During our two day conference in Souzel and older couple came forward for prayer. It seems quite obvious to me that the women had been a Christian for quite some time, and the man for less time. They asked for prayer for the man's hand.

The next day we went around town awhile with Pastor Ademir, praying for some of the people of their church that had no been able to come to the evening meetings. Our walk included going by this family's house. Ademir told me that the man had a stroke a year ago. He had not been able to walk for a month when the Lord told him that if he (Ademir) would go pray for him, the Lord would raise him up. So that is what happened. Ademir went and prayed and the man got almost completely better. He can walk fine, but one hand is not working quite right. That is why they wanted more prayer.

When we got to the house, the man was sitting on a stump on their front porch, where the photo was taken. He says, "Let me tell my story! I was sitting right here on my porch. I was not a Christian. My wife was sitting on the couch watching a Christian program on TV. I yelled at her to turn the garbage off. I didn't want to hear Christian stuff. As I was talking like this I fell off the stump with the stroke and could not get up for one month, until the pastor came to pray for me. So now I am a Christian!"

After that testimony I cannot remember if his hand got any better as we prayed.

"How are we going to get this project underway?" I just couldn't quite figure out the next step. Last Sunday our church had 80 adults, plus the children. It had rained and you can imagine the mud that got tracked into the guest house from the dirt road out front. Thursday morning, I wrote out a project proposal which included our vision statement, a budget and a time frame. I printed it to present it to our missionary weekly meeting. I was really doing this by faith because we were still way short financially for the next step of the construction, the roof and steel columns. We had already received several generous donations already including one from the Columbus Vineyard that enabled us to purchase the property and fuel our dream.

Thursday afternoon, after I wrote the project proposal, I received a completely unexpected phone call from a friend who we respect very much but hardly know. I don't think this friend had ever called us before. "The Mirante Church is really on my heart. How are you doing with this project?" He then proceeded to tell me he had sent a significant donation which will be (should be) enough for us to start meeting in the new facility.

Once again I was so surprised by God's timing. I asked my friend, "What made you think of the Mirante Project?"

"I read a newsletter you sent last November and the Lord has put it on my heart."

Isn't it encouraging when we can see God's fingerprints on projects we are doing?

Deanna and I were privileged to attend the first service of the new church near Richie and Cristie's house. The Towns and Bouthilliers have been a strong Christian influence in this neighborhood for years, and some of the fruit of their labor was obvious in this "opening night." Richie has an impressive church leadership team to start with. The worship was really good; Stu invested time in some local Youth and raised up a band. Richie's opening sermon, the Lord's supper, the whole general atmostphere...we just felt really good to be part of it all.

We (the Bergen Family) made a quick decision and travelled to Porto de Moz together with the Kubacki family. They stayed on to travel on the rivers a few days with Richie while we returned to Altamira Monday. On the way home we almost ran out of fuel. Because the Xingu River is raising faster than the Amazon River there is a much stronger current than usual. The 10 hour boat trip home took us 12 hours. We were just running out of fuel as we idled in to Souzel where we were able to purchase more.

It was good to spend time like this away from the daily routine of Altamira. Richie and Christie really put out a good lunch for us of bar-be-qued fish and bar-be-qued beef. Please pray for them as their house is a beehive of activity with people almost continually at their gate, both local people and pastors and friends from the surrounding communities.

This is the second Igreja da Vinha church in Porto de Moz. The "Central" Church is a brisk 20 minute walk away, and Valdinho is the pastor there.

Last week was the huge heathen festival of Carnivál here in Brazil. Carne is the Portuguese word for meat or flesh, and that is what this festival is all about. Apparently in one coastal city here in Brazil this is the most attented festival in the world.

Christians here respond to this festival in primarily four ways:

1. They can go check it out...that is not good.

2. They can ignore and pretend it is not happening...that is the easiest.

3. They can pray for God's mercy on the participants and possibly even evangelize and help some of the broken people.

4. They can organize a Christian celebration week-end. This works especially well for Youth, since the whole country is kind of vibrating with a desire to celebrate something.

For several years we have organized a Camp Meeting called Cristovál at our camp near Porto de Moz. The Youth do skits, and play games and celebrate the Lord with loud music...kind of like Youth anywhere in the world, I imagine.

This year the Holy Spirit fell on the group and they came home full of stories. It was especiallly visibible during the ministry times. This was the first time many of the participants had seen or experienced something like this. One of the by products was a sense of family or fraternity that came over the group.

Clenildo described it in a few sentences. "It was one big family, playing games together, eating together, praying for one another, worshipping together. It was no long this church or that, North Americans or Brazilians, it was just one big family."

Deanna and I, and Kelsie, were the only ones from our whole Mirante Church leadership team who stayed back from the four day camp. And even though so many of our Youth and Young couples were gone our Guest House was still almost full. And it was  good service too...but not like the stories that came back from Cristovál.

Training Leaders of Communities. Three or four times a years the local pastors and leaders get together for three days of equipping and fellowship. This almost always happens at our TLC camp near Porto de Moz.

These photos are from the most recent TLC camp, in December 2004. There were less people at this camp for a couple of reasons:

1. There were a lot of church events in late November and December and everyone was tired.

2. It was during school time, and with the school year ending comes exams.

Nevertheless, we held the camp as scheduled, and it was a blessing for several that participated. I think the community that was the most blessed was Vida Nova. They have been having some leadership type struggles there because a few key families make up the main body of the village church. These few families include some members that are not yet Christians. When the unsaved members do unsaved things to each other it is easy to get sucked into feuding. During this TLC I saw a lot of healing with this group. Richie and Clenildo were especially able to minister to them.

Many of the leaders who came to this camp were tired. I trust this was a time of refreshing for them.

I went with Annika and Olivia and it worked out real well. I was able to speak and have meetings and pray and still go for walks and spend some time with them.

We would like for all of our church leaders to commit to these conferences as their primary commitments outside of their local body. This will help build team unity. As we grow in the number of our churches and the size of some individual churches it is easy for each church to start getting busy with their own conferences and those of their immediate neighbours. While this is good we are at the point where we can not really all go to all the conferences.

Another changing factor is the TLC camp we are building in Altamira. We are hoping in the future to have one BIG annual camp in Porto de Moz, one BIG annual camp in Altamira, and one or two camps in between where each base meets with their own churches.

Please pray for us as a young church-planting movement, for unity of vision and heart, and for the Lord's protection and presence among us.