Brazil in Africa?

Cape Verde is a Portuguese speaking island nation 240 miles off the west Coast of Africa; Praia is its capital. It appears to have only one Baptist Church and one congregation. I was quite surprised. The opportunities for ministry here, in other cities and on other islands is amazing.

Don Callan traveled with us to help give a board perspective to the survey. Izaias, beside him, is sent with the new MMM mission from Fortaleza, Brazil and has made many contacts in his first three months in the country. ABWE plans to send missionary couples to partner with the Brazilians in Cape Verde in church planting and pastoral training.

The people in the country are some of the friendliest and most helpful I have been around. They also appear open to the gospel. The Caboverdians also are both a jumping off point for much of the rest of Africa and a mobile people themselves.

Carlos Heron, a Brazilian dentist, also went with us, but added more time in Senegal and the Gambia, as his focus is to join ABWE missionaries there in reaching the Wolof people.

We were able to have a day of wrap up together with the whole survey team, which included Ron Washer, ABWE administrator for Africa, and Jenuan Lira, president of MMM.

Amazonas Brazil -- October 2008

Ev and I are still in Brazil but wanted to send you some pictures from our time along the Amazon. If you use google earth or some other means you can see where the towns of São Paulo de Olivença, Tonantins, Santo António do Içá, and Benjamin Constant are. If you rather I just tell you these are towns along the Alto Solimões River (Amazon River) that are upriver in Brazil nearly to Peru and Colombia, you'll probably get as much knowledge as necessary to look at these pictures.

But before we give you too much info let me share a little beauty. Since missionaries are not supposed to show pictures of sunsets at the end of slide presentations anymore, I thought I'd do so here so you can see what most nights on the Camatiã River look like, just out of São Paulo de Olivença.

We can't cover everthing from the last two weeks, but we did have a great field council meeting in Santo António do Içá. While there are a lot of great things about living in a part of a continent that the whole world wants to preserve, it does take a lot of time just to live due to distances and travel limitations. However, in spite of that our missionaries are moving forward in the various minsitries of church planting and training Brazilian and Ticuna leadership.

The missionary kids enjoy life there too.

Staff of the Hospital at SAI. One of the greatest ministries is being commissioned to do all the pre-natal care for the area which gives us tremendous contact with nearly all the families in that town and many other villages up and down the river.

John and Sylvia Kallin, recently retired after 40 years of ministry with ABWE along the Amazon River, were honored by the missionaries present.




The Christian school at Benjamin Constant used our day camp facilities for a special outing. Later this month the church there will celebrate 50 years of existence.




Islandia, Peru is a city on stilts. Nearly 3,000 inhabitants now live on the border of the Amazon river, complete with two story concrete built city hall -- on concrete pillars -- and a new running water system -- not speaking of the river that floods the town for half of the year! The church in Benjamin has a new congregation started there as one of the several outreaches in surrounding villages.

No, it's not a bus -- it's an 8 hour boat ride. So much for purchasing reserved seat tickets ahead of time!

Detour through China?

Part of the group that met in the apartment of the leader of the Chinese Fellowship on the campus of Colorado State University. It was refreshing to be with this vibrant group for an evening and share "The Story of Hope" -- the "big picture" of God's plan of redemption for mankind. Thirteen of those attending were not Christians and all but one of those desired to know more about Christianity.

Mark and Nancy Nelson work with the Chinese Fellowship and arranged for the meeting for Ev and me. After the meeting I wanted to see where they were from in China via the internet (but, alas, I couldn't log on).

Thankful

Dave and Ev were honored with the Bomm Award July 16, 2008 for 35 years of missionary service with ABWE.

Amy Miller, our newest missionary, will be ministering in South Brazil.

Michigan "working vacation"

In Muskegon we visited Christy's family and delivered the table I made for her. It was her Christmas present... from 2005, but better late than never, heh?

We were also able to celebrate Sarah's birthday with Randy's family and Christy's family. That's a rare opportunity when your kids live overseas.

Four Churches

Tuesday night Bible study and prayer time May 20 in new church plant in Itapecerica da Serra, a suburb of the mega-city of São Paulo.

Sunday morning gathering in new work in Porto Alegre from new church plant that began last year.

Mother's Day presentation by "younger ones" at the growing church plant in Feitoria, São Leopoldo near Porto Alegre.

Sunday May 18 p.m. celebration service for the official organizaton of The Baptist Church of the Bible in Campo Grande, MS

May in Brazil

Renovatus was the title for university week at Camp Paradise outside of Recife. That long holiday weekend five students became followers of Jesus.

We visited a class at Bahia Bible College on the Life of Christ with 8 students and enjoyed seeing what God was doing in two different churches.

In Porto Alegre we visited two more churches, met with all the families on one of our largest field teams and celebrated the end of a successful first term for Barron and Heidi Geiger.

While in São Paulo we visited the home of one of the "youth" from our days as church planters in São Bernardo do Campo. Marcia continues faithful to the Lord and in a deaf ministry at her church.