Happy New Year!

We are starting an exciting adventure this weekend to start off our work in Panama. Cyndi and I plan on going to a small town called Chepo. In Chepo, we will start a 3 week project where LST has never been attempted before. The local church of 40-50, has been advertising our free lessons and we will start sessions next Monday, Lord willing.

We had the opportunity to go to visit the church and the town on Monday. The challenge for us will be that we are only beginners in Spanish, but no one at the church speaks English. I have a feeling that our Spanish is about to get a power boost! Necessity is the best teacher, right? So stay tuned to find out how that works out. Ha!

There are a lot of details that need to be worked out. And Cyndi and I are going to be asked to do some things that we have never done before, so please pray that God will make everything fall into place, as He has done so many times before. We will not have much internet access while we are there, so you may have to be patient with our updates.

This is the great adventure! Happy 2009!

Panama Pictures

During the holiday free time, we have been exploring our new city. If you would like to see some of our pictures, click here.

Feliz Navidad!

Merry Christmas to all of our family and friends! If you've been reading Cyndi's blog, you already know that we are in Panama City, Panama. We had an uneventful flight (Praise God!) and are in the process of settling into our new environment. We have met some people who are very important to us already, Raul and Betty Alvarado. He is a local native minister and they have three beautiful children. They are both from Panama and went to Harding, built a ministry in California for several years before moving back to Panama. They have been back here for around ten years. They have been helping us get settled in and showing us around. This isn't easy when you consider that Christmas is so near. The Alvarados have graciously invited us to spend Christmas with them. So we will get the pleasure of experiencing the holiday in another culture. That will be really welcome, because being by ourselves would be difficult since we won't be with our families this year.

We are living in the Carters apartment while they are home in Florida for the holidays. We were able to meet Lisa before she left. While they are in Florida, we are hoping to find a place of our own. No success so far. Please pray that we will find something close to the university where we will be reading with students. Housing is very expensive here and we also want to find something reasonable so we can stay for nine months, like we agreed.

We have a difficult road ahead of us. We started learning Spanish when we arrived, but have A LOT to learn before we can even take care of our own needs, let alone carry on a conversation. So please pray that we will be quick students. I think a genuine miracle will be required for that one, but I believe God can do amazing things as we have already seen.

After the New Year's holiday, we will be moving out to a small town called Cheppo. There we plan on spending two weeks doing LST work with the people there. We may be staying in the church there. We may be out of internet contact while there, but will surely fill you in on all of the details once our time in Cheppo is through. We look forward to this challenge.

Thank you for your interest in our lives and how God is using us. Thank you so much for all of you who have given us support and prayers. Just reading our blogs is a gift to us. A special thanks to everyone who leaves comments, if it weren't for you, we wouldn't know that anyone was reading our blogs. Thanks to our families for giving us up for one year, we miss you, especially now. Thanks to our friends who have offered to do whatever we need them to do. The time to ask for favors may be near.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year! God bless you!

Another Transition

It seems like transitions are becoming a habit for Cyndi and I. But that doesn't make them any easier. We are preparing to leave Natal on Monday, Dec. 15th and the good-byes have already started. Last night we had a farewell party and most of our readers came to wish us well. Cris and Lacy coordinated a great time for us all to share one last time together. It is really hard to let go of people that we have shared so much of ourselves with. From the first day we all met, our goals were to give of ourselves and share the Word. We all have relationships that do not go much deeper than, "Hi, how ya doin?" "Fine." "How are you?" "Fine." But with LST, we spend at least an hour per week talking and studying together. Needless to say, these relationships can really run deep.

So as we leave Brazil and look to Panama, it's a mixture of emotions for me. We are leaving close friends and traveling to a place that we've never been before to work with people we've never met. It's real easy to reject this idea and want nothing more than to stay here in Natal with the people we know. But I know that God is calling us to Panama and we will meet and grow to love more people. At this point, it is difficult, but trusting God's will and plans is what we set out to do a year ago. I'm reminded of the lesson that I blogged about at the very beginning: I'm not to make plans and ask God to bless them, I'm to let God make my plans and follow. So that's what I am trying to do, even when I don't feel like it.

