Class of 2020, by David McKinney

Our young missionaries, in the AME program, have just completed their nine-month training in Joao Pessoa. This class started with nine students but only eight finished this first part of the program. They had to deal with the Covid-19 protocols and social contact restrictions. They responded well to the situation, although the pandemic limited certain training activities, such as, visitation and campaigns.

The church had an all-night prayer vigil for them. This meeting is done in a dynamic way, using singing, small groups, coffee and snacks to help keep the participants awake. In one of the activities, we divided up into three groups. The students would rotate among the groups as we prayed over them and expressed to them our appreciation.

I ended up in the same group with Ayane, AME secretary, and Raniere, AME director. The three of us spent a lot time with the students on a weekly basis. As we spoke to each student, the word that kept being repeated over and over was GROWTH. Each one had grown in so many ways. It is amazing to see what Christ can do in a person’s life in so little time. Although the growth was visible, significant and points to the glory of God, we also expressed that Jesus had much more to do in their lives and motivated them to continue to let Him transform them into His likeness.

The purpose of this vigil is to send them off asking God’s blessings on them in all their endeavors on the field. The meeting ended around 4:00am with a nice breakfast. To top things off, several of us went to the beach to behold the sunrise, catching a glimpse of God’s glory in nature. They are all going home for the holidays and in January, they will join their teams and travel to their mission spots. Keep them in your prayers!

Comments

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

McKinney Report

Search This Blog