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Category Archives: Brazil

Brazil Day Three Recap

Hopefully I will post a video later, but I wanted to give a quick update of today…

First of all, the rest of the team is on the way!!! We can’t wait to see them. We’ve done our best to help Russ and Diane Dean prepare for this week. Here is a shot of our team in the airport:

Today was pretty cool here in Brazil. Why? COPO DO MUNDO!!! For those of you who have no idea what that means, we’re talking about what Brazilians live and breathe — the World Cup! Things were crazy here: horns, fireworks, chants and cheers could be heard for miles. It was great to experience a game with the Brazilians. Here is a picture of Erin and April with some of the folks from IBABI (one of the churches we are ministering with this week) cheering on Brazil during the game against Portugal:

We ran some other errands today too. Preparations for food baskets for the impoverished neighborhoods are quite extensive, as well as preparing for 24 Americans who are staying for a week! Also, Diane and Russ took some extra time discussing missions and ministry with the early team. It was absolutely fantastic and very helpful to have their input. All in all it was a good day.

Blessings!

Brazil Day Two Recap

We had the whole team contribute to today’s recap… Quite a humorous operation.

Brazil 2010 Begins!

This is the place to keep up with our team. We’ll try to update this blog at least 4-5 times between now and July 3rd. Hopefully with some different voices contributing to it.

Our prep team leaves today for Brazil 2010! We’re so excited about what God is going to do in and through this group. We covet your prayers — below, I posted my email to my personal prayer support team. Feel free to use it as a guide if you choose to pray for us.

Here’s the team prayer card that a friend of ours from CPC made for us. It has each member’s picture and some general requests on it:

Here’s a copy of the email I sent to my prayer team:

Friends,

Thanks for your heart to be on my personal prayer team for this year’s Brazil missions trip! I am very excited — it’s my 6th time there! I attached our team prayer card.

This year, I have specific requests…

First, for the whole team. Please pray for:
– Safety for our team during ministry, work project, and travel
– Worship & ministry in two churches on Sunday
– Softened hearts that are ready to receive the gospel
– Powells & Deans – missionaries in Brazil that we will work with
– Growth for our team and each member’s walk with God
– For God to be glorified as a result of this team’s efforts in Brazil

Second, for me personally. Please pray each day for:
– My leadership and service. That I would be gracious and wise this week as I co-lead this trip (pray this for Tim Parsons as well)
– Personal health and safety
– Opportunities to share Christ with many Brazilians
– Translation where/when I can. While I am no pro by any means, I want to help our missionaries to the best of my ability and I have some experience
– Opportunities to pour into members of our team
– For spiritual growth and fellowship with God. I want God to break my heart for what breaks his.

Thank you again! I am praying that God does big things and I appreciate you joining with me…

Also – make sure to follow my twitter updates throughout the trip here.

Thanks in advance for your prayer support… God bless.

Final Thoughts On Brazil ’09

Here is the recap video from the trip. It is set to a wonderful song by Brazilian worship leader Heloisa Rosa called “Clamarei Teu Santo Nome”, which means “I will proclaim Your holy name”… A very fitting song to recap this trip.

If I had to summarize this trip in one word, that word would be synergy:

syn⋅er⋅gy [sin-er-jee] – the working together of two (or more) things to produce an effect greater than the sum of their individual effects.

Our team had a little bit of everything thrown at them on this trip. On the ministry end, they had to sing, share testimonies, share the gospel in a language they didn’t know, do mime-skits that were pretty challenging to learn, and anything else that was asked of them, often at the drop of a hat.

On the work end, it was just as difficult and required as much flexibility. The guys had to haul cinder blocks, sand, cement bags, and tiles. Then they actually mixed the cement and hauled/poured it. The ladies had to strip old varnish, sand, and re-varnish doors. They also sanded and painted many other areas around Haven of Hope.

In addition to that, the art team that did the mural at the school entrance had to work very expeditiously to get it done. That included figuring out the dimensions, doing the scale drawings, and then doing the actual painting.

As I look back on this trip, the word synergy really sums it up. With everything thrown at us, and with 17 of 23 people getting sick, we could have whined and complained and taken it easy. But that is the opposite of what we did. Everyone put in 110% to get everything done. Our team realized that what we were doing in Brazil was much bigger than Haven of Hope or IBABI – it was about the Kingdom of God! Every aspect of the trip modeled a godly, Christ-centered synergy.

In our training: synergy.

In our work: synergy.

In our proclamation of the gospel: synergy.

In our worship and devotion: synergy.

I pray that future Center Point missions teams experience the level of camaraderie that we had.

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