Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - Hope Baptist January Update
Sunday night we had a good crowd out to Hope, it was encouraging that we had five first time visitors.
This past week Tim Moody (ABWE São Paulo) called me and made my whole week! He runs mission trips with Brazilian believers from his churches in São Paulo. He offered to come up here to Belo with a group of 20 – 30 Brazilian young people, trained in evangelism, to help train our young people and lead them in two weeks of survey evangelism in our neighborhood. We still have to work out the details but we are planning to do this during the mid-July winter break.
My youth group is excited about it. This week I got into a conversation with two guys at a local building supply shop in the neighborhood. I asked them about what type of church we need there in Santa Amelia. They were enthusiastic, “Pastor, there are so many young people in this area with nothing to do other than party; their lives are just being wasted.” The median age of the Brazilian population is only 24 years old. I think that statistic holds true for the median age of the congregation at Hope Baptist as well.
We had a good visit with Dave and Ev Southwell. It was a few days of heavy conversations about our future here in Belo, our financial situation, Patty’s health, and the fact that we have no co-workers. I know many of you have been praying about these situations and we are confident that the Lord is going to work them all out in His timing. Dave said we could evaluate all of these things in one year and see where we are.
Another positive development this week was that I got in contact with a group of Americans working here in Belo with Campus Outreach. They are involved with evangelism and discipleship of college students at the Federal University and they are also doing a team church plant across town. It is nice to know that we are not “alone” here in Belo. They want to meet us sometime, so please pray for this as well.
We are really looking forward to this year and are excited about the direction the Lord is moving things already. I finished our Sunday School unit on personal evangelism and now I’m starting Romans 1 – 8. On Wednesday nights we are going to study the personality of Jesus. I fear sometimes that we aren’t excited about the Gospel in our own lives because we don’t understand the impact it had and we have no idea of who Jesus is. It is impossible to have a personal relationship with a list of doctrinal points about the second person of the Godhead. Sometimes I think we only know Him from reading His resumé rather than interacting with the real person.
On the 26th we will be traveling to the ABWE All-Brazil conference down south. We are looking forward to this as a much needed break from the routine tyranny of the urgent here in Belo. They have lots of meetings scheduled for us but rumor has it there will be some free time as well. The hotel is up in the mountains, so I’m looking forward to that.
Please keep us in your prayer. Sometime it all seems a bit overwhelming but we serve and all-powerful God.
By His Grace,
Dave, Patty, Erin, Karina, and Daniel Luke McIntyre
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