| ~As Good As It Gets~ |
Thanks for Visiting the Blog!Here at our blog you can stop in to see what we are up to and learn about our mission to The purpose of our blog isn't just to keep our supporters informed of what we are up to but to also allow you to get to know us as a family. The years (good and bad) we have spent in missions here in Brazil, Patty growing up here, our two year short term from 90 -92 and our time as full-time church planters since 1999 have shaped us into the family that we are. As I say often, the Christian life is not a life without problems, it is a life with solutions. We are dedicated the fact that Jesus Christ is the solution to the problems of mankind. There is no human pain that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control will not fix. That is the essence of who Jesus is and that is what he offers to bring into your life. We view this blog as part of our ministry to point you to Him. Prayer Requests 1. Missionary Co-workers - We don't have any! We have been "alone" in 2. Our 2009 Meeting Schedule - Our meeting schedule is currently booked through December 14th! We want to fill our 2009 schedule with new churches that might be interested in our ministry to Belo Horizonte. Please pray for a full schedule! 3. Our Support Level - We are currently under-supported due to the fall of the US dollar. This year we are praying to return with full support. Many people have asked us about giving online, you can do that through PayPal at ABWE by following this link - Donate Online. 4. Reorganization of
You could also help by forwarding this blog address to friends in other churches who might be interested in our ministry. By His Grace, 11:19 - Friday, October 24, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentOur New Prayer CardsOur new prayer cards have been delivered. We are very happy with the way they turned out. It has been some time since we have had a new one so if anyone would like to have one there are several ways to acquire your very own.#1. You can check our meeting schedule here on the blog and come to hear us speak at any of our meetings. We would love to meet you! #2. You can talk your pastor or missions committee into scheduling a meeting with us. Our goal this year is to present our mission to Belo Horizonte in as many new churches as possible. #3. You can send me an e-mail and I will gladly mail you one. dmcintyre@abwe.cc  The verse on the front is Ephesians 4:12, we have taken that as our marching orders for our work in Belo. It is our job as missionaries to plant and build up churches that will do the work of the ministry.  The photo on the back of the card is one that I took a week before we left Brazil for Pennsylvania. I was camping alone trying to clear my head for a busy week to come. Patty was doing the same at a small hotel in Ouro Preto. I hiked up to a ridge at sundown to get a cell phone signal and give her a call. While we were on the phone I asked her if she was anywhere she could see the sunset. She said, "I'm looking at it right now, it's beautiful". This tree and I go way back.  The first time Erin and I did a dayhike I didn't know the area at all. We spotted this lone tree on a rocky ridge and decided to make it the objective of our hike. We went straight at it and ended up climbing some pretty rocky places to get up there. I now know you just have to walk around and approach it from a different angle to get there much easier. In a way this tree has come to represent the church in Brazil to me; thriving in a difficult place, surrounded by hardship, toughing it out, and the direct route to it is always the hardest.  Like the Church it is beautiful even though, well, twisted out of shape. It happens to be a Candeia tree. The wood of the Candeia burns very brightly, especially after it has been broken. That's why it is on our prayer card. Mac PS - We ordered our cards from Digi Tech Studio. Thanks to Luke Neuman who worked on me with the design and made all the changes I asked for in a timely manner. 10:49 - Friday, October 24, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentRecession's GiftRecessions GiftThis morning I found an interesting article by Arthur C. Brooks, Recessions gift, you can find it in the link above. It does give some encouraging news to those of us who are trying to raise support. From the article... "The good news is that evidence shows that many millions of Americans do not treat charitable giving as an expendable luxury. These are religious folks, the third of Americans who attend their house of worship every week or more. According to the 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey of 30,000 American families, a 10% decrease in income leads to almost exactly a 10% decrease in giving. In other words, a recession hurts, but it doesn't do disproportionate harm to the charity of the average religious American." I have found it encouraging to visit our supporting churches and find them looking to God rather than Dow for their future. At a time when nearly all missionaries are reporting to their