December 2018 Merry CHRISTmas and Happy New Year from the Amazon

We experienced two very exciting things at the church.  The Xingu Mission is all about training leaders and planting churches.  Unfortunately, these are not instantaneous occurrences and they take time to develop, nurture, grow and release.  We just had 15 member of our church complete training through the Vineyard Institute here in Brazil.  Vineyard Institute exists to equip people through high quality biblical and theological education integrated with spiritual formation so that they are prepared for kingdom work at any level in the church.  We are hoping that one day they will be church planters!    

In addition, Cleiton and Cristiane have been serving faithfully as our youth pastors for many years.  They are passionate leaders and love the Lord.  We have a small group that is about a 20 minute drive from the church.  This small group has been growing and are developing into a large congregation that is outgrowing their small wood house.  We are sending Cleiton and Cristiane to be the pastors of this congregation to help in the work that the Holy Spirit is doing.  We are so excited about sending them and we are excited about what the future holds for this group of believers.  Planting churches and watching lives change to be like Christ is such a blessing and brings joy to our hearts.  Please pray for them and the new Mexicano church. 

 

The girls helped prepare the Christmas tree this year.  However, there was a lot of fuss because Mom wanted to put the tree up before December.  It just did not feel right to put the tree up in November for the girls.  But since it was just a couple of days before December, they conceded, and the tree was up and they did a great job.  The girls also did well in school and received awards for their grades and performance.  They had a presentation and everyone got dressed up for the occasion.  They are always excited if they can go to school events without their everyday uniforms.  We feel blessed!

 

Again, Merry CHRISTmas to you.  We appreciate you so much for all your prayers and support.  May the Lord’s joy and comfort be upon you always.   

Please pray for spiritual, physical, and emotional health for us.  

Much love, Steve, Elba, Camilly, and Alyssa

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November 2018 Amazon Update!

It has been another exciting month and one of the biggest excitements was the baptism we had at the church.  It is always a big celebration in the church, and praise the Lord, in heaven as well.  I love that during the baptism the church is singing and worshiping God and the symbolism of letting the person be completely immersed in water being baptized into Jesus’ death on the cross and no longer being slaves to self or sin.  When they are raised out of the water they are raised into a new life in Christ and are with Him forever.  Praise the Lord for these 10 people that made this public declaration of faith.  We are a bit partial for this baptism as Alyssa was one of the people who we baptized.  It was truly a blessing.  However, unlike all the others being baptized who walked down the stairs into the water.  Alyssa instead decided to jump into the water.  Yep, that’s the pastor’s kid.  :-)  Please keep these new believers in your prayers.

Elba went down to the National Vineyard Conference in Sao Paulo.  Elba has stepped into the National leader position temporarily in Brazil due to the death of our leader’s wife.  She helped coordinate the event and shared at the conference to the pastors and leaders in the South.  During the conference they had great worship, teaching, and time for prayers.  In addition, they introduced 5 new churches and 1 church plant.  Amen!!!

The conference was called “Why Church” which is an expansive response.  They focused on the topics “Church to worship, Church to reconcile and Church to serve”.  Another great benefit to the teachings is just being together with one another.  There is much encouragement, and refreshment when we can share our hurts, challenges, and accomplishments. 

This is what happens when you overextend your front flip on the trampoline.  OUCH.  She is doing much better now and it is healing.  She is a tough girl.  At the church, the girls participated in the children day celebration.  Children’s day is a National holiday in Brazil.  We hosted many children in the community with games, entertainment, food, and face painting.  It was a big hit.  

 

 

On a funny note, I was driving in town and saw this dog on the back of this guy’s motorbike.  I had to take a picture.  I was concerned the dog was going to fall off.  I followed them into town, and the owner was driving fairly fast, but the dog never fell and seemed to be having a blast.  

 

Please pray for spiritual, physical, financial and emotional health for us.  

Much love, Steve, Elba, Camilly, and Alyssa

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September 2018 Amazon Update!

