US Church Team Coming

A 6 person team from Mt. Carmel Baptist Church in Temple GA is coming late next week to help us to help churches to share Jesus in their community. We are excited about them coming, and it promises to be a great week. They will arrive next Friday morning May 4, and will go back to the US on Saturday May 12. 

God has opened up some great opportunities to share Jesus and reach lost people for Him. On Saturday May 5 we will be working with a church to visit homes in their neighborhood to share Jesus, and then we will have a lunch and some fellowship at the church. On Sunday we will visit 2 churches that we will be working with during the week, and then from Monday through Thursday May 7-10 we will speak and share Jesus in 4 public schools. On Wed. May 9 we will also be sharing Jesus at a church's outreach ministry for women.

Overall we will be helping and working with 5 churches in Santos and Sao Vicente, and we will be sharing Jesus with over 3000 people during the week. We are praying and trusting God to do a great work in the hearts and lives of many students, teachers, and families, all for His glory.

Many Adults Accept Christ In A School

This week we worked in the municipal school EM Dom Pedro I in the Vila Natal part of Cubatao, which is a  poor area of the city. Several people from Primeira Igreja Batista Cubatao helped us, and some members of the church and also Igreja Batista Nova Jerusalem helped as our interpreters. The school is for students in the 1st to 5th grades, and they also have many adult classes at night for people who are trying to finish their grade school and high school education.

We spoke to 14 classes on Monday afternoon, to 14 more on Tuesday night, and to14 more on Wednesday morning. The project went great, and the leaders of the school, the teachers, and the students really liked it very much. We had a great time with the students while we were there. God did a great work in the hearts of many in the school, and we were in awe of what He did on Tuesday night in the classes for adults. Many were profoundly touched by the Holy Spirit, and some of the adult students were very emotional during our message. More than 220 adult students accepted Christ, and overall God touched and saved more than 820 students, and 11 teachers, and also the Vice Principal and the school Coordinator. We serve a Mighty God.

Outreach Schedule For 2012

Last week we had a couple of meetings in schools in Sao Vicente, and we praise God that they accepted our Quality Of Life project and that we have finished scheduling our outreach events for the year. We typically have approx. 30 meetings each year in schools to schedule the 20-22 outreach events in the schools. On top of the meetings we have at the schools, we have meetings with the churches that we are going to be working with in the schools, if the church has never worked with us before. We schedule the first half of the year's school outreach events in the 2nd half of the previous year, typically with meetings from September to November or December. We then schedule the 2nd half of the school outreach events from February to April or May. 

So besides speaking in 20-22 schools per year (typically 3 days per school) and preaching 15-20 times per year in churches, and several People Sharing Jesus seminars at churches, and other various outreach events throughout the year, we have a lot of meetings. There is a lot of behind the scenes work to organize each event with the schools, churches, and interpreters. It takes a lot of work to be able to speak and share Christ so many times during the year, and it can be very tiring at times, but it is well worth it to see so many people accepting Christ and committing their lives to Him.

You can see our 2012 outreach events schedule on our site:  Ministry Schedule

A 12 Year Old Serving God

Last week when we spoke in the school in Cubatao, we worked with Primeira Igreja Batista Cubatao. One of the members, Daniel, helped us on one of the days as Nancy's interpreter. Daniel is 12 years old. He did a great job as Nancy's interpreter, and he had a great attitude about serving God. He is going to help us again next week in another school in Cubatao. Great job Daniel !

A School Outreach In Cubatao

This week we worked with Primeira Igreja Batista Cubatao in a municipal school in the city of Cubatao. The school is for students from 5th to 8th grade. The participation of the church was very good, and we had 4 to 5 people helping us each day. Three members of the church helped as some of our interpreters - Amanda, Joelma, and 12 year old Daniel.

Besides the problem we had with one of the teachers that I talked about in a post on Monday, we had a very good outreach event in the school. God worked in a great way in the hearts of many of the students and teachers, and many eagerly listened to the Gospel message. We praise God that 509 students and 4 teachers accepted Christ and committed their lives to Him. 

One of the members of the church is a teacher at the school, and she started a Bible club awhile back on 2 Saturdays each month. We encouraged the students to participate in this, as it would help them to grow in their new relationship with the Lord and help them in their lives. It is great that the church has this, and it will be a good tool for them to follow up with the many who accepted Christ.