churches that they are under-supported it is essential to focus on who is in control. Look above the uncertain times to the certain promises we have from God. This meltdown on Wall Street didn't take Him by surprise and biblical living is both the antidote and the cure. Mac 10:27 - Friday, October 24, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentNew Family PhotoHere is the photo we are using for our new prayer cards. The cards are ordered already and we are awaiting delivery. I'll send out cards to the churches we have already visited when they arrive. Karina Erin Patricia Dave Daniel 09:10 - Friday, October 17, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentOur Fall Meeting ScheduleI am positive that many of you have been praying for our fall meeting schedule. We are now fully booked with meetings through December 14th! Here is our schedule. We would greatly appreciate it if you would keep us in prayer not only for these speaking engagements but also to fill out the rest of the year with meetings. Fall 2008 Meeting Schedule Sep 27 & 28 Grace Independent Baptist of New Berlinville PA Oct 4 & 5 Independent Bible Church of Sand Beach, Hummelstown PA Oct 8 AM Quakertown Christian School Missions Fair Oct 11 & 12 Grace Baptist Church of Muncy PA Oct 19 Living Stone Baptist Church Quakertown PA Oct 20 – 22 First Baptist Church of Perkasie Pastor’s Conference Oct 25 GIBC New Berlinville PA Harvest Festival Oct 26 Faith Baptist Church Phoenixville PA Nov 2 First Baptist Church Perkasie PA AM Services Nov 6 Small group Bible Study - Perkasie PA Nov 9 Highland Baptist Church Parkesburg PA Nov 13 Small group Bible Study - Perkasie PA Nov 16 Bethel Baptist Church Cherry Hill NJ Nov 23 Westkill Baptist Church, Westkill NY Nov 30 Open Bible Baptist Church Reading PA Dec 7 Independent Baptist Church Towanda PA Dec 14 First Baptist Church Newburgh NY Jan 23 – 25 First Baptist Church of Perkasie Missions Conference Right now our schedule for 2009 is wide open. If you would like to schedule a meeting with us please contact us via e-mail – dmcintyre@abwe.cc as soon as possible. Expecting great things of Him, Dave McIntyre 09:47 - Friday, October 3, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentA walk in the woods (by Erin)Remember, Lord, when my dad would take me in the woods for those long walks? Do you remember, Lord, how I would feel if I couldn’t see him any more? My dad never left me alone in those woods; I simply was too slow to keep up with him! Lord, you take me on long walks in the woods. When I can’t see you, you know how I feel! Lord, you never leave me alone in the woods! Even though I am going in the right direction, don’t let me slow down! In the woods, Lord, there are slippery rocks… In the woods, there are snakes… In the woods, Lord, there are paths that lead to destruction… All these things make me afraid… If I stumble on the rocks, you, Lord, pick me up; If the snake comes to bite me, you kill it; If I go down the wrong path, you find me and bring me back again! Many things scare me in the woods, but you are here and every thing will be alright! Take me on long walks in the woods!
08:25 - Monday, September 1, 2008 - comments {1} - post commentA Rare OpportunityLast week as we were winding things down at the public school one of the kids from PEPE came up to me with a girl, Glacie, who he had been talking to.Glacie told me that she has a team of 22 girls that want to play soccer but they have no place to play. They have tried renting space in a local court but since the girls in the team are all from low income families they many of them can’t participate. The local school won’t let kids from other schools come in to play. She asked, “Pastor Mac, is there any way you can help us with this? Nobody supports us because nobody is interested in girls soccer, nobody cares about girls.” Understand, Glacie is a sweet kid but she is a product of this neighborhood, she looks hard as nails, but she had tears in her eyes when she finished talking. I told her, “Glacie, we have space to play over at the “Pastor Mac, we really need this. That would be just fine with us.” The next day she showed up at the afternoon event with most of her team. I have put the word out that we need one or two women form our local churches to work with them on Saturday mornings. I put her in contact with Alberto, one of our seminary students to try to recruit a leader or two for them. Please make this a matter of urgent prayer that God would call a few of our women to take them on as a ministry. It is a rare thing that something like this just falls out of the sky.
11:31 - Thursday, July 24, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentErinI am very happy to report that This week she jumped into the Pepe program with both feet and has seen some amazing results. The other day I was at the Cora Coralina public school where she was working with the kids from Pepe. I noticed that she was sitting with a kid on the steps so I snapped a picture of her. I later asked how things went and she said he had received Christ.