Thank you so much for your prayers for the dentist team that came and served.  It was another amazing time of serving the community and helping people with dental needs that otherwise would not be able to get easy access to this care.  This year the dental team went on the river with the Marantha III and VI to serve communities near Belo Monte.  The Marantha III was retrofitted to serve as a dental clinic and the team worked tireless hours serving the community needs.  In these short two weeks the volunteer dentist team served 353 people doing cleanings, repairing cavities, pulling teeth, and making dentures.  It was an incredible work and we pray the Lord’s continued hand upon them all.  It has been a pleasure partnering with our sister church in Brasilia to serve the people, and share Jesus Christ.




Here are the statistics of the people served in the last years.  Amazing work considering they do this once per year for 2 weeks.  Since this project is self-funded, they are limited to only once per year.

Coming right off the boat we got prepared for our annual pastoral training.  The retreat training was surrounded around various topics such as mental health awareness such as depression and suicide.  They also taught on ethics in pastoral counseling, and marriage and divorce in the church.  It is training that a lot of our pastors need to become more skilled.  There were more pastors wanting to participate but were unable to afford the travel cost to get here.  In some of those cases, we tried to at least help 1 pastor participate. 

In addition, the pastors did an exercise with some of the years written on the wall and they were asked to write significant events that happened during that time.  It was very encouraging for all of us to stop and look back and reminisce at where we have come from, and then, start pushing ahead into the work for the future.  

The girls are doing well and are participating fully at school.  One of the things that I think is cute is that the girls really like to listen to 1950’s music.  Camilly's favorite music is Mr Sandman, and Alyssa likes Lollipop by The Chordettes.  I think it is sweet.  Below is a picture of Camilly listening to some music, and Alyssa participating in her annual “Independence Games” competition at school.  

Please pray for spiritual, physical, and emotional health for us.  

Much love, Steve, Elba, Camilly, and Alyssa

August 2018 Amazon Update!

Elba and I left the girls for about a week to travel to Macapá.  To get to Macapá we took a line boat which travels up the Xingu River, and then into the Amazon.  The journey took about 32 hours to get there, and about 36 hours to get back.  We went to Macapá because the church recently had a young dear member / leader commit suicide.  As you can imagine, it has made a dramatic impact on the church and they are doing their best to walk through the healing and understanding process of this tragedy.  Our missionaries, Christopher and Denise Meyer, who just recently planted the 2^nd Vineyard church in Macapá, have been doing a great job to help people work through this difficult time.  We were blessed to be able to come alongside of them to support them and the leadership as they navigate their way through this time.  Again, it is difficult, and prayers are appreciated.  Pictured below is Jonas, he is Christopher and Denise new baby boy.  

I am not sure if you knew this but we have church service in the evenings here in Brazil.  There are a couple of churches that have early morning service but it is rare.  Before the service, a bunch of the church members got together to go and hangout at a local creek.  Each of us brought some meat, rice, and salad and we ate till we were full.  Even though this was a simple and fun event, it is important that we get together outside of the church.  Getting together outside of church allows us to get to know one another better, it is encouraging, it is fun, and the community attracts the Holy Spirit.  I would not have thought much about the latter but I am reminded in the Bible that says the Holy Spirit is present whenever believers gather together (Matthew 18:20). A great example of this was the early church of Acts, which made a habit of meeting together, eating together, and worshiping together. As a result, “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:46–47).   This does ring true as not everyone that was with us was a part of our church and it promoted the opportunity to lower barriers to get to know the church and Jesus a little more.    

  

 

 

 

The girls are doing well and they just started back in school the first part of August.   We are very happy that they are thriving and doing so well in school.  Praise the Lord!  Here is a picture of them at a wedding that we had for a young couple from our church. 

Oh my goodness, did this just come to Altamira….am I dreaming?  Nope, it is here and I think we are now big time….Smile!!!

Please pray for the dentist team that is out helping many people along the river who do not readily have access to medical care.  Update to follow next month. 

Please also continue to pray for spiritual, physical, and emotional health for us.  

Much love, Steve, Elba, Camilly, and Alyssa