As we sit here in southern California and think about Christmas I was overjoyed to receive an email from Phil and Rita Warkentien. As a member of the Brazil Team, I was lucky enough to work on cleaning and restoration of the Operation Christmas Child boxes that Phil refers to in his email (included below). It is an overwhelming blessing to find that now some months later they are still being used in presenting the Good news to people in Brazil.

As we stop and focus on the birth of our Savior and what he means to us, let us all give thanks for the missionaries. Phil and Rita are still working in Brazil, living and loving the people there in the name of Jesus Christ.

Please think of them, pray for them and support them if you can.

God bless you all,

Mike

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Email from Phil and Rita Warkentien

Dear Partners with Us in Missions:
December 21, 2009

Following is an update on how we are doing the distributions for Operation Christmas Child:

We gave shoe boxes Friday at the 3rd Presbyterian Church in Caruaru. They had 70 kids there and the majority of them were not Christians who come regularly to the Church for a project that the Church offers. By God's Grace 60 kids prayed receiving Christ.

On Wednesday we had 12 decisions at the CASEM - Youth Prison where Severino, a man from our church, works. 12 of the 14 kids there prayed receiving Christ after Phil shared the Gospel.

On Sunday we had 4 decisions in Church.

Last week we went to Bonito and gave boxes there as well. The Mayor of Bonito came and was with us throughout the complete program. 250 kids came and over 150 prayed receiving Christ.

Today we gave boxes at a Public School here in Caruaru that has a special program in the afternoon for extremely needy children. The parents of many of these kids are in prison and the Government started this program to get these kids out of the streets. 239 kids came and by Gods Grace 61 girls, 58 boys and 14 adults prayed receiving Christ as Savior.

This evening we went to a Ministry called “Palavra que Cura” and shared the Good News of Jesus Christ and gave Samaritan’s Shoeboxes their as well and 51 kids prayed to receive Christ.

Please do cover us in your prayers as tomorrow will have a long day giving shoeboxes, we go back to the city of Bonito to minister to another 400 plus kids that don’t know Christ as Lord and Savior and to a town by the name of Barra de Guabiraba about 8 kilometers from Bonito. This is an hour’s drive from Caruaru. They are expecting us to share to 2,000 kids.

Please pray that as Phil shares the Gospel we can see many more come to a saving knowledge of the Lord and that the local Churches in those cities will take on the responsibility to disciple these kids.

On Wednesday we will be celebrating our Christmas Banquet and 138 people have signed up to come. This is the largest group we have ever signed to come to one of our Banquets and knowing that many here only let you know they are coming on the last moment, so we have to prepare for around 150 people. Please do pray with us that it will all work out and be a blessing for those inviting their unsaved relatives.

Manoelita and Marina are planning to spend Christmas with Grandpa and Grandma Warkentien in Wichita, Ks and Philip II is coming from Recife to celebrate with us here in Caruaru. They have all passed their tests in College and we enjoying their deserved vacation, are proud parents for them being so dedicated to their Studies and most of all dedicated to the Lord.

As you can see we have a full agenda this week and next with Church activities, distributions, etc. Please have people pray for us.

P. S. Thanks for your prayerful support at this busy time of year! We pray you have a wonderful Christmas full of the presence of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Love in Christ,
Phil and Rita Warkentien

From Phil Warkentien and his team in Brazil...

It is Monday night and we just walked in the door and I decided to check my mail before taking a shower and going to bed.

We had a blessed trip, we left on Friday (9/4) at 10:30 pm and got there for breakfast on Saturday and went straight to work. We got back at 11:00 pm tonight, Monday (9/7).

We had 48 people in the bus, plus 5 that went in Doctor Fatima's car. We shared the gospel in three cities: on the streets, at homes, at a funeral service, at an open door meeting and at three schools. We were giving out tracks, doing personal evangelism, spending time with Doctor Fatima's relatives, and giving out shoe boxes. We took love baskets of food for 150 families, plus many child evangelism tools, etc.... We went from the place we stayed to the cities on the back of a truck as the roads there are too bad for a bus to drive.

