April 1, 2004

Dear Friends,

We know that many of you live and seek to serve the Lord in areas that seem to be resistant to the things of God.  In most of my letters I share with you the victories and progress with which God blesses us.  We feel that you should know that it isn't only victories and "mountaintop" experiences that we face here in southern Brazil.  We also run into some barriers and defeats.  

This month we experienced several difficulties in our evangelistic outreach.  During one outdoor evangelistic meeting there was a power failure and the preacher had to shout loud enough for several hundred people to hear the end of the message and the invitation.  On a mission trip to another state the federal police were on strike and this caused major delays and loss of transportation connections.  God blessed despite these problems and the work went forward anyway.  

We also experienced some health issues on one particular trip.  Evidently some bad food was responsible for some folks having fever, vomiting and diarrhea.  

Also, within the last two months, one of our church buildings was broken into four times.  Each time the thief, or thieves, stole something else.  We have put bars and heavy padlocks on all the doors and windows, but they always found another way of getting in.  The last time they broke in they climbed on the roof and broke open the roof tiles and climbed into the building through the crawl space.  We have had to resort to taking almost all of the church's equipment and furnishings home after each service to keep them from being stolen.  Despite all this, we experienced the Lord's provisions for us and we saw many individuals come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Our leadership presentation program is showing tremendous results.  We presently have sixteen leaders in active training for starting new works.  Some of these are married couples and will, therefore, work as a unit, but we see these as the spearhead group for starting and developing the next ten new works that we are trusting God to help us build.  We hope to win, recruit and train more leaders, but we are thankful for the faithful group with which God has already blessed us.

Remember to keep us in your prayers.  We know that God answers these prayers because we see the work of His hands in so many ways.

Yours in Christ's Service,

Bobby, Charlene, Jessie and Brennen Wacaser