Skip to main content

Traveling Joe And Me

By

            Traveling?  You get excited just thinking about going on a trip to a different place, sleeping in a different bed, eating different foods, and meeting different people.  To tell you the truth, I don't like to travel without my family.  I don't like spending nights away from home when my family is not with me, although I was not alone. Joe McKinney is a great traveling buddy and a great Christian example.  We had fun, but by the end of the trip, we were ready to go home.  But some things just have to get done.
            I went on this trip to renew interest in PORmissões (Organic Missions Plan), the state-wide plan to evangelize Paraíba.  This plan is working and producing fruit throughout the state, especially in its four major cities.  Now, it is time to build up these congregations and revive their vision for reaching out to other cities.  My main focus was the congregation in Patos.
We left Friday morning, traveled 2 ½ hours to Areial, a city of around 10,000.  If you remember, about a month ago, I traveled to Areial not to visit but to bury a sister in Christ.  This time Joe and I went to visit the two Christian ladies that live in this small town.  One of them is having doubts about God and His goodness.  Her sister died after many, many people prayed for her recovery.  Does God care?  Does prayer make a difference?  I talked with her and she seemed relieved to know that it is okay to have doubts.  I told her the best way to resolve her problem was to talk to the person with whom she felt disillusioned, God.
We left for Patos.  Slept.  Visited a family.  Left for Pombal.  We visited the four Christians in this city of close to 60,000 people.  What an exciting visit!  We did not get to spend much time with them though because we had a class scheduled in Patos.  After Joe's class, evangelists from Patos and Emas and I discussed the state-wide plan and the need to stimulate each Christian to evangelism.  What an exciting impromptu meeting!  The very reason I went.  Now it is time to get to work: to set-up a meeting for all the congregations in Paraíba and help them recapture God's vision.
Sunday, we met with the church in Patos in the morning and with both the Emas and Caatingueira congregations together at night.  We met in a house, in an overcrowded small room, one person sitting in the door.  I was greatly encouraged by their joy of being together.   
Monday we left for home.  We stopped in Campina Grande only for a short visit, long enough to hear that the campaign results have been good: class has started, also some Bible studies, and if faith is found, new lives will begin.
Please pray for all of these cities.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"What About Baptism?"

By
Edda and I went to a nearby city to study the Bible with a family, Genilda (who is already a Christian), Ana, Mariana, Luiza, and Jefferson. While we were reading God's Word, Ana's husband, Silva, came in and sat down, and then blurted out: "What about baptism?" It took me by surprise because he has barely studied with us, but, most certainly, is already thinking about spiritual matters. Our Bible study then took a lot of detours, answering this question or that. Silva said he still has a lot of questions, and we pray that the Lord will use us to answer them, bringing him to understand the Good News!
Post a Comment
Read more

One More Goodbye

By
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.
Post a Comment
Read more

Prayers and Fasting for our Families

By
One of the most devastating attacks of the enemy against God's people is when he invests in our families. We pray for protection for our loved ones, but we live in a world that never tires of trying to divide our families, constantly pulling and poking at our faith to find a vulnerable spot.   The congregation in João Pessoa, in the face of one difficult situation after another, has taken a whole Sunday this month to stay together in prayer and fasting for our families.   We are praying for couples in the church losing hope of solving their differences, Christian wives tearfully bearing the responsibility of maintaining the marriage with non-Christian husbands, mothers and daughters in unrelenting tugs of war, unemployment and financial strains, and the most shocking of all, one of our teenager, who is barely beyond childhood, confessed to the church that she is 8 months pregnant (her own mother only found out a week before). It g...
Post a Comment
Read more