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January 30 Survey Trip to Breves and PortelWe are praying about how to expand the church planting movement. How many people or villages still have no clear access to the gospel? On our trip we traveled about 90 hours by boat. We passed a lot of villages, and a few churches. One town apparently has 77 villages surrounding it. The pastor only knows of one church among these villages. Along the way Kevin Van Hulle from Porto de Moz and Pastor António from Gurupá joined us. (They are not in the photo below.) Our farthest destination was to look 5 hours past the river city of Portel. We found there is church work actively going on, especially with one denomination that is known for it's rules such as no playing soccer, no lipstick, long hair and short hair are very important, etc. Still, they seem to be very sincere brothers in the Lord. Would the Lord have us to go and help in this region at this time? We have come up with 3 or 4 questions we are trying to answer as we look for a new missionary base: 1. Is the area "unreached?" Is there a significant population that does not have access to a clear presentation of the gospel? 2. Would I like to live here with my family? 3. Is it easily accessible for teams? One other question we are praying about: 4. Would the Lord have us move the Mission Headquarters? Would there be any advantage to this? What would this involve? Is the new location appropriate? Do the people here consider this location a regional center? All these are just thoughts and prayers we are working through as we are actively working to plant 1,000 churches here in the Amazon Basin. Thank you for praying with us about theses things. End. January 13 Km 120Virgilho was a wild cowboy with a big reputation before he got saved. God met him in some amazing ways and now he is planting a church on the frontier, a 140 kms from Altamira. Virgilho went to an information meeting. A few weeks later the lady from the land office in charge of homesteading phoned him up. He got a key corner lot in an area know as the "T". He lives with his wife and three children in house without walls. He plans to build a better house in 2008. Last week the local gov't gave them 1000 bricks and 10 sacks of cement to build a school house foundation. The local men will do all the construction. Then they will build a wood school house, which should be functional by February, the start of their school year. We participated in a special New Year's church service. About 50 adults and children were present. Right now the group meets in Virgilho's house. Soon we hope to help them build a church building near the new school, a stone's throw away.
January 05 2007 Starting PlaceTowards the end of 2006 we did a census. Since the Bible has a book called Numbers, I think God likes us to keep track of how we are doing. If our faith would ever revert to our numbers we might be in danger of falling into the sin of King David when he tallied all the people in Israel and a severe judgement followed. But we have faith in God, and are amazed by every testimony and every life transformed. These churches feel so fragile and so resilient at the same time, several tipping toward one side or the other of that scale. Only by God's power can they remain healthy. On New Years Eve all four Altamira churches were invited to welcome in the New Year at the Mirante Church. About 450 people came and it was a great celebration. That may have been our biggest gathering to date. At the New Year's Eve service Clenildo told me, "We grew a lot in 2006. We will grow a lot more in 2007." It is the general feeling among us all here. I asked Clenildo, "Who is that fellow over there?" This approximately 30 year old fellow from Central church was sitting in front of me and had the bearing of a leader. "I led him to the Lord awhile back. Then his friend came up to him and wanted help to kill someone who had stolen from him. This fellow said, ' I met God, and He answers prayers. Let's pray about this. If nothing happens within two weeks, I will help you kill this fellow and we will really mess our lives up.' So they prayed together. Within two weeks the whole situation was turned around. So the first guy said to his friend, ' God has helped us here. Now you need to give your life to Him.' The first fellow is leading a cell group now. The second fellow married one of the worship leaders at the church. I asked Clenildo again, "Who is that girl over there?" A mid-20s girl was really worshipping God during the celebration part of the service. "Angelita led her to the Lord at the University. Her aunt is a nun (freira). Her aunt now invites Angelita and myself to teach at the Catholic school sometimes. Back to our tally... An Accounting of Igreja da Vinha Churches in the North Region of Brazil Updated December 23, 2006 20 Churches (Local leader, regular weekly meetings) PLUS 25 Church Starts (meet whenever an outside leader shows up to lead) Of the 25 Church Starts 10 were initiated in 2006
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