A Testimony Of God At Work In Africa

I received the following email from Nigeria about how God is using the Pursuing Intimacy With God site (www.intimacywithgod.com) and Bible studies. What a great blessing and privilege to be a part of God's mission and work in the world.

Dear Kevin, Warm greetings of peace to you in the Lord's name.

I am writing to thank you for sending the "Pursuing Intimacy with God" Bible study 1&2. I am short of words to express what a blessing the materials are. I did not write immediately because I wanted to be able to send a contribution, no matter how little, in appreciation of those materials and your good work for the Lord in Brazil. I will certainly send a contribution in the near future. For now, I am writing to thank you and to let you know how I am using the materials and the blessing that it has been to me and my group.

I am a Missionary myself, focusing on reaching unreached rural people in Africa. I pioneered the Christ Missionary Outreach Ministry here in Nigeria since 6th September 1990. We are planting churches in rural communities where there is no gospel witness. In 2009 I came accross Leadership Institute in Orange County in California when I was doing a doctoral program at International Theological Seminary in Los Angeles. This group has a fantastic approach to leadership development. They primarily seek to incorporate leadership and spiritual formation in such a way that gives priority to leaders spirituality. They do six leadership retreats in a period of two years. I participated in this.

When I returned home to Nigeria last year, I felt in my heart that I need to adopt that approach, so I thought of a theme to center my session on and came up with "Cultivating intimacy with God" then I thought of checking the internet to see what I can find that would be of help. That is how the Lord led me to your web site. 30 pastors and leaders registered for the retreats. The first one took place March 29- April 1, 2012 in prayer mountain facility being developed by a Curian pastor here in Nigeria. When I got your materials, I changed my theme to read exactly like the title of your study materials: "Pursuing Intimacy with God" because that seems to capture the depth of my heart desire for the pastors and myself. Next I decided that I will include two studies from your materials in each retreat. In this last one, the pastors did two studies (week one and two, from page 1-11). I asked them to take two hours alone with God and those materials and them later on we took another one and half hour of discussing them together. The impact was tremendous. Now they have gone home with the materials to now study them carefully again with others. I intend to do this till we finish our six retreats next year.

I just wanted you to know how these materials are being used to the glory of the Master of the harvest, the Lord Jesus. Thank you so much again.

Bitrus Audu, Director, Christ Missionary Outreach Nigeria 

Unusual Occurence

Something happened today when we were speaking in a school in Cubatao that is very unusual. The school is for students in 5th to 8th grade. Fortunately it has never happened before in the 100+ schools we have spoken at here in Brazil. It reminds us of the spiritual warfare for souls that we are engaging in, and that there is opposition in many places.

Nancy was speaking in other classrooms, and I and my team were in the school theater speaking to groups of 4 classes at one time. The first time we spoke today the speech went very well, all the way through sharing the Gospel. One of the teachers that was there listening was smiling during most of the speech, and it appeared that she enjoyed it very much. However, when we started talking about the prayer to receive Jesus she got very agitated.

As we continued to describe the prayer and what it means to invite Jesus into your heart and ask Him to be your Lord & Savior and commit your life to Him, she got more agitated and she started to talk to the other teachers there, and you could tell that she was trying to get them to try to stop us. As we started the prayer she left the room, I imagine to go get the principal to stop us from praying. We were close to the end of the prayer when she returned (alone) and she was still visibly upset. 2 sentences before we were done with the prayer she cut us off and she told her class to get up and walk out of the room. As they were leaving she loudly announced that she is a Christian (very debatable and doubtful), but that she strongly disagrees with us praying with and for the students.

Thankfully when she left the room for awhile we were able to lead many of the students in the prayer to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and she did not come back until the very end. Because her students were in the front rows, we could hear that most of them prayed out loud to accept Christ and commit their lives to Him before she interrupted.

Fortunately at this time in Brazil this is still a very rare occurence. We have had a very occasional complaint from a teacher because in their opinion they thought we were talking about religion (which we definitely do not do as it is against the rules in the schools in Brazil), but nothing too serious like today. We are mindful that this could change, and in fact we would expect as time goes on that some day in the future it will not be possible to share Jesus in the public school in Brazil. We are therefore urgently trying to share Jesus as much as we can in the schools while we can, because it is doubtful that this will last forever. Please pray for us as we strive to reach as many people as we possibly can for Jesus.