God Used His Power and Showed His Love...

Hello family and friends!!!!

What an amazing day God gave us!!! We woke up and spent time in prayer and song as a team. Then once again had an amazing breakfast with Phil, Rita and family. We originally planned to spend the entire day at the church working on boxes and the cabinets but God had other plans. And as always, his was perfect and he was glorified throughout the day.

Phil talked to his friend Ridley Rupert at breakfast and it was decided that we would go as a team and visit Ridley at his shop. He makes his own small airplanes. We took a tour and then prayed in one of the rooms for Ridley's safe travel to the states and that God blesses his shop.

Phil and Ridley at his shop.

Again, we thought we were on our way back to the church but we stopped at the home of Genivaldo and Antonia. The entire family makes statues out of river mud. That is their family business. The entire family works very hard morning to night to do this work. The children also help by painting the statues when they are not at school. Antonia is going on a short term missions trip with Phil's church in September. It cost her about $100 to go. Each statue, which takes a few hours to form and then fire, is sold for about $1.00 each. This had to be done over months and after finishing, she gave back her hard earned earnings to have a chance to teach the gospel to others in her country. It is extremely humbling to see a family who has very little give so much. They gave us a few statues as gifts and also gave us soda to drink.

Genivaldo and his finished work.

God's love was so apparent from these wonderful Christian brothers and sisters. What a blessing from God for us to be able to be a part of this visit. Can't wait to see them at church on Sunday and give them a big hug! After that Phil drove us by the 2 churches that Lou and Fay started many years ago.

After we returned to the house, we had lunch and then we all headed to the church for a few hours to work. Barry and Jim worked very hard on the cabinets and the project is coming along very nicely. Betty, Charlotte, Joe, Mike and I continued on cleaning and re-packing boxes. Many people came to help in the afternoon and it was a great time of work and fellowship. As we left at 5pm others stayed to continue on the boxes. The zeal of the Brazilian people to serve God is just unbelievable!

We all cleaned up and headed to a small village on the outskirts of Caruaru around 7:30pm for a tea and bbq. We got there and over the next 1/2 an hour over 45 ladies and 40 guys came, along with about 20 children. Betty and Charlotte ran a wonderful tea and I was blessed to be able to play my violin with them for special music. They passed out the hand made napkins and gave their testimonies. It was a big hit.

Betty passing out napkins at the tea.

Us guys all witnessed how great and powerful our God is with this BBQ. We all came without our bibles, as told, because it was going to be too dark to read. We all also came with a vision of what we were going to say if asked to speak. We started off with a short lesson from the pastor of the church and then worship through song. I again was blessed to be able to lead a couple of songs with the group and share my views of the meaning of the songs. Then each one of us got up and spoke.

Jim sharing his testimony and Phil translating.

Each one of us talked about something completely different than what we thought we were going to share. All messages led to salvation. After we concluded Phil gave an alter call and 3 young men accepted Christ to be their Lord and Savior!! Praise God!!! Leandro (18), Emiardo (12) and Jose (6) came forward and proclaimed him!

Leandro, our new brother in Christ!

Afterward all 5 of us were just in awe of God's power and through conversation found out that we all unexpectedly spoke of things different then what we thought we were going to. Be of good cheer, in the middle of nowhere, in a different country, God used his power and showed his love and now we have 3 more we will see in heaven. We are all fired up for Christ! We then fellowshipped with the men and ate some great bbq. We got home around 10:30pm and now at around 11:30 people are slowly fading to bed.

Thank you so much for your support in this Christ honoring, Christ glorified mission that you have sent us on.

We all look forward to Rita's birthday tomorrow and other things that God has planned for us!

Good night and God Bless!
Ron