Brazil 09 - Day 2

Thank you for praying for us, the pastors, and churches in Brazil. God has been helping us work together as a team, the translation between English and Portuguese has been great, and God is helping us work together with the Brazilians for the progress of the gospel.

Women's Ministry

The women hosted two great events. In the morning they met with the pastors wives, shared some testimonies with one-another, and had a powerful time of prayer for one another. The ladies said, “It was as if language was not a barrier.” In the afternoon the ladies hosted an evangelistic event at one of the churches, talked with some ladies, shared several testimonies, and shared the gospel with them.
Training Pastors

The men broke into two groups on Monday. One group went and conducted some pastor training with a focus on the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are looking at the primacy of the gospel and reviewing four biblical pictures of the gospel. The first picture we talked about was the picture of the courtroom, God’s justice, and our justification. There was a great time of questions and answers.

Construction

The other group of men went to do some repairs to Pastor Geraldo’s church. Several things needed to be done. The team worked on repairing some wall damage and peeling plaster that resulted from some flooding. The men scraped and re-plastered several walls and also corrected the drainage issue that was causing the problem. CrossWay also paid for all the materials to finish the wall repairs and painting. In addition, we paid for a glass repairmen to come and replace several windows that were missing in the church building. We are still awaiting an electrical estimate to possibly pay for some electrical work.

Soccer

On Monday evening the American team and Brazilian pastors had a friendly match of soccer under the lights. Fortunately for us, the teams were mixed with both Americans and Brazilians. There was much laughter and building of team and fellowship between all of us.

Prayer

We continue to follow the Brazilian custom of late dinners and late nights and early mornings, but God is giving us rest. Thank you for your prayers. Please continue to pray for rest, wisdom, and health.

Pray for our visiting of poor families and the ministry that will happen in those homes. Pray especially that those families would experience God’s love as they experience our love. Pray that the Holy Spirit would help us to pray in a way that meets them where God has them.

Pray for our preaching. The men will be preaching in four different churches every night. On the first night Steve Handler, Mike Ledford, Joel Swift, and I will be preaching. Pray for effective, clear, and Spirit empowered preaching.

Pray for our continued fellowship with the Brazilian brothers and sisters in Christ. That God would use our time together to strengthen the Brazilian church and CrossWay Community Church.