July, 2007

Hi to all,

It has been an absolute AWESOME month. We have been praying and preparing for an intensive week of evangelism in our area, and also in the two mission points that we have outside of the city.Our prayers were that the group from Atlantic Shores Baptist Church in Virginia Beach would be the start for this. They have a program of gymnastics, acrobatics, drama and singing and they present the gospel through each of these. This prepares the people that are watching to hear more about Jesus. When they complete their presentation, one of our pastors preaches and give an invitation for whomever would like to accept Christ as their personal Savior. I think that I get sad when we have such liberties here in Brazil to go into our public schools and colleges to present the Gospel and there in the States it is so closed to the same presentation. I am glad that here we are still able to be open in all places to present Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

The first day that the group was here, we were with pastor Luis and his wife Dani in Salesopolis at our mission point there. This mission has been open about two years now and is growing slowly. Our first meeting there we had four people in attendance and today we are having, on average, thirty-seven. The group arrived early Monday morning and were tired from the plane ride but we put them straight to work. They did three presentations and we had 117 people make commitments for the Lord. That just goes to show how God blesses our efforts even when we feel like laying down and sleeping. How AWESOME is the Lord we serve. This town has approximately twenty thousand inhabitants and we have many open doors for the Pastor to enter and tell about our Lord.

The next three days are almost a blur as we were in nine schools and over 400 people made commitments for Christ. One of the schools during these three days was a University. Yes, we were invited to speak in a University. At this point I brought the message and seventeen people accepted Christ. Another good thing that came out of this University is that I now have invitations to go into two more Universities to preach. Isn't God AWESOME? Every one was tired but were grateful that we were able to reach 592 people IN FIVE DAYS for the Lord. We have cataloged all of these names and will be following up on each of these people to do discipleship with them.

We have two types of schools here in our area: State Schools and City Schools, and they are governed by two different groups. The City schools are very reluctant to let us come to their schools because, for the most part, they are governed by Catholic principals, BUT...this year we had a teacher in this one school that talked the principal into letting us come and the response was overwhelming. We were invited to the morning and the afternoon sessions and also to have lunch with the teachers. It was AWESOME. In the morning session we had such a great response to the invitation that we could not talk to each individually, so we got into groups and each group reiterated the message again. The same thing happened in the afternoon session and we did a repeat of the morning, getting into groups and sharing the gospel again. Needless to say, we did not get names in these two sessions but we know that God had many victories in those two school periods.

Our last day was given to our other mission point in Natividade da Serra, with Pastor George and his wife Alta. The Mayor in this town was so excited about us coming that he was advertising on the radio about our coming and he gave us the city Activity center. He has also committed to helping our mission point in any way that he can. This is an exciting thing in a town of mostly Catholics. What we are doing now is praising the Lord for all that He has done and all that He is going to do here in Caraguatatuba.

During this time we also had two individual visitors from the United States, Craig and Emily. They were a great help with the group and in various other areas of our work here. If you would like to come and spend some time with us and see the mission work first handed and participate in all areas, please contact us and we will set up something for you.

Our greatest request is that you keep praying---it is working--.

In His service,

Aj and Barbara Hensley