Day 13 - April 30

Day 13 (Wednesday, April 30th)

Hello Everyone,

Tonight, Christen had the opportunity to preach the gospel over the one radio station in town. Each Wednesday from 8-10 pm the church pays for air-time, and tonight that included an interview and teaching from her! After sharing her testimony, she talked about the pit of sin, and how to get out – adapting a teaching she once heard by Beth Moore. Whether it be the effects of sexuality immorality, or Drug/Alcohol addiction, or physical abuse – there are MANY residents in this city that are currently living in a pit and need the deliverance that only Jesus Christ can bring!

As Christen was in the broadcast studio, Jason, Sammy and a couple of his disciples (Alison & Valdemir) traveled to a city about 1.5 hours away called Vera Cruz (pop. 8,000). It is a four year old church plant of about 150 people. These independent churches are predominately called Cell Churches whereby most evangelism, discipleship and equipping are organized around small groups. They have 25 cell groups and Pastor Marques (31yrs old) invited me to speak to his cell group leaders.

What a blessing to meet with these 45+ leaders who bring oversight to the church.

Afterwards, at about 10:30pm, we went to get Pizza and had a great question/answer time with the leadership and another pastor who attended the meeting. One of the interesting challenges for Pastors in Brazil is the expectations of church members – who show up unannounced in their homes day or night – with counseling and prayer needs. I asked about this at the table and one of the pastors who lives at the church property says he has pretty much solved the problem by expecting the people to meet with their 40 cell leaders first. He tells them that it is disrespectful to by-pass their direct cell leader, so in this way he has mitigated much of the impact. Sounds like the advice Jethro, Moses` father-in-law, shared with him to prevent burn out (Exodus 18:13-27).

`Furthermore, you shall select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain, and you shall place at these over them as leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens.´(Ex 18:21)

This is my primary objective in Brazil- to strengthen their leadership base to include others, and thus spread the joy of kingdom service. In raising up other leaders, the pastors will be able to avoid burnout. I fulfill this objective through my gifting and passion- teaching the Word of God and drinking late night cappuccino with pastoral leadership.

Please pray for…

· Marcia & Christen regarding the “Women’s Encounter” with others from the church this weekend and that she may continue to minister to girls and young women here.

· Luana, whom I nicknamed Luana 1, in my 1st trip here in 2004. She is 15 yrs old now and is facing unmentionable challenges as she is becoming a young woman.

On behalf of the team,

Jason