Skip to main content

Out And About

    Last weekend I traveled to Patos, where I conducted the state-wide plan meeting, spent time with an evangelist, helped plan the Great Supper in October and met with two different congregations. 
            The state-wide plan is still moving forward.  Their goal for this meeting was to have someone prepared who is able to prepare another person.  Each congregation is still working towards this goal.  They each have someone in place that they are training.  The short-term goal is to train men and women who will be able to train other men and women.  The mid-term goal is to prepare the congregation in various aspects of the work and spiritual life so that it, the congregation, can continue to grow without the current evangelist.  The long-term goal is to prepare the congregation to send out the current evangelist or other men to establish a congregation in a new city.  We are moving slower than I would like to see but we are moving forward.  That is good news. 
            I spent a full day with one of the evangelists supported through funds from the U.S.A.  We spent time talking about the work, about his personal life, and about vision for the future of the church in Paraíba.  I am confident that he now has a better understanding of the direction in which, I believe, the church needs to move.  It was good to spend time with Givanildo.
            While with Givanildo, Silvan and Diogo, I helped plan the Great Supper.  This is an event for the church throughout the state of Paraíba, a feast of knowledge of God's Word, of fellowship with the church and evangelism in the host city, Catingueira.
            I met with the church in Emas, Catingueira, and Patos on Sunday.  It was encouraging to see the simplicity of a small congregation, meeting in a house and having lunch together after services, as well as, the simplicity of a larger congregation in Patos, meeting in a building in construction, supporting an evangelist all at the same time, but having the same love and concern as the smaller congregation. 
Please pray:
  • that God will direct our path for the state-wide plan.  That the plan will be His, not ours;
  • that the vision Givanildo now has will permeate his plans and actions;
  • that the Great Supper will be a true spiritual feast for the church in Paraíba;
  • God's people will live and "...proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;" 1 Peter 2:9

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Our Women: Shining Stars in the Universe

Unity Through The Word

          Thank you all for your prayers for the PORMISSOES meeting last month.  It was a great blessing.  We sat and studied God's Word together for the entire day.  There were some differences of understanding on some passages, but we worked our way through them.  In the end, everyone was saying how the meeting was edifying.            It started around 9:30 am.  We broke for lunch at 1 pm.  We started back around 2:30 and went until 6 pm.  They wanted to keep going, but the SEARA class started at 7 pm.  If every meeting could be as encouraging as this one, we would be in heaven.           My goal with these meetings is to teach the church workers throughout the state how to listen to someone who has a different belief about God's Word, try to understand their logic, their thought processes and share their own understanding from the Bible.  My hope is that God's Word is heard above their personal wants, desires, or traditions.            This is no

Sharing Jesus in Mexico

by Renato Menezes   Renato is the second young person from João Pessoa to go through the Adventures in Missions program. His 18 months is Mexico is about to end, and undoubtedly he has grown tremendously in his faith during these past two years.     Here is his report on his personal Bible studies:       Praise God I started studying the Bible with one more person since last month, raising the number of weekly Bible studies to four.     Ema is one of the main people that work at the orphanage where we have a ministry (the children from there call her mother). She would visit the church before, but stopped because of work and other things, but in the last months, she not only started coming again, but brought her daughter too. Some Sundays ago I offered a Bible study, and she accepted happily (I was happy too). So then Ramiro and I began to meet weekly with her to study the book of John. We talked about the importance of baptism and about whether her baptism was Bib