Our ministry continues well, but our difficulties this month were numerous. Our discipleship group almost quit, our electrical pole fried, our well pump exploded, and I end this month with the flu… It has been a very challenging month. There were some good highlights in our life and ministry though! The foundation was poured for our horse barn (the first project in building our camp facilities), and Children’s Day was a massive success with many visitors. My Portuguese is improving; I feel refreshed in my Bible studies and preaching; our discipleship group didn’t quit! And above all, God is good all the time, and we can trust in him.

Let me recount some of the details.

The first shock we got this month was when one of our discipleship students nearly quit. We have a very diverse group of personalities in our students. Two of them in particular are extremely opposite but have learned to get along very well. Well, it happened that the bolder of the two made a comment trying to help push and help the other…but it was taken as a personal insult. The following week when the bolder disciple had a very difficult week and was in tears, this other disciple responded with disrespect, and literally walked out of our discipleship meeting! We were all shocked and wondered if this student would return. The bolder disciple realized that the comment she had made may have been taken wrong and was talking with us about apologizing. We counseled each of our students to help grow in the situation…and praise the Lord, everyone responded with the humility of Christ! Some hugs, tears, and heartfelt apologies later, everyone was ready to love each other again as siblings in Christ and keep going in our discipleship. We praised God for the victory, and for the lessons learned (much like Jesus’ own disciples) through this situation. Keep praying for our discipleship students, we are almost finished with the course!

I believe last month, I mentioned also that we were having some drama with our electrical pole…well this month it got even better. Where the electrical lines exit the pole, apparently the entrance was not sealed correctly, and during a storm, water entered the electrical pole and fried all of the paneling. We called our electrician to fix the problem, and apparently the key part that needed to be fixed could not be found anywhere in our state. He also couldn’t work with live wires while it was still raining. So we prayed for the rain to stop, and our electrician came and resolved the problem. It wasn’t pleasant, but we believe it started a cascade of problems.

We believe that this caused our well pump to fry too. Our tank usually only needed a couple hours to fill…and 5 hours later, our tank still was not full. So, the Yelles began looking for a company to replace the well pump…and then they were called to return to the states for 3 more weeks to help finalize his deceased father’s affairs. We are grateful again that we get to be here to make this process as easy as possible for them (I can only imagine how they would be able to do this with no one here to help care for the electrical pole, the well pump, their house, and the church…they somehow did this for 10 years alone!) Just yesterday, the new well pump is finally installed! But now we have a lot of mud in our lines that needs to be cleaned out. So, last night as we are cleaning and refilling our tank….POP! The retention valve blew, and the new pipes completely disconnected!...and last night, the water would not pump anymore…..we still are unsure what happened (an odd coincidence that happened on Halloween in a spiritist culture…)

Fortunately, this morning the pump turned on just fine, so there was no damage to the pump itself. The pump specialist returned and reconnected the piping with some new glue. It’s been a fiasco…It’s been pretty difficult having the flu and no access to running water. We are doing better today. Joneia has basically fully recovered, and is teaching the ladies meeting today. I am at home praying that I will be well enough to even go to church tomorrow.

We have seen that God is changing our people recently. Our men are starting to learn faithfulness, and are wanting more of the Lord in their lives. As such, our adversary is not happy to see a light shining brightly in this city. So, pray for us. We feel very drained this month and could use a break. God provides and protects, and we trust him through everything. We know we will make it through this, and come out more Christlike and stronger in our faith and walk with Him. God always provides the strength we need every day.

I also mentioned Children’s Day. Here in Brazil, Children’s Day is about as big as Christmas. It is one of our biggest events each year where we have a fair at our church, and many children come and play and have a good Bible lesson. We had 35 kids attend this year, many of them were visitors. Please pray that they will accept the gospel and come to our church. These children are the future of what we are building here, and we need to pray for them fervently.

Thank you so much for reading our blog. Keep praying for us.

God bless you.