Breathing The Gospel

Raniere Vieira came to his first church meeting in the year 2000. He came because he was dating Fabiana. They have been married now for 12 years. Raniere has been a faithful Christian for 14 years, teaching all over Brazil in big and small, national and local church events.

Raniere and I traveled to Cajazeiras, where the soccer school is going strong. Some 40 boys were at the practice on Saturday morning. It was a Mother's Day weekend so some did not show. Not all of these boys are Christians, in fact most are not. I gave a short talk to them before practice about being humble and grateful. That was not the only reason we traveled to this city. We went to teach the book of Colossians to the church. It is such a rich and deep book, yet we had only six hours to go through the book with the church.

Leila, Café's wife, said something that we have known for a while. Café is great at evangelism but he is not very good at maturing the members after they become Christians and several have fallen away for this reason. I have been to Cajazeiras the last two months teaching different books of the Bible and plan to continue to travel to teach and help the church mature, but it is very hard to mature someone from a distance. They need a personal presence so that they can see how you live your day-to-day life up close and how the Gospel is your very breath.

Please pray:

· That God will raise up men and women who will be mature and help others to mature in Cajazeiras;

· That God will continue to use Café and Leila in the evangelism of the boys in the soccer school;

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