July 1, 2005

Dear friends,

It seems as though we were just waiting for the group from Virginia Beach to come down for a visit and now they have come and gone. We had a GREAT week with the 36 visitors from Atlantic Shores Baptist Church. We entered into 9 public schools and 3 parks and presented the gospel to many young people and, praise God, over 500 accepted Christ as their personal Savior. We now have the great task of follow-up and discipleship.  Pray for our Church members as they undertake this task.

Speaking of discipleship, our semester in the Seminary is about over and the students are about ready to take their test in my discipleship class. I am expecting great things from this class. They will be the principal part of this follow-up. Pray for them as they prepare for their test.

The walls for the Vocational School are up and the floor is poured in the carpenter shop area. We are planning for a work in the next two weeks to put on the roof and install the electricity into the building. I went today to order the wood for the trusses and in only 4 or 5 weeks the price for the wood had doubled. What can you say, you just pay the price and go on with the work. We need your prayer for the people who will be working on this project because it will be hard physical work. Pray that we can get this completed this month.

One of our members here is a school teacher and she made a home visit.  While she was there she shared the Gospel with the mother of her student. The mother accepted Christ and started to come to Church. We saw the need for help for the family and when we went to take a food basket, we will never forget the conditions we saw: the family is seven in number and they live in a house that is 5 ft. by 7 ft. They have one half bed and several foam mattresses and several pieces of plastic that they use when they lay the foam mattresses out at night. You see, they have to lay the mattresses outside because there is no room inside the house and they use the plastic to protect them from the rain and dew.  This house is not theirs, so our Church decided to help them by building a house on a piece of land that they own. Their new house will be two rooms, living room and the kitchen and the bathroom on the side of the house.  The total size of the house is 9 by 18. They are so excited about their new house each time you see them.  They are smiling and telling everybody about what they now have. The mother told us that when the teacher came to visit her she was so depressed with her situation that she wanted to kill herself. She did not know where to turn and then the teacher told her about Jesus and His love for her and she now has all the reasons in the world to live.

The new mission point had its first meeting two weeks ago and there were four people in attendance. We went there for one day with the group and now the town people are seeing the pastor in town and calling him Pastor Luis.  We had 172 people accept Christ in this town, so they have their work cut out for them there.  Pray for them as the reason there has not ever had a Baptist Church there in this town is that the Catholic Church has a stranglehold on the town. So pray for Luiz and Danhela.

If you want to see God work in marvelous ways come down and visit us here in Caraguatatuba and we will show you how your mission dollars are working.  Our doors are always open and the food is good, so Come on down!!!!

In His Service,

Aj and Barb