Monday, August 23

Monday, August 23, 2010

This was our first day to take Team Impact with us into the local schools. There are two things we always notice about the kids. The first is that they seldom smile. Secondly, you look in their eyes and see an emptiness and a longing for something in their lives that will make sense and bring them joy. They show an eagerness to see the Americans but a greater eagerness to see why we are here. The older they are, the harder and more closed they are. Their degree of wariness and doubt increases with their age. Their hopelessness becomes more apparent; their desperation more obvious.

It's difficult to make eye contact with them. But if we are successful, they have beautiful smiles! We try to hand them a tract, and they hesitate before they take it. If you wave the tract back and forth like it is a fan, they take it and reward you with a brilliant smile and shining eyes. It's as if they are afraid to be happy. As if their happiness will be taken away in the blink of an eye. The peer pressure here is to NOT show any happiness. They remain aloof and stoic. These observations can lead one to believe that while they can hide their individual hurts and disappointments, but they can't hide the burden of carrying them. And that is why we are here. While we can't change their physical circumstances, we can help them to see that they can shine where they are by accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

The way the boys and girls react to the gospel is very different. Most of the girls listen intently. Most of the boys act like they aren't really paying too much attention. Yet when an invitation is given, we have the same number of boys and girls raise their hand, pray for salvation, and receive Christ. You see the same struggle in their faces as they decide to take a chance on Jesus. The same struggle with the emotion of FINALLY givng their burdens up to the Lord. Most importantly, you see the same peace move over their faces when the Holy Spirit enters them.

Tonight, one of our groups went to a high school filled with teens that have killed, have drug addictions, have evil spirits and hard hearts. In God's perfect plan, the Team Impact member who shared his testimony is a man whose own life was filled with alcoholism and drug addiction. He was a member of the US Bobsled team in the 1994 and 1998 Olympics and a pro-wrestler for 5 years with the WCW.  He later lost everything, wife, child, and career due to his addictions. Because of his direct connection with these kids, they were so engaged you could hear a pin drop in the auditorium. After he completed his testimony and gave an invitation to accept Jesus Christ into their hearts, 52 hard, closed, and lost teenagers walked forward shamelessly, in front of their peers, and publicly proclaimed their new faith in Christ. Afterwards, we prayed with the kids and prayed a prayer of oneness. We let them know that while we may not see them again here on Earth, we will one day be rejoined in Heaven. All of them signed up for small group Bible studies as a first step in their new life in Christ.

1st Baptist of Parintins currently has 54 small group Bible studies in place. We had the church's small group leaders with us at the assemblies to take the new Believer's information and encourage them to start their walk with the Lord by attending a small group once a week. Please pray for these small group leaders as they strive to reach these kids. Pray that the kid's prayers of salvation were genuine.

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!

Saturday, August 21

Saturday, August 21, 2010

All is well as we arrived with no travel issues. The first day and night are spent on the boat traveling down the river to Parintins. Many of us believe that this a day to rest and relax. It's much more than that. We laugh that it is a day filled with breakfast, nap, lunch, nap, dinner. It is the first day we spend together as a team. Most of us met each other at organization meetings, packing parties, and prayer times, but we know little of each other's heart for ministry and missions. Some of have been on mission trips together before and share a bond that cannot be explained.

This is the day that we hear each other's stories of salvation and the grace we've all received. It's the day we learn why each of us have been appointed to this place, at this time, for a special purpose. It's a day when we reveal our hearts. We talk and laugh about a variety of things, and somewhere along the way we leave the stress of daily life and, at long last, allow our Lord and Savior to cleanse us and prepare our hearts for the services we will perform to His glory in the coming week.

I'm amazed that the Lord chooses us as His children when our hearts are impure and our actions sinful. I'm amazed at how He again chooses each of us according to our gifts for His purpose and forms a perfect team from people with imperfect hearts. He brings each of us through varied trials to strengthen us and prepare us for His work. Some of us He has ordained at an early age; some of us He breaks so that He can heal us and mold us. He takes us in our new lives in Him and uses us to help others who are now where we once were.

Many of us spent today reminsciencing about the Impact crusade in 2006. Telling stories of families who touched are hearts then and still do today. We shared with some of the newcomers the story from August 2005 when the members of a youth rally trip went into a pagan stadium and prayed for the people who attended the pagan festival put on there every year. We shared how Hemily Rego and Mical Martins sang a beautiful song in Portuguese while the rest of us were praying. We told them how the winds picked up, the trash in the stadium starting blowing, and dark clouds lowered over the stadium while they sang. We shared with them that the song was completed the wind stilled, the clouds left, and everyone was silent because we know something special had just occured. We only later discovered that the song was a prayer to God to send the Seraphim and Cherubim into this place! It was also later that we learned one of our trip participants had seen an angel over the stadium that day. All of these stories help prepare those who come with us now for the work that lays ahead.

This evening we shared the Lord's Supper. The Word tell us that we need to cleanse ourselves of anything that separates us from Him before we partake of the Lord's Supper. To that end, we each spent some time writing down the things that are separating us from Him and asked Him to remove them. We also wrote down the names of people for whom we have a burning passion to see come to Christ. Some of us wrote down names of people for whom we have been praying for 15 and 20 years. After the Lord's Supper, we spent time in personal prayer and each of us took that paper with our burdens and released it into the river. Gone are our burdens and disappointments. Gone are our anger and hard hearts. It wasn't the paper that took the burdens away. It wasn't writing them down or throwing them in the river. Our Lord once again cleansed us when we asked it of Him. It was symbolic of how completely our Lord showers His grace and love upon us. It was a beautiful example of our privilege to pray to Him at all times. As I stood in the dark of night and watched my own burdens fall into the river and disappear, I was reminded that in I Thessalonians Paul teaches us that we are not of the night; we are of the day. We are Sons of Light! As Sons of Lights, we are to prayerfully and deliberately and specifically seek the lost and share the gospel with Him. But, that is only part of our purpose for the coming week.

