Skip to main content

A Breath of Fresh Air

            I first traveled to Alagoinha, over 15 years ago.  I have been going back every once in a while to visit the church that began in the year 2001.  Antônio Germano is a very zealous man for God's Word and His Will.  His zeal for others to do God's Will causes him to overreact in some situations and ends up pushing people away.  He is a very decent and good person that has a hard time getting along with others.  He is also 75 years old and has Parkinson's disease. 
            I went to visit the church again last night.  This was the first time that I remember meeting with the church without Antônio.  Antônio was in João Pessoa taking care of his sister who had surgery.  I was able to see the church in a new light.  I do not believe that it is a good thing for Antônio not to be at the worship but it did allow me to talk with the members in a way that I had not been able to before.  I saw the other man in the congregation, Zezito, stepping up for the first time and taking on responsibility, not just in the worship service but being active over the last couple of weeks and planning for the future of the church.
            
Please pray:
·         That Antônio and the church will be able to get along better with one another;
·         That God may continue to work with Zezito, who some of us have been praying for off and on for years, to assume more responsibilities;
·         That God will mature all five members of this congregation, who at one time had 15 and growing, years ago.

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