Brazil's Father's Day and our 1st Baptisms

This year, we had been planning a baptism but it wasn't coming together due to folks traveling. But all things are in His timing and our first baptism couldn't of been on a better day!

Brazil's Father's Day

We planned a baptism and bbq at a really nice creek nearby. Everyone met at the house and we loaded everyone up and headed to the creek.

Poli and Clyde gathered all who wanted to be baptized and explained water baptism.

There were some 8 people who planned to get baptized.

The stories of each person are price less and special in how they came to Christ. For the missionary when one is baptized, we have a picture of what it is like to lead people to Christ and see the fruit of the Holy Spirit's work in their hearts. It's an awesome day! It personally gives me great encouragment!! It shows progress in a work that is made without hands! New creations that embark on the special unity with Christ. Much like marriage! But not earthly. It's spiritual intimacy with the Lover of our souls! The One who came to set the captive free and walk us through the trials and testings of life. The One who loves

This day was extra special because our 8 year old daughter, Maddy decided to be baptized as well. We had been talking to her for several weeks about it and what it means. She understood and wanted to be baptized. So Clyde had the honor of being in the water with her and praying her through it and being by her side as she rose up out of the waters! It was very special and we pray that her journey continues on to a firm path that will lead her into greatness in the Lord.

After our baptism, we moved on to the BBQ part. One of our leaders, Carlinha, left to get in a quick visit with a friend who was passing through. When she arrived at her friends she mentioned that she left the baptism to get in a quick visit with her. The friend, Daffney is her name, said "I want to be baptized", so Carlinha brought her down to the creek where we were. Daffney, when she visits from school in Santarem, comes to our services on occasion. We all knew who she was. Daffney is as new in the Lord as Carlinha(just a year in July)is.

They arrived and Carlinha asked me "Can Daffney be baptized too?" I said "OF COURSE!!" There was a little embarassment since our baptism was over, but I can't see John the Baptist telling anyone NO because he was taking in his lunch break! So Poli announced that Daffney wanted to be baptized and again opened it up for anyone else. There was also one other young man, who has recently been coming to our services, who wanted to rededicate his life and be baptized! It was a divine moment and we all dropped the lunch plans and headed back to the water. After the precious moment of praying for them, we headed back to lunch.

That night, we had more celebrating to do. We had Father's Day! The girls planned a dance with Carlinha. Kids had a craft to give their fathers after service and a lot of cake and soda after wards in celebration. Poli shared a touching message about the Father's Heart and it was well received!

We continue on with this church plant to disciple each and everyone who have made decisions for Christ. They are the first fruits and we know that there are many leaders already in the mix! As we head home for 6 months, we have a lot of faith that God will do a tremendous work of growth in each one of them. Some will move into ministry with children, start cell groups, begin preaching and teaching on Sunday nights! This is the model of church planting and raising up leaders. We look forward to seeing the growth.

We ask for your prayers for this church plant. It is about 6 months old.

Currently the church is meeting at Poli and Nega's home on the porch. It is a large area and has room for some growth. We are praying for it to grow and in His time we will have the money to build a building for the church to meet in. We have started building the house that Poli and Nega will live in on the property that was donated to the mission/church. It is at a stand still until more money can be raised. This is again about His timing and we ask for your prayers. We'd like to see Poli and Nega in the house ASAP, but sometimes it's not our timing that is best, but God's! We thank you for praying with us!

Abundant blessings!

Ministry on the Iriri- Part 3

We met with the Maribel family on Sunday morning and had a wonderfully long service. It was emotional and wonderful to have nearly everyone there participating in the service. We had a huge lunch for everyone and a huge grab pile afterwards of our things we needed to give away before our trip to the US.

George and Josie, who had the baby in the back seat, dedicated their baby to the Lord.

The community leader, Milania, who is catholic, spoke up and with tears in her eyes shared how she wanted to thank Clyde for coming to Maribel. That he wasn’t just a man of words, but of actions too. He serves with his whole heart. She shared how our family has been such a blessing to the community and how much she and the rest of the community will miss us while we are gone.

