Nine People Baptized

Nine People Baptized!

Last Sunday morning many of our church members had breakfast together and walked down to the river on the edge of the church property to baptize nine more people. Felipe was in trouble with the law not too long ago. Now he is training for the worship team, and his life is turned around. Other baptism candidates included Eliete and her daughter Shianne, the Snells daughter, Faith, the Leao’s daughter, Bruna, and several others. It was a great morning.

 

Phil, Felipe, and Monica

Phil, Felipe, and Monica

The Tocantins river, at the foot of our property.

The Tocantins river, at the foot of our property.

Phil, Monica, Jen, and Ivanildo - the baptizers. (They paired up so there was one fluent Portuguese speaker per team).

Phil, Monica, Jen, and Ivanildo – the baptizers. (They paired up so there was one fluent Portuguese speaker per team).

Nine people were baptized at the river this morning.

Nine people were baptized at the river this morning.

Marques led worship.

Marques led worship.

 

Josias and Vanessa

First Josias started coming to our church. Then a girl started coming with him. They are both not from our immediate neighbourhood. Here is how some conversations went. “Who is the new girl?” “Josias’s girlfriend.” “Ohhh (and an opinion).” After several months, Josias and Vanessa started to think seriously about marriage, and Ivanildo and Monica set up regular pre-marital counselling meetings.

Yesterday, at the wedding feast, at about 10:30 at night, I was walking along the food line-up, talking to people, and reflecting on what a beautiful wedding it was. One of the 14 year old girls had a different expression on her face, so I stopped. She said, “One day I am going to get married.” It seemed to me like this was a new thought for her. Many girls in our neighbourhood get pregnant young, and go from their boyfriend’s house, or his mom’s house, and back to their mom’s house when things don’t work out, and many relationships are full of pain and difficulties. The beauty of a community of people supporting a young couple as they make marriage commitments is very profound.

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Vanessa

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“I do!”

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Married!

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The church transformed their front yard for the wedding.

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Huge amounts of food capped off the evening celebration.

Couple’s Night

“You guys are going on a date night, with each other?” Incredulous looks. Then smiles. Then rolling eyes and laughter.  Even now, five years after we have moved to Marabá, people start laughing when they hear that Deanna and I are going on a date. Tuesday nights. The girls have to figure out something to do on their own. So this is what I talked about on our first Maraba Church Couple’s Night.

Monica hosted three games, including one where all the men had to close their eyes, and all the women had to some to the front and put their shoes on one big pile. Then the women sat back down with their husbands, and the husbands had to go find their wife’s shoes from the pile, and put them back on her feet. Some of the husbands were at quite a loss.

Quita and Lene were in charge of making supper, which included fried chicken.

Healthy, long-term, marriage friendships are very rare here. Most of these couple’s have a very broken history but I think everyone dreams of having a loyal, best-friend as a spouse. Judging from the smiles and laughter, this was a fun evening for everyone. We want to start doing this on the first Friday night of each month.

Couple's Night 1

Suzi and Nadeson, on the left, are getting married in our church in two weeks. They have three cute little girls. Preto is Nadeson’s brother, and he is with Ghislaine, who is Adrianna’s mom. It was very cool to see them all at this Couple’s Night event. Very cool.

Couple's Night 2

Monica did a great job hosting three games. 1. Find your wife’s shoes. 2. What stresses you out. (You blow into a balloon as Monica lists potential marriage stressers, until balloons started popping). 3. Write down your spouse’s response to various questions, and later review to see who really knows each other. It seemed to me like these games were kind of awkward for everyone, and scary-fun, which really was attractive. I think many of these relationships will become committed marriages. Some already are, and I think those people had the most fun.

Couple's Night 3

Zecca and Nilma

Couple's Night 5

Marques and Adrianna are both gifted worship leaders, but neither of them are serving on the worship team at the moment. They have a cute little baby girl, Alice Vitória.

Couple's Night 6

This is the first time Lene, on the left, has helped cook a big, church meal. Quita, her sister on the right, is 23 years old, and pregnant with a baby girl. This will be child number 5 for her. She has four healthy little boys ripping around the house at her feet when she is home.

