefly was "love trumps humility." I am still trying to sort out what that means in my different situations, but it has to do with decision making. I can't use a great characteristic like humility to get me out of what I know I should do out of love for God and love for people. I think of passing in basketball. It is a great thing; except when you have the ball wide open with a great look in a good shooting zone for you. You may think that the humble thing to do is to pass it and give up the glory found when making a shot, but that is not the right thing to do. Your coach and team want you to shoot it.

I prefer to be in the back of the line when it comes to serving food in large groups. Mainly because I look humble in waiting for everyone else even though I know I just do it so I won't feel bad about taking as much as I want of whatever I want because everyone has had their chance. :) But sometimes no one wants to go first and the loving, serving thing to do is to go first.

So look at your decision making and first of all find the mind of Jesus. Live His life of humility, submission and obedience!

Discipleship and Jesus

This past week I went to Miami for a conference called the Next Generational Leader's conference. I was not sure what to expect out of the week, but I received more than I thought I would. There are many phrases and conversations that impacted me during the week and I was able to implement them into my message Sunday morning and it was really neat.

One speaker said the following phrase: "Do we measure our discipleship by how much we love Jesus or by how much He loves us?"

That one stuck with me quite a bit. I think our "do" culture places emphasis on the actions of being a Christian and our sermons tell us what we need to do to be a good one. It is good to do, but it is more important to be. The gospel tells us that God is great, we are made in His image and responsible before Him, but we mess up and sin and deserve death; but Christ came down, lived a perfect life and then took our place on the cross and those who have faith in His work, repent of their imperfect life and trust in Him will receive eternal life. The first part of the gospel and Isaiah tells us that even our best works fall short. It is not about what we do; it is about what God did through Jesus.

So instead of focusing on ourselves in our trying to be like Jesus, why don't we focus on what Jesus has already done for us. :) It might just help.

Bits October

October started out with our first football game in Arcoverde. Despite the opposing team arriving late and us losing the game, it was a real success. The city was exposed to football as there were around 1200 fans that day, many more fans than the latest soccer games have had. The city officials are impressed and much more willing to help with the team. We also were able to be more organized as a team after the game. 

The week after we had another service in Arcoverde. There were plenty of people there and they heard an excellent gospel message from Pastor Claudio, a Pastor from our mother church, Koinonia in Recife. The day after, we left to head back to the states for four months. (Although we didn’t actually leave until a few days later due to a passport issue; read about that in this link). 

We arrived in the states on a Friday and left for Orlando from Chattanooga Sunday morning for a leadership conference with ABWE. It is always good to see our colleagues and we received some great training on time management out of the book “What’s Best Next.” We also saw my parents for a few days and then Sarah’s parents came down for the weekend as we went to Disney on Saturday with them and our friends Maicol and Mandy who are missionaries to Brazil and have a little girl Stella who is the same age as Anna Claire. They have also been working with me on getting the Servant Leaders program going. 

This past week our friend Alison has been here mainly to pick up equipment for the football team. We were able to see our friends from West Huntsville Baptist who had a donation of equipment. In addition to picking that up we planned for a football clinic we are going to do together in Recife next June. We are hoping to gather a few teams from the region to train as well as insert the gospel. I never thought football would open up so many doors for the gospel in Brazil. Please pray for this clinic and also for Alison as he is on his way back to Brazil with a few extra bags. He takes a bus out of Chattanooga tonight (Saturday night) to arrive in Orlando Sunday morning where he will catch his plane (that has an expensive extra bag policy). We have a bunch of equipment to get down to Arcoverde and so if you are planning any trips to Recife and don’t have any bags, let me know. :)

Well this month is busy! Sunday morning we are in a Sunday school; November 8th preaching in Montgomery; the 15th-20th I will be at a Next Generation Leader’s conference in Miami; the 29th we will be speaking at West Huntsville Baptist! Pray for us this month to be a blessing while we are here. If our finances continue as they are, we will not need to raise extra money to get back to Brazil; and so all the money that comes in while speaking on furlough will go to our building in Arcoverde. For our first phase of building we are looking at raising 120,000 US$! 

Thanks so much for your prayers this month. They were extra needed!

All for HIS glory,

David, Sarah, our little first grader who is enjoying her cousins and shopping, and our fearless (and black-eyed) energetic 2 year old who loves the farm animals (we are living in Sarah’s parent’s renovated barn during furlough) and went right up to all the princesses and started talking as if they were old friends.