Our plane leaves Natal on the morning of the 15th and arrives in Panama City later that evening. We are planning on making contact with Lisa Carter, one of the missionaries before she leaves for the holidays in the US. We will stay in the Carter's apartment for the holidays learning as much Spanish as possible. I plan on sending more details once we are settled in. God bless you and please keep us in your prayers.

Thanks and More Thanks

We have had A LOT to be thankful for, here in Natal. On Sunday night, two young men gave their lives to Christ in baptism. Both were involved in the LST program. We are so thankful to announce that Talis and Jefferson are brothers in Christ. What an incredible blessing to see both of them grow in their faith and knowledge of Jesus. Talis had been reading with Lacy Hefley. The first time I saw Jefferson was at our costume party at the end of October. He has been studying with John Jewell since then. You can see pictures of their baptisms by clicking here! (For those of you that receive our newsletter, Talis was the young man that we highlighted in the reader profile of our last newsletter.)


We recently celebrated Thanksgiving by having a party with our LST readers. We had a great group and served a traditional Thanksgiving dinner to all of them. Our LST team, the missionaries and church members alike pitched in to make it all come together. We got to teach our readers about our culture and really share ourselves with them. Cyndi made some great food that wasn't easy to do in a different culture. But it was a wonderful taste of home... especially the pies. We were really encouraged by the success of the party. Last year Cris Carpenter was the lone American trying to do the same thing. Marisa, a local minister's wife, mentioned how last year they were praying and praying for God to help them reach the community. She said that this year, she can see that God answered their prayers in a great way. (You can see pictures of our party at the same link above.)

Cyndi and I are starting to look to the immediate future. In two weeks, we will leave Brazil and travel to Panama City, Panama. It is difficult to imagine the transition that awaits us. It will be excruciating to leave our coworkers, church family and the readers we have come to know so well. It will be especially hard because we are going to a brand new place that we know little about. All we know is that God wants us there. And I guess that should be enough, shouldn't it? He has taken care of us so well that I am constantly amazed at His grace.

I will send more info about Panama in the next few weeks. Until then, rejoice with us as we celebrate two new lives in Christ.
Visit Cyndi's blog to read more about our Thanksgiving.

Good thoughts

Yesterday, I had a reader who was studying the temptation of Jesus with me. We read through the text and went over any English words that he didn't understand. (He learned English by listening to American music and watching American movies. I was really impressed by his ability to speak only by those means.) Then I had him read and answer the questions written in his workbook. He didn't have much trouble there except for some verbs in the past tense. (In music and movies, most of our speech is in the present tense so this can be a problem.)
After the workbook questions, I always ask additional questions that help them answer for themselves what is really going on in the text. We talked about how the devil was tempting Jesus and I asked him, "What do you think about what the devil is doing here to Jesus?" and he replied, "The devil knew the scriptures really, REALLY well!"
I was really hit by the truth to his statement. It wasn't the first time I had heard someone say that, but it is so true! Then my reader said, "I really need to know the scriptures, too!" then I said, "ME, TOO!" If quoting scripture is Jesus' defense against the devil, it sure had better be mine. I need to be in the Bible daily and so often it gets a low priority. Maybe if I spend more time in the Word, I wouldn't fail to temptation so easily sometimes. If I claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, I need to spend time in the Word.
I included some details of how this lesson went so that you could see the format that we use in our reading sessions. I hope you can see that not only do we show our readers Jesus, but they show us some great insight into scripture as well.

Now that's a good question!

Today I had two reading sessions that were very interesting. I'll call my first reader Timothy. Timothy is a very intelligent 18 year-old who has a good grasp of English as well as general knowledge of the Bible. Timothy rarely has problems understanding the message of each lesson so recently I decided to challenge him with harder questions. Because he learns so easily, I thought he would enjoy studying the deeper questions that we usually don't ask our students. Today, we were talking about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and His ultimate choice to be our sacrifice. We also talked about how His disciples reacted to His arrest. What were they thinking? Then I asked him how he would have reacted, if he were one of the disciples.

