Pioneers Brazil Meeting

We had a great time at the meeting with Pioneers Brazil in Recife, northern Brazil in their new candidate orientation weekend program. It was great to get to know the new board and fellow missionaries, of course not all were there as they are in other countries. We got to get some great insight as to our new role as mobilizers for Pioneers Brazil.

Adjusting well.

 After two months back at Victoria Ministries we are finaly settling down, sort of. We are happy to be back and get to live in the traincar we used to live in. Of course we do not fit in the traincar any more so it will only be used as our kitchen, living-room and dinning-room. For sleeping we will use on suite that is already built and another one will be being built for the boys. For now they are sleeping in a tent and just loving it.

 Inside the traincar Telma, Max and Mark.

The boys tent and our bedroom.

 Karina has tagged along with us and is helping a lot at Camp!

We have a short term missionary from Australia named Alex. He is doing an awesome job helping in the various tasks around Camp. Here you can see him painting the new tool room!

AT Jequitinhonha Valley we talk regularly to Pastor Ronaldo and the Bible study groups continue to grow! Praise the Lord!!! We will be visiting them in June.

Move to Victoria Ministries.

The past months have been filled with some important decisions. Last May we received an invitation from Victoria Ministries (Camp Victoria is part of this Ministry) to serve as Executive Director for that organization. After going over the details of this ministry position we told the board we would give them an answer in December. Well, after much prayer, getting council from some close friends and some answers to the prayers, we decided to accept this invitation to serve as Executive Director. As a friend said, “The harvest is indeed plentiful and the workers are few and many times the Lord of the harvest has to send his
workers to others fields where the need is greater at that time.” This will happen gradually in the first quarter of this year. We are currently working out the details of our new responsibilities with Pioneers Brazil and Victoria Ministries and will hopefully have more information by the next prayer letter. Support can
continue to be sent to Pioneers Mission.

One of the main issues we put before the Lord for us to accept this invitation was that God would send a pastor to take over the Bible study groups and take them to the next level as they take more shape as churches. We felt that this was a difficult request, since we have been looking for a person like this for 

the past year, yet God made it happen. The name of the Pastor that will be taking over the ministry here is Ronaldo. His wife’s name is Edilene and they have 4 kids (Fabiana 13 (adopted), Bernardo 7, Lorenzo 4 and Manuela 10 months old).

We already knew them as they serve as missionaries in the town of Virgem 

da Lapa, yet we never imagined they had a desire to also serve in rural church planting. He currently works as a night watchman at a local supermarket and is the pastor in a small non-denominational church in town. We are working at raising support for him so that he can serve with his family full time. If you wish 

to send support for Pastor Ronaldo you can send it to our account in Pioneers, yet be sure to send us an email telling us the amount you sent in. 

 

For us this decision to leave after three and a half years in this area was not easy, yet we really feel convicted that this is the path to take. “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.” (1 Corinthians 3:6) We hope we planted the seed well and that Pastor Ronaldo waters it accordingly for we know that God will do His part.