But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. ^8 Therefore He says:

“When He ascended on high,

He led captivity captive,

And gave gifts to men.”

Ephesians 4:7,8 NKJV

I woke up this morning thinking of this phrase, "He led captivity captive." That is quite a thought, isn't it? Sometimes, when we don't get answers to our prayers, or at least not the answers we want, we realize later that was a good thing. Other times, it just seems wrong. We know that we live in a broken, fallen world, and one day all things will be set right. And we know that the Kingdom of God is here, and it is coming soon. These are both true.

When Jesus was on earth, He came to set the captives free. With each healing and miracle, the Kingdom of God would break through and set things right in this broken, fallen world. And in Jesus' death and resurrection, He led captivity captive. And He gave gifts to men.

May the Holy Spirit reveal to each of us what He is trying to tell us.

END.

Chris and Jane Weins came for the tenth time to Brazil! He is the president of Xtreme Mercy Canada. Dan Thiessen, also on the XMC board, came for the first time, and brought his Dad. Dan was raised in Borneo, was a missionary in Israel is now based out of Canada.

PS We decided as a team to change our name Xingu Mission to Xtreme Mercy all around.

We've done several survey trips. We have identified some areas that have a lot of need for missionaries. The questions remain...Who should go? When? How will we start over? Which of the three primary locations, Marabá, São Felix do Xingu, or Ituparinga, should come first? What will the XM leadership look like as we expand to more bases? While we all feel the task is enormous we cannot yet see our next steps. We look forward to secondary survey trips to these places after our furlough. Please continue to pray for direction for us and the team here.

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“But there is another urgency before me now. I feel compelled to go to Jerusalem. I’m completely in the dark about what will happen when I get there. I do know that it won’t be any picnic, for the Holy Spirit has let me know repeatedly and clearly that there are hard times and imprisonment ahead. But that matters little. What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God."

Peterson, E. H. (2003). The Message : The Bible in contemporary language (Ac 20:22-24). Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress.

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Cowboys here move cattle in a slightly different way than I was used to from Alberta. Here the lead cowboy has a long "berrante" horn, which is made up of several cows horns glued together. When he blows in it, it makes a long, deep sound, which the cattle will follow. They lead the herd. The church wagon and cook go ahead and park on the hill tops to slow traffic. Several other cowboys encourage the stragglers to keep going. The cowboys often make rope corrals along side the road where the cattle spend the night. On our trip to São Felix I think we drove through about seven herds, several of which had 1,000 cattle.

When we were doing a survey trip in a town called São Felix do Xingu, I asked the surgeon at the hospital if they had lots of shootings. "Lots." Then I asked him were the shooting drug related, or theft related, or gangs, or what? His reply surprised me, "One hundred percent of the shootings here are disputed over land boundaries on the ranches."

End.

When I grew up in Canada, every four years or so my Uncle Henry would come home from Borneo on furlough. He was a missionary there, with his family, for about 25 years.

I never imagined I would one day be translating for him in the Amazon. The local people loved his stories about bringing the gospel to the cannibals, and loved the way he taught the Bible.

Many of the joys and difficulties of missionary life are similar. It was very encouraging to have him come out for 16 days.

End.

We just got back from a most beautiful eight day trip. Natural highlights include an passage of the river that was so narrow the trees often touched each other above the boat. It took us 5 hours out of the 25 hour trip to cross this stretch each way. In the early morning we saw a big black toucan with a bright orange bill, illuminated in the morning sunlight against the darker backdrop of the green and blue canal. We saw countless macaws and parrots, and even monkeys a few times. One time, right above the boat, I saw a small monkey with an even smaller baby monkey clinging to it's back.

On the more human side, we discovered that most of the people in these two towns work for a huge paper mill or a huge calcium mine. Or they wish they did. The thousands of industrial workers are relatively well off. The majority of the rest seem very poor. There are probably miles of boardwalks connecting small wooden houses, and full of garbage and stench below, in one of the towns. It seems this is a very needy place, but since most of the people live in the towns there is a smaller rural unreached / unchurched population. One city official pulled up some statistics that showed there were 247 families living within a one hundred mile radius of the town. While it seems a great mission opportunity, because there are already some churches in the towns we are feeling it is a lower priority than some of the other places where we have traveled.

Please pray with us as we seek to find the place where God would have us plant the next mission base.

End.

“If you have something to confess you need to do that right now! We are here to pray for you, but you have to cooperate if you want to be healed!”

"Yes. I have something to confess. I made a pact with a saint, that if he would heal me I would wear his black cape for six months."

Virgilho went with Keith and Marsha to the house of a neighbor. She had been slandering him, the church and the mission. But Virgilho felt he needed to forgive her, and go and pray for her. She has (had?) tumors in her stomach. When he got to her house she was laying on the floor and had been there for some days. Her voice was very weak, and she looked like she was dying. "When I started praying for her, my prayers just bounced off her. They wouldn't go anywhere." Virgilho was telling me at church what happened. That is when he told her she needed to confess something, and she confessed about the pact she had made with the spiritist. As they were praying for her another spiritist came over with more council. Virgilho kindly declined, then asked the 70 year visiting lady if he could pray for her. "She spun on her heels and was gone like a flash. She wanted nothing to do with Christian prayer." When they were done praying for the sick lady she sat up and was speaking in a much stronger voice. Three days later she was much more alert, still not walking, but significantly improved. 

About two weeks later the lady is in our state capital city of Belem, getting a medical checkup for a lump.

Please keep praying for Virgilhio and Joanna. They are fairly new Christians, and pastoring a new congregation out in the bush where they now live. Prayer would also be appreciated for Deusemar and his wife, and for Keith and Marsha, who are working with these people.

End.

Here are a few questions?:

1. What is our goal?

2. How will we know if we have done a good job?

3. When is our job done?

Here are a few responses:

1. We want a plant a church planting movement...plant churches that train leaders and plant churches.

2. We want to be careful not to create long-term dependency.

3. When it becomes a lot of fun, but we are not really needed, our job may be done. A few questions we can ask to find out are:

a) If I leave, what churches, events, organizations or momentum will die?

b) If I don't go to the meetings, what will really happen?

What is our plan?

1. Go where there is no church like the one we want to plant.

2. Make disciples of local people. Plant a church with sufficient leadership, finances and infrastructure to keep making disciples and planting churches when you are gone.

3. Give it away. Move on. Do it again.

Remember

1. Missionaries go where few invite them to come, and leave when few think they should leave.

2. The harvest field is still huge. (This is understated).

3. We need to find the people who God has called and help them get on the right path. They may be trapped in really bad lifestyles and patterns. God will train them, and they be far more effective than we could ever hope to be. Find them. Help them get to the right place. Move on.

4. Missions are really good at starting and equipping.

5. Missions need a local exit strategy. Work until the time is right. Then go and do it again.

6. The Harvest Field still has a tremendous need for many more missions and missionaries.

AND THE BIG QUESTION?

7. What in life could be a greater investment than starting a church-that-plants-churches-that-plant-churches? What if you could be part of a team that does more than one of these in a lifetime? How would you feel about that? What if together we could build a team that will plant a whole bunch of these, in several countries? How much time and money and effort would YOU be willing to pour into a project like this?

Hmmm...