Timothy said that he would have wondered why Jesus gave Himself over to the Jewish leaders. That lead us to talk about why God wanted Jesus to die. "Why did Jesus have to be the sacrifice?" Now that is a good question. When that question arose, I realized that this discussion would take longer than the time we had and so I said that I wanted him to think about this all week and that we would talk about it next Wednesday. I can't wait until our reading session next week.

Reader #2, I'll call Gideon. Gideon is a 33-year-old family man. He believes in Jesus and struggles with the understanding of what being a Christian looks like in the real world. In an e-mail, he flat out asked me if it was a sin for a cop to kill a man (inside the law) Uhhhh, I don't hear that question everyday. Then today, we were talking about how Jesus would not drink of the cup again until God's kingdom comes. Then he asked, "When will God's kingdom come?" Now that's a good question!

I'm sure you are curious to hear my answers to these questions, but I've found that the best answers come from the Bible and I can only give a simple man's opinion. And what is that compared to the unfathomable wisdom of God's Word.

Parties and Beaches

By my title it may seem like I'm really living it up, but the party I mention was an LST costume party. We invited all of our readers to come to the church in a costume. We asked them not to dress as anything evil and be creative. We had a great turnout! A few of my readers came and we had fun and games. We taught them about the "Trick or Treat" process and showed them how to go to a door and beg for candy by yelling these familiar words. They had a really good time and learned some American culture at the same time. Cyndi went as the woman at the well and I went as a Roman Emporer.
We were really beat after the party and the next day, on our day off, we went to the beach. We relaxed and enjoyed the waves. I've only been to the beach a couple of times so far and really enjoy the beauty of the ocean. I'm so amazed at the power of these relatively calm waves. It was a nice way to rest after the party.
I've loaded more pictures on our Picasa site. Click here to see them. Remember, we don't have daylight savings time, so we will be three hours ahead of Central time and 2 hours ahead of Eastern time starting this Sunday.

"Wisdom"

Isaiah 24:14
"Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."

I have been reminded lately how wonderful it is to see that the gospel's simplicity is so powerful. The world is looking for some great wisdom that has never been heard before that will change the way we think. But the gospel is seen as foolishness to the intelligent. That is where I see the hand of God in it. It is so simple yet so powerful, no man's wisdom could have invented such an idea. I'm thankful that the gospel is for everyone who will believe in it.

At this point in our mission, I'm really enjoying my reading sessions. I feel like I am getting as much out of them as any reader could. Each one is a challenge, but I can see the Spirit working in the Word of God. I've never had so many chances to see that happen. I'm very thankful for that.

My everyday life is good. I haven't felt any significant signs of culture shock, but I attribute that to the 2 month lesson on "flexibility" that we had before we finally arrived here. My blog may mislead you into thinking that I'm doing nothing but work... but that isn't true. We have had a couple of wonderful trips to the beach and I've even been snorkeling! I'm sorry that I don't have any photos, but we have had terrible problems with our camera. I hope to have that remedied so I can post some more on my photo website (see previous entry about pictures).

Please pray for our readers. Also pray for our spiritual and physical well-being. Thank you for being prayer warriors!

Searching for truth

I want to tell you about one of my readers, who will remain anonymous. In our last session, we were talking about the birth of Jesus using the text from Luke. As I was asking him questions about the story, we started talking about the magi. The magi aren't mentioned in Luke, but only in the book of Matthew. This surprised him. He mentioned that he knew all three of their names, Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar. I told him that it was interesting that they had names since their names aren't mentioned and we know so little from scripture. He was really surprised that their names weren't in the Bible. So I suggested that we read the account from Matthew.

After reading about the magi in Matthew, I said that this is all we know form the Bible. He said, "I wonder where the names came from?" I said, "Probably from someone who wanted more details. Many people have added to scripture because it makes them seem important. If I say that I know details about a Bible story that no one else knows, then you might listen to whatever I have to say and see me as wise and important."

