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.