Dear Friends,

You will certainly want to rejoice with us with the news that four more persons have committed their lives to Christ and were baptized this past month! God is so good. One of these four is a young man who had been addicted to drugs for several years. Since coming to our church he immediately began bringing former drug buddies. His name is Ronaldo, and he embodies the text in Luke 7:40-47, where Jesus said to Simon the Pharisee, "which of them will love Him more?" Simon answered and said, "I suppose the one whom he forgave more!" And He said to him, "You have rightly judged." Ronaldo is very aware of how great God's mercy is to him, therefore he loves Him much.

We finished another course in our theological training center with 21 trainees successfully completing the course, out of a total of 27 enrolled. This number was especially encouraging to our leadership team because the months of January and February are predominantly vacation months in Brazil. They fall in our mid-summer. We are beginning a course in Personal Evangelism this week and are looking forward to having an even higher number of participants. It is our aim to make all our courses as practical and applicable as possible.

Our pioneer evangelistic team, Project Life, was in the interior of our state (on motor home Alpha) sharing the gospel in three different cities. We had the privilege to be in ten public schools and several public parks. The gospel was shared through drama, song, testimonies and preaching to approximately 3000 persons. There were just over 200 who professed publicly that they were accepting Christ as their Lord and Savior. God is so good. Our second motor home, Logos, is working in and around our base city while we continue to fully equip it for interior service. We have received help from some generous brothers and sisters from the U.S. and have applied it to Phase I of the bus transformation. (It was a commercial travel bus and we are converting it into a self-contained multifunctional motor home/traveling gospel base). We have installed the stage platform on top and have begun to purchase part of our public address system. If you are led of the Lord to help, we have several more stages to do before the motor home is fully completed. In order not to take too much space in this publication with a lengthy description, you may contact me at the above addresses or phone number to obtain exact costs on each phase of the equipment needed. We are grateful to God for you who have already given so that this blessed ministry may continue and abound. May God bless you for your generosity.

During the Carnival holiday this past month our youth went on a spiritual growth retreat. One of the participants in this retreat was a young man from Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Florida. His name is Tyler Flores. I met Tyler five years ago when he was just 15 years old. He has come to Brazil with the youth group which his father leads for the last four years. In my interaction with the group I sensed there was a calling from God upon Tyler for missionary service. I invited him to come work with me (for a period of internship) in mission training and he accepted. While here, Tyler participated in the four day Carnival retreat with 27 Brazilian young people. Below I have included a firsthand report he gave me of his "cross-cultural" experiences.

This past weekend I had the privilege of attending Carnival youth camp as an intern, participant and missionary in training. In the week leading up to camp, I had been attending Portuguese language classes and have picked up a small amount of the language, both in the class and my previous week-long mission trips to Brazil. The camp was an exciting experience for me first of all because it was my first time alone in the culture here, but more importantly, it was stimulating to see God at work in a society outside of my own.

Throughout the weekend and the ensuing days, I noticed the sincere attitude of Pastor Anderson in his attempts to lead the students into a greater knowledge of God's will for their life. Although I only understood a smattering of what was going on, the emotional response and behaviors pouring from the young people spoke volumes more to me than words. It was obvious that this small group of young believers had a desire to learn what was written for them in God's Word. They were able to concentrate on the events at hand through well-planned events and an organized schedule. The environment was ideal for any youth pastor and articulated again the efforts put into getting the Word of the Lord to the students. Most importantly, God was lifted up and in that, I believe that the camp was a success and it was most assuredly an immense encouragement to my spiritual walk.

We thank God for the privilege to have this dedicated young man with us and pray that he'll be used even more fitfully in Kingdom work by his having been with us while in training.

In Christ's love,

Bobby, Charlene, Jessie and Brennen Wacaser