Couple's Night 7

Ivanildo tells Paula and Izak about the big fish that got away last Saturday, and the big fish he is going to catch today. (We have a men’s fishing trip planned for today, Saturday, following the Friday Couple’s Night event). I think Paula and Izak have their doubts. 🙂

Couple's Night 8

Zecca and Nilma are the grandparents of Alica Maria, and the parents of Jacquelene, who is married to Wandro.

Couple's Night 9

Food and church go together like root beer and ice cream.

Couple's Night 10

I think maybe Wandro never got the answers right to what Jaquelene likes.

Porto Novo Survey Trip

We are doing survey trips, and looking for key people who God are ready to be blessed by God.

Last week we drove out to Porto Novo, a 2,000 person fishing village on the Tucurui Reservoir. A fellow came to talk to us after lunch, thinking maybe we were interested in buying an island as a fishing get away. Apparently fishing is very good here. As we got to talking, he has separated from his wife for the last sixty days. Then we met his wife, Silvana, and their two cute little girls on their floating restaurant / bar. Elvis also owns a bar up in the center part of the village. He got a boat and took us out for a couple of hours on the reservoir so we could get a feel for the place.

I am planning to go back this week, to see if we can get something started here.

Porto Novo 5

Porto Novo 4

Porto Novo 3

Porto Novo 2

Porto Novo 1

Alpha Training

First Alpha Leadership Training evening, six women came, no men.

Second Alpha Leadership Training evening, nine women came, two men.

I told Ivanildo and Monica, “This is how it was in Altamira. First we just had children and youth. Then the mom’s came. Then the men came.

A couple of years ago we were mostly just a youth church. At our Sunday services we have a fair representation of adults now.

Alpha Training 5

Alpha Training 1

Alpha Training 2

Alpha Training 4

Alpha Training 3

A Good Lunch

We feasted on fried fish and açai in Porto Novo.

We feasted on fried fish and açai in Porto Novo.

We checked at about three places that looked like eating establishments, but no one seemed to be open for lunch. Finally we stopped at Tia Lú’s.

There was a lady, later we found out she was the owner, getting her toe nails painted by another lady. They were sitting on a chair and a stool, blocking the entry way. “You want lunch now?” It was 11:30. We offered to wait, but she got up with one foot painted and one not. Three of us wanted fried fish. Marques doesn’t like fish. “No problem. (Wink). I’ll fix you up with a good lunch”. She ended up cooking us a feast. We had a big plate full of beef, more than we could eat. Plus another plate of cooked chicken. She fried us three bass, one after the other. Plus huge bowls of rice and beans. Then she offered us açai. And it was good. Thick and cold. She gave us a couple of litres in an aluminum pitcher, with four bowls, lots of farinha, and a plastic tub full of sugar on the side. We were stuffed. And for a very low price. Others came in while we were eating, and they ate too, offering us their food, two came and sat at our table, and they finished off what we could not eat. It was a fun experience, one I am hoping to do again soon.

Four of us, Ivanildo, Marques, Elismar and I, left Marabá early in the morning, praying about where God wants to plant another church. This village where we ate lunch is called Porto Novo.

lunch at Tia Lu's 1

lunch at Tia Lu's 2

lunch at Tia Lu's 3

 

Fruit

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” Luke 9:37

“Aren’t you going to wait until they get bigger?” My friend was watching me pick Bella’s little tomatoes. He did not understand that these tomatoes were ripe now. He thought that if we left them longer, they would get bigger. I realized as I was picking them how God varies the signals for ripe fruit. Tomatoes turn bright red. They would be hard to pick for someone who is color blind. Some of our mangos are still totally green on the outside, even though they are ripe. The ripe mangos fall from the trees, and they are a little softer. Pineapples smell ripe. You need to knock on watermelons. The harvest is plentiful. The Holy Spirit will show us who is ripe for the gospel is we ask Him.

ripe fruit 1

Bella’s Little Tomatoe Patch

 

 

ripe fruit 2

The mangoes are ripening.

 

Jefferson

Sixteen years ago two teen-agers from our church were at the gate of our home in Altamira. Ross and I were in my office on a Saturday morning, working on a newsletter. Ross ended up flying to Água Preta with Vagner and Jefferson with his floatplane.

