June 24, 2003

Dear Friends,

Hello! I arrived safely in São Paulo on June 13th. Thanks for the prayers in regards to the video equipment. The government officials at the airport looked at me and told me to go right on thru. They didn't check the paperwork, much less the video equipment. Praise God for no hassles.

On June 17th I arrived safely in Manaus from São Paulo. On the 18th I attended a pastoral prayer meeting that my father leads. After the meeting I went with two of the pastors to visit their new church structures. Both pastors accepted Christ, were mentored and trained here at Tabernacle Baptist and the Baptist Theological Seminary of Manaus. Both pastors have a team of youth leaders attending the course I am teaching. Later that afternoon I met with two youth pastors who I trained back in 1998. They also have their leadership teams attending the course.

On June 19th (a national holiday) we had a one day Workshop with Tabernacle Baptist Church's youth ministry team leaders and their team members from 9:00am to 6:00pm. My father, Pr Gilvani & I went through a series on "Purpose- Why do We What We do" We had 181 participants. That evening, at 7:45pm I to spoke to 23 students at the Baptist Mission in Japiim. Pr Gilvani is the leader there. He was one of my trainees back in 1998. This is the second youth ministry he has launched. He previously ministering at a church in Coroado where my father and he trained a team of leaders and had an average attendance of 160 students. Once the team of leaders there in Coroado was ready to continue the ministry themselves he moved to Japiim to start another youth ministry and train new leaders. Júnior is the youth pastor at Coroado now. It is certainly a blessing to see all of the fruits! On the 20th I spoke at Tabernacle's Saturday night youth rally. Many decisions were made, especially to follow the Lords will in ministry.

The Youth Ministry Classes began yesterday and go until next week. Class starts at 7:00pm till 10:30pm. We had a great beginning! We had a little over 200 people attend from several sister and daughter churches of Tabernacle Baptist Church. Class was so intense and interesting that students did want us to stop when finish time came.

Please, take a look at the website www.hatchers.org to see the latest photos. Regular updates are being made to the site. And, If you'd like to leave a message, just click on "MessagePost."

In His Service,

Judson Hatcher