In Brazil, children are taught Catholic Christianity in the public schools. I am seeing that there are many things that they are taught that aren't in the BIble. I really look forward to having the opportunity to help them to see for themselves what the Bible really says. I keep telling them that you don't need anyone to tell you what the Bible says, read it yourself! This is a very different concept because so many people in the Catholic church want to tell people what to believe. I'm praying that the Word of God will change their lives... and of course, improve their English at the same time.

Answered Prayers

Good news!! The Brazilian government has granted our request for a visa extension. That means that instead of leaving Brazil next Monday, we will need to leave by December 20th. That gives us three months in Natal!!! Many people have been praying for this and God has answered graciously. We are so thankful because we are really just solidifying our relationships here and want to continue in those relationships.

Let me tell you about just one of those relationships. I am reading with a young man who is reading the "Da Vinci Code" because he is searching for answers. He told me in our first session that he is very curious about religion and has attended the Mormon church before. But he made a point to tell me that he is not decided about religion. I told him that in our reading sessions we will learn about what Jesus says about religion.

I am very excited that we can give him the opportunity to learn the truth about Jesus. I look forward to watching the seed of God's Word take root in his soul. Thank you for all of you who helped us come to Brazil. And we especially thank God for allowing us to remain here for 2 more months. Please continue to pray for our readers.

Workers in the kingdom

I've been really busy this week with reading sessions and work for the BSG (Bible Study Guide), but I found a little time to blog about some wonderful people living for Jesus here in Natal. I'm really happy to get to know the missionaries. I've heard so much about them and how great they are from Cyndi, who came here last year. And now I'm seeing the proof. They help us in so many ways. Since we are handicapped with our Portuguese knowledge, we need help with so many things, they are too many to name.

First, let me mention the Brazilian ministers and their families. Roberto and Marisa Signoretti have been as hospitable as anyone can be. They immediately made us feel like a part of the family here. Osmildo and Marta Braga have been wonderful to us as well. I felt instantly connected to them and their ministry. They are obviously great examples in the church and have a real passion for service. Both families are already dear friends and co-workers. I feel blessed to work with them.

Also there is an American missionary here, John Jewell. He has been studying with readers who are ready to look at committing to Jesus. He is helping bridge the gap between the church and all of us Americans coming and going. He and his family are doing an incredible job in forming the vital link between LST and the church.

Last but not least, Cris Carpenter has done a wonderful job in coordinating the LST situation here. This job is an enormous task, while also keeping a full schedule of readers. In addition to helping us set up schedules and match us with readers, she has helped us with every step in getting settled into our Natal home. This help cannot be overstated. She has blessed us tremendously and God is using her big-time. Without her, our integration into the work would have been extremely difficult. See her blog by clicking here.

Hopefully, this helps you see the people that God is using to make this effort work for Cyndi and I and of course, our teammate, Lacy. God is using His obedient servants.

Pictures

I'm finally getting around to posting pictures on the internet. I'm sure many of you would like to see where we live and some of the people we are working with, etc. Well, I'm using "Picasa" (associated with Google) to post my pictures. So if you want to view my albums, go to the link below.

Click here.

I will load any photos to this site, so you may want to bookmark it to keep up with what's going on. I've been having trouble showing photos here, so there's another reason to bookmark the picasa site.

Transitions

We have been in transition for the last two months. And the last two weeks was a real roller coaster ride. Things are still in transition, but it really feels good to have a place of our own and something of a schedule.

We have a really spacious apartment on the third floor of the church building. Some of the differences that may interest you, are: An electric shower head that heats the water in the head, no air conditioning, right now I'm watching a mule pull the bed of a truck down the street, no clothes dryer, don't through tp into the toilet (you figure it out), no dishwasher (we're already used to that one), no screens on the windows, etc.

Hopefully, that will satisfy your curiosity until we can take photos and put them in the internet. I'll keep you posted as to how to view them.

Cyndi read with 4 readers today and I read with two. It is really great to finally be where we can get to know those that we came to meet. We worked out our schedules today and it looks like we will have a lot of readers! I will have half as many as Cyndi, Lacy, and Cris because I will work for the Bible Study Guide for 20 hours each week.