First and foremost, we are to glorfy Him by our faith. We are to worship Him and Him only. We are to allow Him to work through us, His Sons of light, to bring the lost to Him. He gives the certain hope of eternal life to those that follow Him. For many if not most of the people we minister to this week, the hope of eternal life in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, is the only hope they have.

We reach Parintins on Sunday morning and hope to get to the pagan stadium early in the day to pray once again for the Lord to banish Satan from this place forever. Will you please pray with us tomorrow? At some point during the day, get down on our knees and ask the Lord to use each of us this week according to His perfect plan. Ask Him to send his lost sheep to us and to make us His shepherds. Ask Him to send the Seraphim and Cherubim into this place!

Hello from the Amazon River - literally! We just took our first swim (for some of us) in the river and it was so refreshing!  In case you were worried - no one was eaten - yay!  :)

 

Today was such an exciting day for us!  We dedicated our second water well and not only were we able to provide this village with fresh drinking water, four children were presented with the gospel and accepted Christ into their hearts.  The angels in heaven are celebrating because we have four new members in our kingdom.  We left them with bibles and challenged them to be leaders of the younger children. 

 

We are starting on our final voyage home, so this is our last blog.  We do have some exciting boat news that occured this morning!  Two of our members got engaged!  :)

 

Praise the Lord for a safe journey and an amazing trip!  Please pray for safe travels home and We will see you in the States!

 

In His Glorious Name,
The Village Team

The Village Day 3

Bom Dia!  Sorry for the delay in updating our blog.  It has been such a full few days that we haven't had the time to really sit down and write. 

 

We are on our 4th and last full day of ministry and I feel like we are all in agreement that we don't want to leave.  We have visited a new village every day and even though they are all relatively close together, they each have their own unique 'feel' and demeanor to them.  The first village was probably the most unsure of us, the 2nd one was extremely welcoming, the 3rd was full of excitement, and our 4th is definitely the most interesting.  We are learning so much about their culture and some of the battles that they're dealing with in their community. 

 

It's hard to believe that we are almost done with our trip - I think we are all struggling with the concept that we will be leaving this beautiful place to head back to reality.  None of us will be the same after this trip - we have seen some of the most beautiful faces and have gotten to be a part of God's great calling.  The team has really bonded and new friendships have definitely been formed. 

 

We don't want to get into too many of the details of the trip because we know that we'll want to tell you all the fun things in person, but one thing we will say - it is crazy to really grasp that although we may not speak the same language, and our way of living is completely different, we have met people that we will one day get to worship with in Heaven. 

 

We'll try and write once more, but don't freak out if we don't.  We are excited to share with you our experiences and are so appreciative of your prayers while we're here. 

 

For His Glory,
The Village Team

The village day 3

Bom Dia!  Sorry for the delay in updating our blog.  It has been such a full few days that we haven't had the time to really sit down and write. 

 

We are on our 4th and last full day of ministry and I feel like we are all in agreement that we don't want to leave.  We have visited a new village every day and even though they are all relatively close together, they each have their own unique 'feel' and demeanor to them.  The first village was probably the most unsure of us, the 2nd one was extremely welcoming, the 3rd was full of excitement, and our 4th is definitely the most interesting.  We are learning so much about their culture and some of the battles that they're dealing with in their community. 

 

It's hard to believe that we are almost done with our trip - I think we are all struggling with the concept that we will be leaving this beautiful place to head back to reality.  None of us will be the same after this trip - we have seen some of the most beautiful faces and have gotten to be a part of God's great calling.  The team has really bonded and new friendships have definitely been formed. 

 

We don't want to get into too many of the details of the trip because we know that we'll want to tell you all the fun things in person, but one thing we will say - it is crazy to really grasp that although we may not speak the same language, and our way of living is completely different, we have met people that we will one day get to worship with in Heaven. 

 

We'll try and write once more, but don't freak out if we don't.  We are excited to share with you our experiences and are so appreciative of your prayers while we're here. 

 

For His Glory,
The Village Team

The village Day 3

Bom Dia!  Sorry for the delay in updating our blog.  It has been such a full few days that we haven't had the time to really sit down and write. 

 

We are on our 4th and last full day of ministry and I feel like we are all in agreement that we don't want to leave.  We have visited a new village every day and even though they are all relatively close together, they each have their own unique 'feel' and demeanor to them.  The first village was probably the most unsure of us, the 2nd one was extremely welcoming, the 3rd was full of excitement, and our 4th is definitely the most interesting.  We are learning so much about their culture and some of the battles that they're dealing with in their community. 

 

It's hard to believe that we are almost done with our trip - I think we are all struggling with the concept that we will be leaving this beautiful place to head back to reality.  None of us will be the same after this trip - we have seen some of the most beautiful faces and have gotten to be a part of God's great calling.  The team has really bonded and new friendships have definitely been formed. 

 

We don't want to get into too many of the details of the trip because we know that we'll want to tell you all the fun things in person, but one thing we will say - it is crazy to really grasp that although we may not speak the same language, and our way of living is completely different, we have met people that we will one day get to worship with in Heaven. 

 

We'll try and write once more, but don't freak out if we don't.  We are excited to share with you our experiences and are so appreciative of your prayers while we're here. 

 

For His Glory,
The Village Team