Finding God

It's Tuesday morning and we are starting to check out and prepare for our trip home. I think we all would like to stay longer and can't wait to get home all at the same time. It's been an incredible trip. Last night, we met to talk thorns and roses and roses took most of the hour. It is obvious God is working in our hearts and on our hearts. Praise Him.

One of the most encouraging roses came from Will, the young man from Sao Paulo who was helping us as an interpreter. He told us how he was trying to find his religion, his beliefs and that our group had made a great impact on him in doing that. He came to Aracaju not understanding it was a full time mission effort and not excited when he learned that. He wanted to have some fun but he said he ended up having a lot of fun and learning more about God.

Thank you church. You are so special to us and we look forward to being back with you soon. Please be praying for our flights. As Jacob mentioned last night, everything went great last time until we started home. See you soon.

We´re Back

It seemed like a whirlwind retreat filled with incredible fellowship, cold showers, pretty good food, humidity, fun worship and hard, uncomfortable beds. We were at a new retreat facility this year that had both sand and concrete soccer fields, a volleyball court, more space and better kitchen facilities with cooks. The time with our Brazilian brothers and sisters was uplifting and it was amazing to stand back and see all the tears flowing as we left. Two days of bonding led to a long time leaving with pictures and hugging, crying and laughing. Wow. It is an incredible experience I wish everyone could get at least one time. The love that was in the camp was overwhelming. Roger, Jeff and Everett all had lessons during the adult study times and Grant, Kyle, Preston and Jacob had lessons with the youth. Several of the ladies spent time with the little kids during these session teaching and doing crafts. Our brothers from here also had lessons prepared that were well done. I only wish I had a way to post the pictures and videos that have been captured during the past 5 days to share a glimpse of the joy we have had.

We all owe a huge thank you to the church in Decatur for helping make this happen. Lives have been richly blessed because of your love. I think our comfort level this trip was much greater which allowed us to truly encourage the brethren here more than our first trip. Praise God for His goodness.

As my good friend Everett says, two more sleeps on foreign soil and then we start our journey home. Eating tonight, I heard several comments about being ready to get home and see fathers and mothers, spouses and children. We are tired but fulfilled in what we have done.

Tomorrow we will travel to the market for some shopping then go to eat at Maggs, a restaurant owned by one of the brothers in Aracaju. In the afternoon, weather permitting, some of us will go to the beach while others hang around, pack and maybe grab a nap. Tomorrow evening, we will all head to the beach area for a good dinner and then its time to get ready to travel.

While our work is done here, we still solicit your prayers for safe and timely travel to return home to you.

The Next Phase

Yesterday ended a great two day of work. The VBS had 120+ kids in the morning and another 30 or so in the afternoon. They reached over 200 kids who made not hear about Jesus any other time. The ladies did an incredible job with help from each of us during one of the sessions and Tim Brumfield from Sunset proved invaluable to the effort. He was one of the roses brought up and thanked last night in our meeting.

The singing effort was another success. I think we passed out nearly double the number of fliers as last year. The morning effort was slowed down by rain and by the afternoon our voices were wavering. During our first afternoon session, we were in a tough location because of the noise around us. We took a break, had some coconut water and churros and then headed back for the final round. More of the Brazilian brethren had arrived and our group of 18 were able to stay together and sing instead of spreading out and it was wonderful. We had a crowd of 20-50 stopped and listening at any given time and when it was time to leave, our whole group wanted to stay and sing longer. We sang until our voices gave way. It was an incredible afternoon that really ended our work on a high note.

One of the people spotlighted in our session last night was Amy Walton. While we were singing in the morning, a man who was mute was listening to us. Amy knows sign language and was able to come over and tell him who we were and what we were doing. It was incredible.

Our talk last night was about the body, the many parts and the different strengths they have. The body working together was evident over the last two days with all of us doing different things, communicating in different ways and getting the story of Jesus to thousands of people. The body was alive and working over the past two days.

We are headed for the retreat site in just a little while. We are excited but with some reservation as we start a new phase at a new location none of us are familiar with. Cold showers and toilet paper in the wastebasket are just 2 little changes we will adapt to but I know the time with brothers and sisters sharing Christ and the love of our hearts will make those obstacles easy to overcome. We will miss the air conditioning as it is very humid and we will be inland, away from the ocean breezes. Our kids already have soccer balls out and are ready to play. Others of us have been working on Bible lessons we will present with the aid of a translator.

One thing so very evident is that God is at work in our hearts. You can hear it in the things everyone is talking about and in the actions you see in each other. Keep praying for us, that we will all come to know God more and that we encourage each other to grow in Him.

We love you and thank you for the support you have given us.

Thorns and Roses

A day is done. Each night we are meeting as a group to sing, pray and reflect on the day. We talk about some of the bad things and then we talk about the good things we saw, felt and experienced that day and the good always far outweighs the bad. We were able to teach 90+ kids about God today and we don't know how far those seeds will go and grow. We handed out over 6,000 fliers today about the School of the Bible and we don't know how far those seeds will go and grow but it is exciting because while we don't know what God will do with those seeds, we have faith some will produce fruit. I wish I could describe the different things we have seen and experienced, the people who have tried to talk to us as we rush around founding one of the Brazilians to speak to them or the kids whose smiles and hugs light up a room.