We are being treated very well by the church. They are very considerate and make sure we have whatever we need. Which is good because it is REALLY hard to buy anything, when you don't speak Portuguese. But we went to the bakery alone today and bought bread, it went well. We just point at what we want and then hold up fingers to show how much we want. Then we look at the cash register to see how much money we owe and pay. They love to smile at us whne they know we don't have a clue. It's a fun day all around.

We are in Natal, Brazil!

We left on Saturday morning for Little Rock airport and arrived in Natal Sunday around 4pm. We had a pretty rough trip because we lost a bag, then missed a flight trying to get the bag. But the airline was good to us and booked a flight soon after. We were on 5 different flights and Cyndi had trouble with motion sickness because of all the ups and downs. We only got a few hours of sleep on our over night flight to Rio de Janeiro so when we arrived in Natal we were really tired.

But we had a wonderful welcome. As soon as we claimed our bags (one was wrapped in plastic because it had been torn up and minus the one that didn't arrive), Lacy, Cris and some wonderful people from the church greeted us with enthusiasm and took all of our luggage for us. When we arrived at the church, we were greeted warmly by all of the missionaries and their families, and members of the church. We were just in time for worship and we decided to join them even though they told us that we didn't have to.

We were then shown the apartment that is on the top floor of the church building. It is spacious and has everything we need. (LST teams stay here whenever they work.) We slept very hard that night. Even with out air conditioning, the breeze is strong and cooling at night. We just leave the windows open and have a fan as well.

I'll tell you more about our settling in, for my next blog. Tchau (chow) = good-bye.

Here we go.

We have had some slight speed bumps since my last post. We thought we had a minimum visa of 90 days, but it turned out to be a maximum of 90 days, minimum of 30 days. So we will only be in Natal, Brazil for 3 months at the most. Brazil's government doesn't like me, I guess. Did some of you call them?!?

So we worked with LST on what we should do. And with A LOT of discussion and prayer, we decided that we will stay in Brazil as long as they will allow us and then go to another site that is also in need. LST works with a church in Panama City that is in real need of workers so we will go to Panama after Brazil. We've learned that getting a visa to Panama is much easier than Brazil, so we will work on getting that approved while in Natal.

We are really happy that we can still serve for a whole year even though it's not where we planned. But this seems to be where God is leading us. We have been praying that God will place roadblocks where He doesn't want us to go... so our plans have kept changing with the roadblocks.

We know that Natal needs us right now (they keep telling us) and from what the missionary in Panama said, they could use us just as much. We will continue to let you know about our plans for Panama, but right now we are really excited about going to Natal.

Our plane leaves Little Rock around noon on Saturday, September 20th. We are scheduled to arrive in Natal the next day on Sunday. Please keep us in your prayers as we travel and as we get settled in. Thank you for praying for us during this long wait. Hopefully, my next blog will be written from Brazil!

Visa Approved!!!

Well, I'm sure you can imagine our relief when we found out that our tourist visas were approved. Brazil is giving us a tourist visa which lasts for 3 months and can be extended 3 more months. LST is looking into our options for staying the full year, like we had originally planned. I will fill you in on that when they tell us.

We are in Pennsylvania visiting my family. My Dad turns 70 today and my Grandma turns 88 tomorrow. Since my job is mobile, I decided to surprise them and drop in. I have been working 40 hours a week throughout all of our travels. It is really nice to be able to visit friends and family more than usual since I can bring my work along (as long as they let us stay in their houses!) But our wandering has reached its end.

LST is trying to get airline tickets for us to travel on Friday, September 12th or maybe the 15th or 16th, depending on what is available. So all next week, we will make our final preparations to leave the country.

It feels good to have a direction again. We have always been confident that God wanted us to leave everything and go, but where, when and for how long? Our answers are coming into place now and we trust that He is in control. All we need to do is obey.

Plan B

We have prayed about our situation and have looked at all our options and have made a decision. After talking with LST, we have decided to apply for a tourist visa to go to Brazil. A tourist visa is for only 3 months, but can be extended with some effort while we're in Brazil. If Brazil accepts us for a tourist visa, then our chances are good to get the extension.

