May 30, 2003

Dear Friends,

This week has brought many rewards. Sometimes without us even being aware of it, God uses us in an awesome manner. One of our Church members had a burden for one of their neighbors. This neighbor was a devout Catholic and the member of our Church described him as a very hard man. To shorten the story, this man was headed for surgery and the day before the surgery our Church member called us to go visit his neighbor. Pastor Epitacio and I, along with the neighbors went to visit the man. After the introductions and general conversation, one of his small children came to me and I put her on my lap and started talking to him about his spiritual life. He was worshiping his idols. I think this child sitting on my lap along with his upcoming surgery softened his heart and maybe for the first time he was open to hear the gospel. The AWESOME news: He accepted Jesus as his personal Savior and we are invited back to his house for discipleship! How AWESOME is the God we serve!!!

This month we have looked at three locations for our work. We are looking at warehouse type buildings because of the various life skills we are going to be teaching. These will need space to be taught in the practical skills, i.e.: carpentry, concrete work, masonry, electrical principles, and we are looking at equipment to fabricate brocks for construction. This in addition to computers and different aspects of ministry in the evenings. We are really excited about the work.

This month we have started having meetings at the second mission. We rented a house on the main street of the adjoining town and are having meetings on Saturdays. Needless to say nearly all of the people attending are children. The first few meetings the attendance has been in the twenties, this is very good for a beginning. We are looking for a lot to purchase in this area as we will be needing a building in the not so distant future. Pray for this new work and also our other mission point. We have been doing construction around the Church building. Here we put walls around all buildings and our wall is about 50% finished. Also we are planning to build three rooms in the back for Sunday School classes. We are going slow because we are only building when we have the money and that comes slow here as the minimum wage is less than 100 dollars per month. And to borrow is less than possible because of the inflation rate. 

Saturday nights here is youth night at the Church. We have been teaching evangelism and at the end of next month we are expecting to put these classes into practice. We will have a group coming from Virginia Beach and when we have Americans here they always leave us with a lot of work to do for the Lord. You see they go to the schools and evangelize and then we have all the new converts to disciple and their families to evangelize. We here and the group in the States are praying for 500 souls for the Lord. And our God says we have not because we ask not, so we are expecting to have this number saved. Isn't it AWESOME to serve such a God!!!

As you can see we are in need of your prayer as we look forward to all this here in Brazil. We also need financial helpto purchase this building, to purchase a lot for the new mission, to complete the existing mission, for discipleship material, and for more Bibles to give to the new converts.

As we look at all of this we are sometimes overwhelmed and wonder just how will we accomplish this. But then we remember that we are not in this work alone, but we have many partners there in the States and they are always taking us to the Father in prayer and giving sacrificially through BFM. We would like to say that without this we would not be able to do these things here in Brazil. We are so thankful for BFM and the faithful supporters.

Always remember that our doors are always open to you here in Brazil. It would do our hearts good for you to come and participate in the work here and see your money at work on the mission field.

In His service,

Aj and Barb