One thing many of us realized today was how tired we were at the end of the day but as we discussed the good things happening around us, I think we would all agree that we could and should press on further and spend more time and give more effort to share the Good News. That is what we will do tomorrow. We don't know how many kids (and maybe families) we will affect nor how many fliers we will give to people who need to know God but we will approach the day with renewed vigor to share Jesus, to share God, to share love and the salvation we know to people in a foreign land. In all we do tomorrow, there will be great purpose.
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I want to give a big thank you to Tim Brumfield. Tim is an instructor at Sunset in Lubbock and has joined us on both our trips here as a teacher and interpreter. This year, he found Skype, an inexpensive Internet phone system that he is sharing with anyone who wants (or can wait in line for the conversations to be over). Tim is an invaluable gift to us all.

I also want to thank Will. I don't know his last name but he was an exchange student in Decatur last year and lives in Sao Paulo, Brazil. His parents paid to fly him here, paid for his room and food and he is helping as an interpreter at the VBS program. Amy and Sammie befriended him in Decatur and he attended church several times. Will isn't a Christian...yet...but has a heart of gold and I am sure we are planting seeds with him as he labors with us.
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Sammie Parker's luggage wound up in Paris, France. Thanks American Airlines. Several people have been sharing with her and we have helped buy whatever she needs. It's been frustrating for her and we have (slim) hopes that her luggage may arrive Friday or Monday. We'll see.
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Keep praying for us. Our efforts do take a physical toll with the heat and humidity and the strain of working with limited resources and little understanding. It is nothing we are not happy to overcome but the comfort of your prayers strengthens us.

We love you all and miss you.

1/2 Day Done

We have completed the first half of our first day and it was a good start for the VBS crew. We only had 35 kids of the 75 expected but we still made the most of it. Melissa, Deena J., Shelley and Lea Ann are the regulars for the VBS and the rest of us rotate through for one session. These ladies have done a lot of incredible work and it will be impossible to thank them enough. The kids seemed to have a good time. We have 4 or 5 translators which make it possible to do the work. Without them, wow...

The singing crew is on their way back and we will break for lunch before returning to reach more people. It is a good start to the day and I trust there is more to come.

Woohoo! Finally Connected

The airline system, transportation, phones and Internet can surely be frustrating when in Brazil. I could not connect to the blog yesterday and could barely stay on the Internet for any length of time. Oh well, here we are now.

I'll start by apologizing for a lack of pictures. It's not for a lack of trying but mainly time. We started off schedule today and stayed that way. Today was our prayer day as a group. We started at the hill where Aracaju was founded in 1855 and learned a bit of the history and ventured through a small Catholic church nearby. From there we went to "the center", the middle of town and saw the Governor's Palace, where the House of Representatives meet and other government offices. We also went to see the oldest cathedral in Aracaju and learned about the religious disposition of most of the nation. At each of these stops, we spent time in prayer for the people where we will be working and other topics based on what was discussed. After lunch, we went to a day care/orphanage for children from very low income families. We heard from the founder's wife about the founder's heart for kids and why he started the facility, saw some of their daily activities and performed a couple of puppet skits for them. From there we headed to San Cristovan, the 4th oldest town in Brazil and learned more history, ate some fresh baked bread and got to visit the home of Julio who hosts the church at his home each Sunday and also hosts a Saturday night Bible study. His mother also lives with him and has Bible studies with ladies from the town periodically. They are wonderful Christians who love God.

Tomorrow we start what we came for. We will begin our VBS program early in the morning with approximately 90 kids in the first session (if you are from Decatur, the church building here is roughly the size of our new family room so you can imagine herding 90 kids in groups through a reasonably small space) and the rest of our group will go on a singing campaign.

We are still tired from the travel and a couple of our young ladies still haven't seen their bags with their clothes but are holding up well. We spend each night meeting together and talking about the good and the bad we encountered during the day. The worst thing is the language barrier but the people are still friendly and loving.

I did try to post pictures but it's sslllloooooowwwwwwww and it's past my bedtime. We start EARLY in the morning. I hope to have good reports tomorrow. Keep us in your prayers.

3-2-1

We leave on Sunday. It doesn't seem possible that it's already time to go. 29 of us leave DFW around 1:50 on Sunday afternoon and arrive in Aracaju at 1:50 Monday afternoon (11:50 our time). It will be a whirlwind and maybe a bit circus-like at times. Keep us in your prayers.

More Prayer Requests

We are 1 week away from traveling to Aracaju, Brazil. Our team met tonight and there is a mixture of emotions - excitement, fear, bewilderment, wonder - and those and others will likely heighten as the week progresses.

I did receive some specific prayer requests tonight that I wanted to share on the blog and others will be given to members of our church to be praying about during our travel time.

Please pray that all of us may do God's work and help bring more people to God. Also pray for our families while we are gone and that we will remain safe throughout the journey.

Pray that we will reach many people, safe travel and return on time.

Melissa asks, please pray for a successful VBS in Aracaju. We will have close to 400 children that may know nothing or little about Jesus; pray that their hearts will be open.

Preston asks, pray that the retreat and VBS go very smoothly and that our Christian brothers and sisters are very encouraged.

There are many other requests like these. We thank you for your prayers and trust God will lead us and bless us on this trip.

A Call For Prayer

I plan to have some specific prayer requests posted here next week for those on our team who want to list them. In the meantime, I'm calling on you to add our group in your prayers. We are 10 days away from leaving (we leave on June 15) and the stress level for each of us is rising as we try to prepare to get things ready and deal with the mental/emotional part of leaving our families.

Be praying for:
safe and event-free travel
our families who remain at home
that God is softening hearts to His message
for the body in Aracaju and the surrounding areas and their continued spiritual growth
for the School of the Bible and those who enter to learn about God's love for them
for the Ledbetter family (Rob, Marie, Morwyn in Aracaju/Johnathon in S. Africa and Amber in California)
for Randy and Angela
for anything else you want to add.

On behalf of our team, thank you for praying for us.