This Sunday was a much needed confirmation for us. We have been dealing with discouragement in ministry. We hadn’t been out to live among the river folks this summer because of the commitment we made to build a house for the Uruara‘ family and church. We don’t know the fate of Maribel in regards to being turned into a reserve, but the hope is alive in the river people. They are not sulking, they are looking at the opportunity to restart over again. I have so much to share about just that, but this blog is already too long!

Our time was wonderful, blessed and left even our children saying “I’m not ready to go! I’m not ready to go to the US either. Can’t we wait???” God is faithful and He is leading us! We are looking forward to sharing with so many back home about this mission field on the Iriri river! And we are looking forward to returning to go up further the Iriri to share with river villages and Indian villages who are already awaiting our return!! Praise God!

Maribel Part 2 of 3

Part 2 of Ministry on the Iriri

We headed up river and didn’t quite make it to the village we had planned. Instead we stayed at the village below it by 3 hours called Boa Esperanca(Good Hope). We are becoming better friends with this village. A few have come to the Lord in the past few years. But this village has been more of a challenge because of their lack of hunger. The highlight for me was seeing the teacher who just transferred there in January. We met her at the village above. She is a sweet young woman who has a heart for God but was very confused when we first met her between legalism and traditions in the churches. Mainly 7th Day Adventists and Catholicism as her parents were of both churches. After a long afternoon of encouraging her, we felt a nice bond with her.

She has been a blessings as a teacher to Boa Esperanca and is very content in the new village. This time we brought a gift to her. “Purpose Driven Life” in Portuguese! She was so excited! The people in the village participated in our worship and testimony time in the new school house. This is the first time they have had a school in their village. I’m not sure how long the village has been established, but I can imagine it’s been a long time. We worshiped and shared songs for all ages by candle light. It was sweet, simple and most of all wonderful to see their participation.

We invited our dear friend, Carla Andresa to travel with us to Maribel for this ministry trip. Carla is 20 yrs old and has been walking with Jesus whole heartedly for a little over a year. She came into our lives last year in Altamira. God crossed our paths devinely again when we moved to Uruara’. She has been a major blessing to our church plant efforts in Uruara’. Her father died when she was a very little girl. She doesn’t even remember him, but has one bad photo of him she says. His roots were in the Maribel region and she had never met any of his family. So this trip was special for her and her quest to learn more about her father. God met her in a special way. Many people knew her father and had stories of him and she enjoyed hearing them and learning of his ways and nature. The trip was also an adventure for the city girl who doesn’t know how to swim and had never seen river life. She loved every moment of the trip and every person she met. She is next in line for the next possible trip!

We cruised up to Zezinho and had a wonderful time. The family we initially met last year on our first trip there was warm and welcomed us as if we were family. Laura and her husband were great hosts to our team. The message Clyde sent by radio didn’t get out of the radio house for some reason so the entire village had no idea we were coming to do a fellowship time with them. We arrived late afternoon and had enough time to meet the new teacher and visit one neighbor. Pataca and Paulo, from our team, went to invite the other side of the village. A few came and all the school chairs were filled. It was a special night of teaching them some fun kid songs and singing some they had never heard!

We had a great sleep and the next morning we pushed off after lunch!

We headed straight for the last village, heading down river back to Maribel to New River. There we have established great friends and they too consider us and treat us like family. This day we arrived also a bit unannounced and upon a Acai party.

Family from Boa Esperanca had come down to pick Acai and make it.

They had arrived from the jungle with the berries and the ladies were preparing it for the process to make it into the extract.

The water was boiling in huge metal pots on the kindling stove. In the end, Makenna pushed up her sleeves and helped 3 other women who were smashing the berries and getting all the skins off the pit. 82 liters later, everyone had their fair share of acai with farinha and sugar!!! Oh, I’ll always love acai and will miss it terribly while gone from Brazil!

The crowd was fixed on acai, so we understood that we were to be friends and not push on having a service with them. Instead, we hung out, watched them play soccer and at the end we gathered the immediate family together after their family left to go home. We prayed for them and encouraged them in the Lord. Many of the womenfolk have accepted Christ. We’re praying for the menfolk there!

It was a late start home in the dark and very dangerous for hitting rocks or sand bars. But God was faithful and we only jumped on a sand bar 2 times. No rocks!!! A beautiful night starry sky where we sang songs and the little ones slept all the way home some 2 hours.