Simone and Jefferson are ordained as pastors for one year.

Simone and Jefferson are ordained as pastors for one year.

“Can you drive us out into the bush to get my mom? She fell and broke her hip.”

“Where is it that you want to go?”

“It is an hour or two down the Amazon Highway, then you turn off onto a small dirt road for another hour. We’ll get a boat and cross the Xingu River, hike 2 kms into the bush, and bring her out.”

“Can we get there with an airplane with floats?”

No one at the shore there had seen a floatplane before. Ross heard them speculating whether the president of Brazil was sending someone to their village.

The young guys hiked into the village, and brought out Lourdes in a stretcher. When she saw Ross and the airplane she said (in Portuguese), “I saw you in a dream last night. You came to get me in a really fast speedboat. And this voice behind me said, ‘Only by the God of the Bible will you get healed.’” Lourdes got better for awhile, and she became quite an evangelist. Unfortunately her hip still is a problem and she is now waiting for another hip replacement surgery.

Over time both of these young men fell away from the Lord. Their first love grew cool. But Jefferson came back. Last month we ordained him and his wife as the senior pastors of one of the city churches in Altamira.

Sunday, Aug 18, 2013

Marsha Wilson from Pacajá was here to do voice testing for people who would like to train for the worship team.

Sunday Marsha spoke on worship, and then we worshipped for awhile afterwards. I could see people “entering in”.

We had a baby dedication. Baby Higor is 3 weeks old. His mom is Elizanna, the wife of António Carlos, who is the brother of John Lennon.

I took some pictures of baby Alice, the daughter of Marques and Adrianna, who were our worship leaders.

And I include one picture of baby Emily, Eliete and Cesar’s child, because she was in the hospital very sick this week, but she is better now.

Sunday Aug 18, 2013 8

Adrianna and Alice

Sunday Aug 18, 2013 7

Adrianna and Alice

Sunday Aug 18, 2013 6

Baby Dedication – Elizanna and Higor

Sunday Aug 18, 2013 5

Baby Dedication – Elizanna and Higor

Sunday Aug 18, 2013 4

Baby Dedication – Elizanna and Higor

Sunday Aug 18, 2013 3

Here is a picture of our main church meeting, with Marsha Wilson preaching.

Sunday Aug 18, 2013 2

Marsha teaches about how we worship in a church service.

Sunday Aug 18, 2013 1

Baby Emily – Eliete and Cesar’s baby, Luana and Yara’s sister.

 

Fifteen Day Trip


I just got back from a fifteen day trip visiting churches and
missionaries in Altamira and Porto de Moz.

It is so satisfying to look around and see how the Lord has been
leading us us as a team out here. All the missionaries are able to do
what they came here to do. The good news is being spread to an
ever-widening circle.

When you leave a strawberry plant in your garden for several years it
will continue to stay alive, but the berries become smaller and the
growth of the plant will slow down. A good gardener will dig up the
plant, break it apart and plant the new smaller plants in several
different locations. The leaves turn green, rapid growth begins again,
and the plant becomes even more fruitful than before. This is what I
saw on my journey. New churches are being planted and young churches
are thriving.

Chris Patterson took this photo of his 4 year old son Ben playing
soccer with a Brazilian cowboy near a near church in the Assurini. The
more I study this photo, the more I sense a very familiar feeling.
Imagine Ben was trying to play the goalie and the cowboy had a whole
team behind him. “I’ll just obey what I think God is saying for this
next step, and let’s see what happens.” This guy probably looks as big
to Ben as Goliath looked to David, or as the giants looked to the 12
Israelites who were sent to spy out the promised land, or as witnessing
to your unsaved friend looks to you.

Moses told the Israelites, “When you go to war against your enemies and
see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be
afraid of them, because the Lord your God, who brought you up out of
Egypt, will be with you. When you are about to go into battle, the
priest shall come forward and address the army. He shall say: ‘Hear, O
Israel, today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be
fainthearted or afraid; do not be terrified or give away to panic
before them. For the Lord you God is the one who goes with you to fight
for you against your enemies to give you victory.'” Deuteronomy 20:1-4

END.

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