Skip to main content

Room To Grow

The church of Christ in Mangabeira does not have its own building.  We have saved up around BRL 25000 (about $8340), but it is still too little to buy our own meeting place.  Nevertheless, we continue to save money and pray.
Until we get our own location, we will continue to look for the best places for us to meet.
We were meeting in a well-located building, but it became too small for us to meet.
The picture below shows the old building.  We had an average of 48 to 55 on Sundays and that was the maximum number chairs that fit.  In six months, we were already overflowing.
This place served us well, but we needed to make a decision.  We needed to move but we would incur a fee of BRL 4500 (about $1500) for breaching the contract because we still had six months left of rent.  It was a large amount for us.  We prayed to our Lord and decided to talk to the owner; he said he would forgive the debt.  We moved out of the building without having to pay anything.
We found another place that is also well located, cheaper and bigger for us to meet.
Now, in our worship services we can receive double the amount of people we could in the old building.
We have 41 Christians and 12 visitors on average for Sunday worship services.
I hope that in six months we will have "the good problem": of this building being too small for the number of people meeting in the name of our Lord.
New address:
Rua Rita Xavier de Oliveira, 160 - sala 2
Mangabeira - João Pessoa/PB, Brazil.
Cordially,
Raniere Vieira

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Second Generation, Part II

In 1993 when we came in contact with a young struggling couple in Caruaru, Paulo and Simone, we never imagined what plans God had in store for them. Now 18 years later (Wow, has it been that long?), after conversion, ups and downs, growing pains, working to further the Kingdom and living it, they have had the pleasure to witness the beginning of their daughter's life in Christ. Juliana (age ten) was baptized by her older brother, Jheymerson, who was also ten years old when he gave his life to Jesus. What a wonderful blessing to have one's whole family saved in Christ! Maria and Cícero were also converted when we lived in Caruaru, though single at the time. They dated and got married, the ceremony performed by yours truly. Maria has been faithful to Jesus all these years though going through several difficulties. Cícero, on the other hand, fell away, but came back and renewed his life and his marriage, and now, along with Juliana, his daughter Vitória (age ten) was baptize...

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....

Pandemic Connection Strategies

Since the Covid-19 pandemic and its social distancing, we have had to work out other ways to connect:  We started a telephone ministry to keep members connected, to verify needs, and to keep our prayer lists updated. Some conversations last five minutes, others have lasted two hours. The idea is that every member receives at least one phone call a week. As we discover needs, we are able to act. One thing that surprised me was that I was expecting to hear about many financial needs. This has not been the case. Many requests have been of an emotional nature. Most requests have been of a spiritual nature. This type of contact has brought us closer together. It is interesting how God can use difficult times to bring about good. May God be glorified! Also, we began small group Bible studies with 3 to 6 members depending on the group. We would normally organize groups like these according to neighborhoods. However, since we are online, we created several groups, days and times and let th...