A few days later she and another kid from Pepe visited him at home and his mother received Christ as well. That Sunday they were at the Copacabana church. Pray for Luiz Fernando and his mother. These are only two examples from a very fruitful week for
10:11 - Thursday, July 24, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentPEPE - For Him and By HimI have to admit that with all we have had going on in the last few weeks and preparing to leave for a year that I had been more than a little apprehensive that we were planning to host a group of over fifty young people for two weeks of intensive evangelism here in the neighborhood. This entire experience has shown me yet again that the battle is the Lord’s.
The Pepe group is composed of young people from many different Baptist churches in The basic strategy is to team up kids from Pepe with kids from the local churches and send them out in small groups assigned to certain streets in the morning to do door to door evangelism and invite kids to the various events in the afternoons. One group of kids stays behind at the The groups going out have found people very receptive to the survey they are conducting.
In the afternoons there are two main events every day. For the younger kids we have a program that we are running in two of our local public schools. The schools were gracious enough to open their doors and give us full use of their facilites, gym space, classrooms, everything.
These meetings have been very well attended by the kids and there is even a separate activity for the mothers and older sisters that come along.
For the older kids we have been running sports events at the
The entire time that the sports activity is taking place there is a group of young people up on the rooftop patio of the
I don’t have the statistics for the second week yet but in the first week the teams had made over 250 home visits, over 100 families have requested a follow-up visit and over 60 people had received Christ as Savior. All of this data has been collected and presented to the Copacabana church for follow-up. There is not a single verse in the New Testament that tells anyone out there in the world to go to church. The Words states emphatically that the Church is to go out into the World with the message of the gospel. The Lord has blessed this effort beyond our wildest expectations. I think Paul said it best, “And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.” 10:01 - Thursday, July 24, 2008 - comments {1} - post commentCar AccidentLast night Patty and Erin went to the mall. On the way back Patty dropped Last week I sold my car as it had developed a crack it the chassis and if it got any worse it would not sell. So right now we are without a car and I have more to do than can get done. The mission has decided to sell the camp property. With the fall of the dollar and the loss of our other personnel here in Belo it is just too much to manage. Over the past two years I have tried everything I could to keep it up and running but it’s just too much. Last Monday I hired a truck to move the kitchen facilities and 44 of our mattresses to the In two weeks we will be hosting a group of about 50 people at the Tarik, who had been living at the You can see, we really need some prayer right now. We trust the Lord still knows what He is doing and know this will work out for His glory. We are thankful that Patty wasn’t seriously injured in the accident. On the bright side, we don’t have to sell her car so I can scratch that of the list of things to do. Please keep us in prayer this week. By His Grace, Dave, Patty, Erin, Karina, and Daniel Luke McIntyre 10:12 - Friday, July 4, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentHope Baptist UpdateThere has been a lot going on these last few weeks. Today is the first day I’ve had time to catch my breath so I figure I’d better post some things to the blog before things get crazier than they are. My father died on May 9th. He had been struggling with Alzheimer’s for the past few years. It is hard to say that my dad lost his fight with Alzheimer’s. The disease wasn’t delaying the inevitable but rather delaying the glorious. My father knew the Lord. While it is sad to say goodbye, we have been saying goodbye for a long time. Our plans were to go home on the 12th but we discovered that Daniel’s passport had expired. Sunday night after church he and I took a night flight to We arrived home on Wednesday evening. The memorial service was on Saturday morning at Concord Liberty Presbyterian Church. The service was well attended; my parents’ pastor preached a solid gospel message. It was good to see my mom and brothers. My younger brother Carl’s boys are both talking now so it was fun to see the cousins all together. We were able to borrow the Jeep and stop in to see the folks at First Baptist of Perkasie. It was good to hear they have our housing arraignments all sorted out for when we come home in August. We arrived back home a day late (see The Unexpected) and had to hit it running. I had to pick up Tim Moody (ABWE São Paulo) and Thiago, one of his seminary students at the airport around
