Sharing Christ In A Favela

Yesterday we had the opportunity & privilege to work with Igreja Batista Marape of Santos in a favela (slum) in the nearby city of Cubatao. The church has a ministry for children in a school located in the favela, and they asked us to help them and to speak to the parents who are there waiting for their children. The church reaches out to the community in Cubatao once a month through this ministry, and there were many children at the event. The church puts on a play with a Biblical message, and then they split the children up into groups by age and have a Bible lesson about the message presented in the play, and they also share the Gospel with the children. After I spoke to the parents, 13 of them accepted Christ and committed their lives to Him. What a joy it is to serve the Lord.

Part of the favela in CubataoSome of the children participating in the programSpeaking to some of the parentsInterpreter Camila and I sharing Christ

Traffic, Traffic, Traffic

We spoke in our last school of the year on Monday and Tuesday in Sao Paulo. The school is located in a poor section of the East Zone of Sao Paulo, and it took quite awhile for us to get there from Santos. We spent 2 1/2 hours each way, each day, to get to the school and back, totalling 10 hours of driving time in 2 days ... and it was all worth it. Actually the drive from Santos to Sao Paulo is not bad, only 1 hour. But then the fun starts. We spent 1 1/2 hours each way (each day) in the Sao Paulo traffic, which was horrible. Besides the bad traffic, the drivers in Sao Paulo are pretty bad, so that makes it even more fun. But it was all worth it, and God did a great work in the hearts of many students and teachers. 683 students and 13 teachers accepted Christ and committed their lives to Him. The church we worked with, Igreja Metodista Livre, did a great job, and they had 8 people to help us on Monday and 5 on Tuesday.

we were in the Sao Paulo traffic for 6 hours in 2 days

Nancy and I with part of the church teamInterpreters Eduardo & Victor and the church teamInterpreters Debra & Andre and part of our team

Brazilian Sunsets

Here are some sunset pictures we have taken in our new city of Santos. We love living here so far, and we are really looking forward to joining God in what He is doing here.

The Last School Of The Year

Next Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning (Nov. 23 & 24) we will be speaking in our last school for the year. The school is located in the East Zone of Sao Paulo. The school year in Brazil ends in early December, and then summer vacation goes on until mid or late February.

After that we will be having some more meetings in schools in Santos to see if we can schedule speaking events for 2010. At this point we need to schedule more schools for the 1st half of 2010, and we are trying to get them scheduled at least until the end of May before the school year is over. We will also be meeting with pastors and churches in Santos and the surrounding cities in December, January, and February to schedule preaching dates and other events to help the churches to share Christ in their areas. Please pray that God will open up many new doors for us to share the wonderful news of Jesus.

We Finally Moved

After a long process to buy our new apartment in Santos we finally were able to move this past Tuesday. We have been very busy getting settled in, and yesterday we unpacked our final box. We still have alot of organizing to do, and some painting and decorating to do also. We really love our new place and the city of Santos is a very nice place to live. Below are some more photos of Santos.

Tomorrow we will be going to church at Igreja Batista Marape to meet Pastor Sidney, who is very interested in working with us, escpecially in the schools here in Santos. He is a friend of our good friends Pastor Odilon and his wife Olga, who was the pastor in our Brazilian church in the US in Marietta GA. Our church had a Brazilian church there because many Brazilians live in the Atlanta area. We will be having some meetings later this coming week in more schools here, to schedule events for 2010. We were supposed to be speaking in a school in Sao Paulo on this coming Monday and Tuesday, but they had to reschedule the event for May 2010. So at this point we have only one more school to speak in this year - November 23 & 24 in Sao Paulo. We will be having meetings in schools until December and also with some pastors & churches, but our schedule will not be as demanding until the start of the new school year in late February 2010.

Brazil Photos: Plants

As you can imagine there are many beautiful tropical plants in Brazil. Here are some pictures of some of the many types we see here in Brazil.

Another Santos Update

We are extremely busy these days, as we are getting ready for our move to Santos on November 10. It still amazes me how slow things go here, and it will be exactly 2 months from the time we started buying our apartment in Santos until the time we get to finally move. We have a 2 week break from speaking in schools this week and next week, and then we will have 2 more schools in Sao Paulo to speak in the last 2 weeks of November after our move.

Unfortunately we received some disappointing news last Thursday. We thought we had a buyer for our house, but unfortunately that did not go through. Even though the potential buyer is some type of municipal judge in Sao Caetano and she said that she was already approved for financing, when it came time to buy the house she could not get enough financing to buy our house. So it's back on the market. Please pray for the sale of the house; we were hoping to sell it before we moved.

Also, we already started having meetings in some schools in the Santos area to schedule events there for next year, and we praise God that we already have events scheduled until mid-April. We have 2 more meetings in schools there tomorrow. We are trying to fit in enough meetings in schools before the end of the school year in December to be able to schedule events in 2010 until the end of May or June.