Please thank everyone that prayed for us and gave, God truly answered your prayers with safety and fruit for His Kingdom.

The total decisions for Christ: 431. Two of the cities we went to have no Churches and it was obvious to see that the people were truly hungry for the Word of God, they sat quietly as Phil shared The Gospel and the first night 168 adults gave their lives to Christ. The children were with Marcelo and as he shared the Gospel to those children. 70 kids also prayed, receiving Christ in their hearts, During the day as we were inviting the people to come to our evening service 15 more people gave their lives to Christ during a house to house visitation. One of Doctor Fatima's Uncles stated that he wants to donate a piece of property he has for us to build a Church there. The name of this city was Boa Esperança, please cover them in your prayers.

Yesterday Phil was asked to visit a family that was mourning the loss of their mother. As Phil shared the Gospel the people were so attentive and the Word of God found good soil on their hearts and 50 people prayed receiving Christ. Then we went to another city with no Churches and we did the same...gave tracks on the streets, house to house visitations and we invited everyone to come to the public school were we donated hundreds of school books for the city to open their first library for the children there to have quality books to study. Phil shared the Word of God and 30 prayed receiving Christ among adults and children. And to finish our task we went to Vierópolis the third town, this city has one Assembly of God Church and they joined us for the evening Service in the Gymnasium and Phil shared the Word for the adults and Marcelo to the kids. 68 kids received Christ with Marcelo and 31 adults with Phil.

Last night before the evening service Rita and two other ladies went to a house as they herd that a lady wanted to become a Christian and her family was not going to permit her to do so. Rita was able to share the Good News of the Gospel and challenged her to give her heart to Christ as Lord and Savior and trust Him to change her families heart and she said she would do that.

We know that the number of decisions can be even larger than the number we gave you as God truly was using our team to share in a much needy place for the Gospel. Many of the people we talked to had many questions about the Bible as they had been hearing some Christian programs on the Radio and this has opened their desire to know about the Lord.

We also were able to take on our Mission trip hundreds of Bibles that were given to the people in those three cities.

We had a great team that went with us and everyone was crucial for the enormous results, as each one helped get things ready for each service, helped by visiting the people, sharing Christ, leading music, performing skits, working with the sound, helping to give out shoe boxes, taking pictures, helping to clean up afterward, etc... We can truly say Missions is team work and we could not do it without you folks. We know God is at work in their hearts and this was our Churches second trip to that area and now we know there is a enormous need to have a Pastor or a Missionary come and hold Bible studies for those people on a regular basis. The logistics are challenging as it's 500 km each way for us to get there and back and a good longs day travel in the rough terrain we traveled through.

Please pray with us that God will raise someone to embrace this urgent need.

Thanks,
Philip and Rita Warkentien

52 people went with us from Caruaru on this Missionary Trip, another 10 came on their own to help.

Houses in Boa Esperança

Doctor Fatima's Relatives we visited.

Kids in Boa Esperança

Boa Esperança

Streets in Boa Esperança

Evening Service at Boa Esperança

Boa Esperança

Phil sharing The Message - Boa Esperança

Boa Esperança

Boa Esperança

Receiving Christ!

Marcelo sharing with the Children

Rita Sharing a Gospel Tract

Operation Christmas Child

Operation Christmas Child

OCC - Boa Esperança

OCC - Boa Esperança

OCC - Boa Esperança

OCC - Boa Esperança

Phil with part of our team and Espedito, a relative of Doctor Fatima, that offered to donate a property if we want to build a Church in Boa Esperança (Espedito is the 3rd person from the left to right)

Rita, Doctor Fatima in the back, with Espedito's wife and Vera, Netos wife

Phil sharing at Cachoeiras, where we donated books for them to open a Library for the Children

Philip and Marquinhos with Quinzinho the Puppet

at Cachoeiras

OCC - Cachoeiras

OCC - Cachoeiras

Phil & Rita, Mirela, Rodrigo, Luciene

Phil and Rita with a young Pastor and his wife that came from the
State of Ceara just to see what God was going to do on our trip.

Having fun with our team

Having fun with our team as we all worked hard together, we also played hard together

Evening Service at Vierópolis