We don't know why we were not accepted for our volunteer visa, we can only trust that God is in control and we will accept whatever happens. LST is working with us very closely to iron out all of the details.

We feel confident that God is in control of everything that has happened. It is wonderful to realize that our lives are in God's hands and that He will take care of us, no matter what. We have been so blessed by the hospitality and spiritual support from friends and family. If we hadn't sold our house, we wouldn't have experienced God's provision through His servants in such an obvious way. And I cannot express how much it means to us that there are so many of you praying for us. It is very humbling.

Visa Denied

We received word that our visa to Brazil has been denied. So we are exploring our options right now. We are staying with friends in Dallas now so that we can talk about these options with LST. We are spending the next couple days in fervent prayer that God will reveal His will to us so that we can act accordingly. Please pray with us so that God will open doors to His will and shut doors that are contrary to His will.

Right now, I feel like Paul when he was kept from preaching in the province of Asia in Acts 16. He saw a vision to lead him to where God wanted. A vision would be nice, but all I need to do is trust God and have faith that He will lead us to where He wants us. God's timing is perfect and mine is almost always ...off.

I will keep you posted on this blog when we know anything a little more concrete. Thank you for praying for us. It means more than you know.

One month later…

It has now been one month since we planned to fly to Brazil. Since then we have slept in about 5 different places. We still don't have our visas, and there is nothing we can do about it. I think that's a good thing though. Whenever a plan doesn't work out, I often try to fix it. In this case, I can't fix it and I think that God may have wanted it that way. Let me explain.

When we decided to see if God wanted us to go to Brazil, we prayed that we would do whatever God wanted us to do, not what we wanted. Doors opened and long story short — we were set to go to Brazil. We tried to be completely open to his will, even by selling our house and one of our cars and two yard sales later, most of our possessions. We set the plan to go to Natal on July 7th. We were ready to leave the country on that date, but no visa. Should we have made it work out by trying to call the Brazilian government and pressure them to give us a visa? What if God didn't want us to go on July 7th? What if He doesn't want us there at all? Could He have something else planned for us? We don't know. Should we pray fervently that He send us there now? I don't know. I'm not God. And I think that I shouldn't try to be. I believe that in search of God's will, we should always question our own plans and ask God to bless our plans that fit into His will and block our plans that don't fit His will.

So since we are waiting on God, we are finding blessings in waiting. We were able to go to Cyndi's family reunion in Oklahoma last weekend. She has never missed a single reunion since her birth and she was willing to sacrifice that to go to Brazil. But we were able to attend and it was such a blessing to us both.

I am still working full-time from wherever we are and we live out of a suitcase. Please pray for us as we seek patience. Our mission doesn't start when we arrive in Brazil, it started months ago when we decided to seek God's will. So please pray for our mission as it is right now. We can always use encouragement.

Waiting…

Well, we are still in the ol' USA even though we planned to leave July 7th. LST has assured us that they are doing everything possible to get our visas to us. We still don't know why we are delayed. I've been learning that my plan is not important, but God decides when things should happen. When we started the process to go to Natal, we asked God that we would follow His will, not our own. I believe that He is teaching me that even when I think that I am laying out a plan for Him, I may be laying out MY plan and just expecting God to approve my plan and go along with it and bless me.

Cyndi and I are living out in the country with her mom and dad, Mary and Earl and brother, Tristan. There's plenty of room and I am still doing Bible Study Guide work full-time. The dining room table is my desk! Quite a change for me. I've always worked in an office and am learning to adjust to working at home. It's going really well and I am glad I can work full-time, while we wait to leave for Brazil.

Please pray for our visa to come exactly when God wants it to come and pray that God will help us to be patient.

Preparation

Cyndi and I are completing the fund raising for our trip to Natal. We are now tackling to huge list of things one would have to do before leaving the country for a year. Every day we try to accomplish at least one item on our list.
We're getting really excited and ready to start a new chapter in our lives. I hope you enjoy our adventure as well.

Coming out of the ice cave...

Here, I embark on a journey of a virtual kind... blogging.