Tim Moody at Hope Due to the small size of Hope Baptist we have joined forces with Copacabana Regular Baptist Church nearby for this effort. Friday we spent driving around the area to give them a feel for the type of neighborhoods they will be working in. Saturday night we held a joint training seminar for the two churches taught by Tim and Thiago over at the Monday afternoon we visited two public schools near the two churches and both of them opened their doors allowing us to use their facilities in July. Diana, the school administrator near Hope, is an evangelical Christian and had been the administrator there for one of my youth leaders, Renato. From the 12th to the 26th of July we will be doing street evangelism in the mornings and then holding children’s meetings at the schools during the afternoons. This had all been set in motion before we made the decision to return to the With only two more months to go before furlough things will be moving very fast for us down here. Please keep us in your prayers as we have much to do before we can leave home to head home. By His Grace, Dave, Patty, Erin, Karina, and Daniel Luke McIntyre 12:58 - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentThe Unexpected
Our return flight from Philly to I booked us a room in Upon arrival in Barb was waiting for us when we got off with directions to her house. We hired a van and got there a few minutes later. (Nice house in a nice neighborhood) She has gone on ahead and had an air mattress set up upstairs in the master bedroom, giant bed for us, and a couch for Daniel. She had towels laid out in the giant bathroom. We all fell into a coma. Barb lives in
Barb had said that when we sat down with her, her first impulse was to move, but since our kids were so well behaved she stayed. That just goes to show you that first impressions can be, um, inaccurate. We had a great time staying at her house and hope to meet again under less stressful circumstances. Barb, we owe you dinner but you’ll have to stay at our house to collect. Mac 12:41 - Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - comments {2} - post commentI'VE MOVED!!!Due to this site being down more than up lately I'm moving I hope you'll visit me at my new home. Thank you for all the support!!!
PS There is a freebie available over on my new page :) 05:26 AM - Monday, May 19, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentLeaving Clearblogs...I've really tried to be patient. I truly have. Its time to move on though. Those interested in knowing my new blog please email me @ geekette.crissa at gmail dot com.
Thanks. 05:03 AM - Monday, May 19, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentSweet Shoppe Blog to yours 05.09.2008Ahh childhood crushes... Lets see.. First up New Kids on the Block (did you hear they are back?? yumyumyum!!!)
Then Devon Sawa, could anyone get cuter?? Still yum!
And of course a girl cant go with out 'Nsync my personal fav was Lance Bass, how unfortunate.
And JTT!! Johnathan Taylor Thomas... Still a cutie!
I'm positive there are dozens of others. These kind of stand out in my memory though. Its amazing how everything changes and yet... everythings still the same. :) Happy Friday!! 07:29 PM - Friday, May 9, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentSweet Shoppe Blog to yours 05.02.2008
Very interesting!! I think this is totally me. Although the never tactless thing... I have done this once or twice. Always feel bad about it too and apologize constantly afterward. But the rest is pretty much true.
HAPPY FRIDAY!!!
12:03 AM - Saturday, May 3, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentPeriwinkle Dreams Bracket AlbumA new freebie, 12 pages. Two of them are journal pages but you could add photos to them if you wanted. Very versatile for boy or girl pages, atleast I think so. Enjoy! :) Preview: Click (link removed) to download. 04:35 PM - Friday, April 25, 2008 - comments {1} - post commentWhich Personality Are You?This is from the Sweet Shoppe blog. A little quiz to find out what kind of personality you are. It kind of hit me right on the head. Pretty good :) Have a happy Friday!
11:22 AM - Friday, April 25, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentFreebie: Periwinkle DreamsLots of fun stuff. ** There are three links below ** Contents: 4 - patterned papers And as a bonus: 3 brag book pages. Previews:
This one is rather large about 80mb so I've had to split it up. (Links Removed) Please remember to leave some love when you download. Thank you very much for your interest in my designs. All I ask is that if you want to share it with someone please send them to my blog to download for themselves. Thank you! Have a lovely day! 06:25 AM - Thursday, April 24, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentLayouts TodayI've been a member at TheDigiChick.com for a while, and keep forgetting to go over there and do something. I've bought things from the boutique but never really contributed to the site. Shameful I swear! So... I dove right in. Here are layouts I created for some of their challenges. The first is a Sketch Challenge, second is an All About Me Challenge (Pets), and the final is a Scraplift challenge. Lots of fun. I'm hoping to jump in and be better about participating here as well.
Credits: Wise Guy by Karen Lewis at TheDigiChick.com
Credits: Scrummy by Karen Lewis from TheDigiChick.com 10:20 PM - Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - comments {1} - post comment
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