Thank you so much for your prayers for the National Conference
that was held at our church. It was a lot of work to make this event
happen, but in the end, it was great. I believe we had over 300 people in
attendance. This was a chore as many of them came
from out of town and we had to organize their housing, and meals.
We were blessed to have our Pastors, Rich and Marlene Nathan from
Vineyard Columbus come and teach our group. Marlene shared about women in
leadership to women leaders, and Rich taught our group various subjects such
as:
- ·
Helping your church to Grow by Becoming More Invitational
- ·
Constructing a more integral church
- ·
Why the Vineyard Church must not stop growing
- ·
Passing the Torch to the Next Generation
- ·
What I Say to a Young Leader
These messages were so encouraging and timely for our group of
leaders. At the end of every service, practically everyone in
attendance was coming up for prayer to receive more from God to become a better
pastor / leader or
they were praying for others.
In addition to the great teachings, the time of worship was
incredible, and the time to connect with the community of believers was so
encouraging and uplifting both emotionally, and spiritually.
Literally, stepping on the heels of the conference, we had a Dentist team of 10 people from Brasilia. Our house was hustling and bustling to accommodate the team, and the people from the conference. I think we had at 1 time over 20 people staying in our house. The dentist team went to a remote community called Maribel where it took around 5 hours to drive 100 km. We have a church in Maribel and we used the church to serve the people of the community. 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. In the few short days the volunteer dentist team served hundreds of people doing cleanings, repairing cavities, pulling teeth, and repairing teeth. It is amazing what the dentist can do with limited resources. It is 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. They will be coming back in September to work with our missionary Richie Bouthillier in Portel.
Alyssa just celebrated her 12th
birthday on July 4th. She had been talking about learning an
instrument and she wanted to learn the Ukulele. We were able to get one
for her recently and she has been playing it so much. She has been
watching YouTube videos on her Ipad to learn. We are very excited for her.
Camilly, not to be outdone, is starting back with the keyboard. Her
cousin Apolana is teaching her. Here is a picture of Camilly with
Angelita at the new SpiderMan movie.
Please pray for spiritual, physical, and emotional health for
us.
Much love, Steve, Elba, Camilly, and Alyssa