McKinney Report

  Yesterday we had our largest youth meeting this year. We have been having meetings and activities for our youth twice a week. The last one was at the church building: a time of celebration. A spiritual moment, food, soccer, and swimming. Eight visitors experienced what fellowship with Christians is like, and they want more!

  During the lockdown, the Mangabeira church ended up losing their meeting place. Going for a long time online, the brethren were starved for face-to-face fellowship. The Luna church of Christ invited them to meet with us until they could get back on their feet.  Each Sunday attendance is growing, maybe because more and more people are being vaccinated. Last Sunday was the largest this year: 83 present. We have ceased our online live transmission, a further encouragement for more to come in person.  

                                                                                                  by David McKinney As the Mangabeira and Luna are regrouping, the kingdom is expanding. For many years we have evangelized in the neighborhood called Esplanada. Several members from Luna live there, and we have desired to start a new congregation in this area of the city. Problematic brethren, family feuds and the pandemic are some of the reasons that kept us from moving forward. It was disappointing. However, this year, when it was least expected, things began to happen: we were offered a house to use for church meetings, more Christians (from another state) moved to this neighborhood, some people started taking initiative, etc. So I decided to give it a push and we started having Sunday services on the first of August. Please pray for the work in Esplanada!  

                                                                                                    by David McKinney       Beliza first met the church in 2009. Along with her came her little brother Kauã. He was two years old at the time. He has had the privilege of growing up in the church. This means that God has used many people to influence him in the process of his conversion.       He has participated avidly in Sunday School, VBS, tagged along with big sister to all kinds of youth devos and retreats, studied the Bible with Joseph and myself, and so forth.       Kauã is only thirteen years old, but has had a rough life. His mom died when he was little, his dad is distant. His dad remarried and his stepmother, unlike certain fairy tales, loved him as her own. However, she got cancer, was cured, then it came back and finally ended her life four years ago.       As we talked about him giving his life over to Jesus, I told him that something very new and different was about to happe

  These are our AME students. We are preparing these young people for mission work. When Joe McKinney, our father, came for a visit, we of course asked him to share his experiences of over forty years working as a missionary, minister, and elder with them.  He was worried at first that his mind wouldn’t remember things, but once he got started, he had stories, and more stories, that map out how to deal with the difficult situations in sharing the Good News with a lost world. The AME students learned a lot and loved him.

This year has been rough for Borges's family. They lost a pillar in their family, his wife's mother in February. Now her brother has passed, buried today. He was diagnosed with prostrate cancer 18 months ago. A policeman, used to taking care of the family, he had to settle with being taken care of by the family as his body gradually shut down when the cancer metastasized to his bones. Borges and Geilza have spent every free moment taking care of Demilson's needs, and it has been torture watching him slowly wear away. His colleagues in the Military Police carried his casket, played taps on a trumpet, presented his family with a Paraiba flag, and thanked his family for supporting him in defending society for nearly thirty years. It was a nice gesture, but the event that gives us believers hope in the face of death is Jesus winning over the grave. He is our certainty that a grave is not the end.

 Every Tuesday night for the last month we have been getting together to study God's Word. The subject is controversial but needed because it affects relationships and families in the church, and we as spiritual leaders will be more effective if we are united in teaching Jesus' will on marriage and divorce.  Just like Jesus, we want to go  back to beginning and uphold God's ideal when He created marriage:   “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Matthew 19:4-6

 I am writing this extremely tired. Yesterday, Geilza's mother died. This family has been hit hard the past months. Her brother discovered that his cancer has metastasized to his bones, paralyzing him and causing great pain (He is 49 years old). Another brother was arrested for robbery. Her daughter, a single mother, is causing problems. And yesterday her 80 year-old mother's heart stopped.  Geilza and her husband, Borges, have faith in Christ, but it has been on a roller coaster. And we spent yesterday afternoon, last night and this morning holding them up.  Dona Lídia was a pillar in the Esplanada neighborhood, always planning activities for people to get together. She was the owner of the neighborhood's soccer team, and never missed a game. And the neighborhood came to pay their respects.  We, disciples of Christ, had the opportunity to sing about God's grace and to preach about the Good News of His Son.   

 Edda and I had a pleasant night sharing our home with a couple of couples: Carlos and Mara, Jonatas and Tais. Two and three years ago we were witnesses in their weddings.  We talked about everything from Covid to missing the Newlins while Edda tried different recipes on them, like avocado brownies. They couldn't guess that they were made from avocado. Carlos and I planned a youth get-together at his house next week. Pray that these young couples will be pillars in the church during their lives! Let the Kingdom come!

During the pandemic most of the bus routes were cancelled on Sundays. This hurt church goers who don't have a car, like sister Sula. She is recuperating from intestinal cancer surgery, but doesn't want to miss a Sunday. Also there's Silvânia, single mother of two kids, who is out of work mainly because the kids' school has been canceled because of Covid. I picked them up in their neighborhoods, and they got to be with God's people. Sula thanked the whole church for the prayers, and she told everybody that her faith was stronger than ever. Silvania confessed that she really needed the spiritual encouragement. Her problems sometimes seem insurmountable.  We all need a reminder that we are not alone on this journey called "life."

 A young couple from the church in Caruaru, PE, are moving to João Pessoa, Lucas and Amanda dos Santos. She got a job here, and he gave a two-week notice at his job in Caruaru. They are staying at the guest room at the church building till they rent a house.  We have invited them for meals; today's was at the house. We invited two more sisters for them to get closer to their family in Christ here. What a blessing from God to be able to move to a strange city and know that in Jesus you have a family already waiting with arms wide open.

   The lesson is God created everything! Today I helped out the Fun Bible School team to film their class at the zoo. Beliza Patricia did the teaching in Portuguese and English. Valeska Picado directed the production. Bel Mendonça and Kauã Lopes were in charge of the cameras. And I was chauffeur, body guard, prop carrier, and English coach.    The zoo in João Pessoa has a lot a forest area, plenty of monkeys running free, and lots of birds chattering in the background, the perfect place to share our Father's creativity in nature. Children all over the Brazil and the world are watching Tia Beliza talking about God on Youtube.  Check out it out: Tia Beliza's Channel (in Portuguese) Fun Bible School (in English)  

 Today I was running around getting signatures for church documents, when I stopped by Solange Leao's apartment for her to sign a receipt. I called her, and she said, "Come on up!" What a pleasant surprise! There in her kitchen were Socorro Coelho and Edilma Costa, two sisters in Christ who live on the other side of town. They were spending the day with Solange. They had lunch together, and were, at that moment, baking a cake.   They invited me to stay for cake, but I couldn't. So I said a prayer for their requests, and I was out of there. But I left with a good feeling: no matter the distance or the obstacles, that is what Christ's family does, spends quality time together.