Bustin’ through!

Do you know what is about to happen when the activity on this blog picks up?

Fun church

I bet you don’t have this much fun when you go to church…

Fat tummy

Popsicles?

What popsicles?

I’ve only had this one…

Knock, knock

Knock, knock!

Who’s there?

Buncha.

Buncha who?

A whole buncha folks wanting to get in for the children’s worship at the GFB church on Saturday afternoon!

Can we say “capacity crowd?”

Amplification

Big surpises often come in little packages.

See the little gal talking into the microphone. Know what she is doing?

Telling everyone how her life has changed since coming to know Jesus.

To coin the commercial:
1 microphone and amplifier – $300
1 transformed life – priceless

You’ve come a long ways baby…

Sometimes pictures can bring tears to the eyes. These two are excellent examples.

What’s so unique about them?

See the t-shirts?

They say “Gospel for Brazil” in Portuguese. They represent an impact being made on a small village that four years ago had no clue about the “abundant life.” What was once an unknown now has walking billboards going up and down its streets boisterously every day.

More emotionally, the kids in these pictures were in rags, literally. Hungry, unknown (not simply forgotten), living in misery. The girl above on the right was the one who stole my heart in February 2004. Filthy, smudged face, vacant look in her eyes, she has been transformed.

Her transformation by the love of Jesus has been remarkable; her transformation by your interest and support of her has given her hope.

Today marks four years to the day when the vision of Gospel for Brazil was born. Today, four years later, is a day of absolute excitement for what is on the horizon.

Thanks for being along for the ride…

Trip meeting

If you’re planning on making the trip to Ubaúna in July, you need to be at the meeting tomorrow (Saturday) at 5:00 p.m.!

Just like that…

…she was pregnant for 3 months before anyone knew about it

This is how Audrey described a young girl who just gave birth to a child.

She literally just dropped the child right out onto the floor. She gave birth at home and, since she’d never given birth before, didn’t realize she was going into labor. Obviously it wasn’t too difficult because the child slid right out and hit the dirt floor with a ‘thud.’ The thing that astounds me is the filth on the floor. I was born in a shack with dirt floors, but my mom always kept the dirt well swept and as clean as dirt can be. But in this shack… well, it wasn’t clean.

The new mother lives in Paxólas, the slum in Ubaúna. Both mother and child are doing well. Her siblings and mother attend church where Audrey pastors.

While the lack of water is affecting all of us, it made no real difference for the girl. They never have water anyway…

Such lack of convenience always causes me to wonder how they do it.

The water scenario here has really deteriorated. While it is raining close by, it still hasn’t rained here in Ubaúna. The one well the government drilled isn’t really helping that much because it is so far away and is always full of people. We are hoping that the rains that typically come in March will be strong this year. We need rain desperately.

And so he concluded with a request that we pray for rain and for the health of the new baby.

Throwdown

The Urban Dictionary translates “throwdown” as:

“about to kick some ass like there’s no tomorrow”

Please pardon the language. I purposefully didn’t put the little stars (a**); I don’t mean to be vulgar but I do mean to be forceful.

We’re on the verge of some serious throwdown in Ubaúna and I want to ask your participation.

I need folks who will be willing to do some serious praying, giving and volunteering.

Without the power we have residing in us that raised Jesus from the dead being brought to bear on the kingdom of the Evil One, we will not see the incredible events that are about to happen.

As we kick off this new year in Ubaúna, we see drought conditions wrecking havoc in the village, we have tightening financial conditions making the poor even needier and are facing an urgent need for strategic, on-site planning.

My primary request at this time is prayer. Prayer that God will open doors that need to be opened, prayer that we can understand the direction he wants us to take, prayer that the church can address the real needs of the comunity and become the focal point of spiritual activity, prayer that the Evil One will be thorougly and convincingly defeated, prayer that Áudrey and Andréia will be used mightly by the Spirit.

We ARE on the verge of some serious throwdown. Pray.

The children will lead them…

This just in from Áudrey:

The kids are really giving us encouragement. It wasn’t something we could have ever imagined, but they are leading the way into the heart of the community. Please be praying for us and for the children!

Áudrey always refers to you as his “American prayer warriors;” let’s show him we mean business and lift them up this week.