As I was preparing to write this blog, I was overwhelmed by just how much we did this last month! It was supposed to be a deep winter, freezing temperature, slow down a little bit August. But instead, we have perfect temperatures, sunny days, flowers blooming, and a lot of work to do preparing for an early spring! We trimmed our fruit trees, cut branches off of our massive pecan trees, and cut weeds. These are things we usually do each year after the last frost. With the Yelles returning at the beginning of September!...we made sure that their side of the property looked nice, their house was ready, and a few projects were completed. Meanwhile, I am still the pastor of our church! With discipleship, counseling, preaching, and Father’s Day…….it was a chaotic month!
I am grateful that I have been able to begin counseling our members more! It shows how far my Portuguese has come that I can understand the details of their situations and give Biblical counsel to help in their situations. We had two very serious counseling sessions this month, and both went very well, and our people are learning and growing. I will talk briefly about one situation because it shows God’s incredible provision, and I hope it will encourage whoever reads this blog. One of our members was working a job in an extremely heavy environment. Her boss had begun to bully her into working Sundays, which she had already stated is not a possibility because of church. I won’t go into too many details about her boss, but she created a hostile work environment that began to cause our member to have an extremely heavy heart and spirit. She asked us for help, and we were able to counsel her to put God first in everything and watch him provide. Through numerous circumstances, she quit her job because she recognized that they were trying to pull her away from serving God. THIS IS A BIG DEAL IN THIS CULTURE. People look down on people who quit their jobs in a very serious way! Our member was very scared! But learned through the process to trust in God. Within 2 weeks God has provided her another job with better hours that will provide what she needs to pay her bills AND STILL BE FAITHFUL TO CHURCH. This is a huge victory! She still plans to look for a better paying job, but has decided to put God first with whatever job she looks for, and if they try to make her work Sundays or Wednesday nights, she will look for a different job. This story has encouraged Joneia and I and reminds us why we are here. In a culture where people put work and family first, it is rare to find people willing to put God first and trust him to provide. Keep praying for God’s guidance in this situation! This member is following the Lord, and we pray that her courage will inspire others to do the same.
For Father’s Day, we took our men to a Brazilian Steak House to celebrate. We had four fathers for this event, and one other man! I gave a brief lesson, and we enjoyed good fellowship and delicious meats. Please pray that God brings more men to our church. We need more leaders, and often the men are too busy with other priorities in their lives. In this culture, it has been difficult to find men who are willing to get married, or who is willing to stay with his children. So please be praying that more men would get saved and that God would change their lives.
As I’ve already said, we’ve had many preparations and projects this last month! We recently just replaced our electrical pole so that we would finally have a pole independent of our neighbors! And that alone has been drama by itself with the electrical company. First, they almost installed our neighbors’ electrical lines without installing ours. Then they put both of our addresses under our neighbor’s address. Then after we fixed that problem our neighbor received OUR BILL because THEIR address got changed to our address…….it’s been a work in progress. Please pray.
Lots of work, lots of projects, lots of ministry! But lots of blessings in everything. Keep praying for us. Pray for our discipleship group. Pray for our church’s growth. The Yelles returned on September 4th! We are excited to have them back. Be praying for them as they settle back into their house and the ministry here after thirteen months away.
Thank you for all of your love and prayers.