Sunday, August 22, 2010

Sunday, August 22, 2010

We split into groups and walked through the streets passing out tracts with Vitor Belfort's testimony and invitations to Impacto 2 later this week. As many of you know, Parintins is currently known for its pagan festival, Boi Bumba. Also, known as The Festival of the Bulls, it centers around a fight between the mythical blue bull and red bull. the city is literally divided in half to form the Red Team and the Blue Team. This festival is know for it's demonic practices. Some of us walked through the Blue Team headquarters yesterday. They were electing their Blue Team President and had music, loud speakers, etc. I handed one of the men a Vitor Belfort tract, and his eyes lit up immediately. He told me how much he loved Vitor Belfort. I told him that Vitor loved Jesus and that Vitor would be praying for him and the Impacto 2 event. He had tears in his eyes as he told me that he was against Jesus. You could see in his eyes how torn he is between wanting to hearing more about Jesus and staying with his friends and in a place that is known to him.

This evening we had a worship service and kickoff event for Impacto 2. The Team Impact team performed and spoke and invited everyone to attend the event this week. Marc Minter also gave his own testimony and an invitation for those in the service to accept Christ. We had 83 decision for Christ! Even more exciting was that one of those decisions came from one of our translators!!! It was an exciting evening and great to see how much 1st Baptist Church of Parintins has grown since the first Impact in 2006.

On the way back to the boat, I was looking at all the homes. Everyone in Parintins lives homes that are fronted by concrete walls, locked gates, and barred windows. It's so symbolic of their entire lives. Most of them live behind walls figuratively as well as literally. They protect themselves physically but leave their spiritual safety completely unguarded.

Our purpose this week is to help them find spiritually safety and liberty from those walls. The only way to liberty is through accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Please pray for the seeds that were planted yesterday and last night to take hold this week. Pray for our servant hearts to shine through to the kids in the assemblies. And, please make sure that you have liberty in Christ, and if you find the answer is no, pray to receive Christ as your Savior!