Final Day of Presentations

Thank you Lord for your awesome provision. As you read in Heather's blog earlier, God did provide a place for us at the appointed time. Although the enemy was trying to keep us from presenting the Gospel right from the start, and tried to discourage the preaching throughout the presentations with mocking and distractions, God's Word went forth in power. And thank you for your prayers, as neither the police nor any of the local businesses came to shut us down. We were able to go until ~4:30 even though we were apparently not supposed to be amplified after 2:00. John preached an awesome message after the Redeemer drama. He did an excellent job explaining the purpose of the cross and calling people to repentance. We will not forget his "Andrew" story about why today is the day of salvation and how we are not promised another day on this earth. Andrew was a young man who didn't respond during an outreach presentation in England. Later in the day he came back and found the team as the Lord had been was working on his heart and he wanted to receive the free gift of grace. A couple of hours later as he stepped off a bus near his mother's house, he was struck by a car and died. His mother told the outreach team that they needed to continue to go and tell people the good news, because Andrew's friends had said his last couple of hours on earth was the happiest they had ever seen him.

Praise be to God several did respond to the offer of grace today. All in all probably 20 to 25 came forward during the calls to come and stand for the Lord by Rory and John today. Each new believer that responded received prayer, was given a Bible or New Testament, and encouraged to grow in the Lord through discipleship. There were several others that were in the valley of decision that we talked with following the presentations, but God started a good work in many hearts as we made ourselves available to plant or water the seeds. A couple of people in particular stuck out: a Mormon man who, along with his wife, has been questioning their religion's beliefs and a biker who stopped to hear the message and then talked with us for about 45 minutes afterwards with lots of questions. The mormon got distracted with a cell phone call and ended up walking away, and the biker wasn't ready to respond today, but agreed to read a pamphlet he was given on being born again by Chuck Smith and to meet with John after the team leaves. Please pray for him as he was very open and had lots of questions, but was very distracted by a man from Bend, Oregon that was an obvious ploy from the enemy, who came and stood next to him as we shared the Word of truth. They had never met before, but in the end the Word of God was planted in his heart.

One of the most thrilling part of the day's outreach occurred when our hotel manager, Ricardo, responded to the Gospel and came forward during the last alter call of our entire trip! It was a rejoicing time for the team as he and his staff have been so hospitable to us and we specifically prayed for the staff this morning! As a way to remember this day and the team, we bought him a very nice leather Bible that we are all signing and will present to him tomorrow. That was an incredible way to end the outreach on the streets of Curitiba. Thank you Lord for ALL that you have done in our lives, in the lives of many of the believers in this beautiful city, and for reaping a harvest and new souls for your Kingdom. We give you all the glory and praise!

We love you all very much and appreciate your faithfulness to pray and support this outreach.

James

Hello to all of our supporters,
Thought I would give you a bit of an update on our needs for prayer. We had a great time of devotions today. We prayed over Rory because he is sick again. Jonathan and Anna were a little under the weather too, although after praying Anna felt better. We all had the heart to finish the race well. We wanted to run the last lap hard and in a pleasing manner. We were supposed to get started around 11 but we didn't have any translators till 1. We didn't know this till we were ready to go. Instead we went to get lunch, which was needed. While we were eating we had about 5 people show up that could translate. Praise the Lord. After we finished eating we went to set up. But we couldn't find anywhere to set up. There were little old men playing where we usually go, and the fair was in our other place. We sent the kids out to hand out tracts while Rory, John, and Chris tried to find somewhere to land...and still nothing. SO I thought I would ask for some prayer. Our desire is to do what the Lord wants us to do. The kids are ready to preach it.

The women/girls are meeting tonight for a fellowship time and for mom to share again with the women of the church. So please pray for that time would be sweet and a blessing as well.
Thanks soooo much for the support!
Heather and the team

P.S. as I type this I hear loud worship music coming from the street. Praise the Lord. Since it is not the drama festival time we are technically not supposed to be doing this so Pray that we can stay as long as the Lord wills.

Teaming with YWAM

We knew we were in for a treat as we boarded the bus today with our YWAM brothers and sisters. We thought we were teaming up with a few of them to go to a high school, but when the bus pulled up and we saw about 20 energetic break dancers we knew today would be an adventure. The YWAM team is part of an "EX" or extreme team . A few of them spoke English, but the majority spoke Portuguese.

We actually ended up at another elementary school with another group of tender hearts for the Lord. Although I thought we would be at a high school, I was thrilled to interact with the young children again as they are so precious and very open to receive the love of our Lord. The YWAM team performed first with some excellent dances, both group and individual, and a testimony from one of their members. This group is going through DTS (Discipleship Training School) with YWAM as they go around and perform. Following YWAM's presentations, we performed our two dramas and Rory gave an alter call. There were about 500 kids there and I would say a majority responded to the Lord's call. Rory even challenged them to not raise their hands just because their friend might be doing it, and still there was an incredible response (see picture to left).

Oh, and don't worry, that is a professional jumping over six of your sons. Besides his record is nine so we figured that would be no problem! Yes, Marcos Pesch, a great brother from the local church, has been with us during most of our outreach time and even did one of the testimonies and alter calls after our final drama presentation last Thursday. A long-time friend of Chris Cross', Marcos has been a real encouragement to the team and a joy to have around. He and his wife also joined us on the retreat last weekend. Marcos often performs with YWAM teams, but we were too tight on our agenda today for him to do his routine. However, after tell him how I was really looking forward to seeing him after talking with him about his work several times

during the outreach he agreed to do a few things after the kids had departed. I'm not sure the boys new what to expect at first, as he warmed up on 3 or 4 kids before completing this jump over these six. The boys loved it and so did the rest of the team.

While a long day, it was actually a shorter day of actual outreach. We had another energetic bus ride home with a sing off challenge between the back of the bus, the YWAM team, and the front of the bus, the Calvary Chapel Team.

Tonight the boys did their nightly routine of soccer with the locals at the park across the street from our hotel followed by some basketball. I even joined in on the basketball, but you couldn't pay me to jump in on the soccer--a much higher level of play. You don't have to use much imagination to figure out which countries players dominated each sport. It has been great fun for the guys, with many of the girls on the team coming to cheer them on; and so far only minor injuries! I know the guys are hoping to not only shine the light of Christ through their sportsmanship on the field, but share their faith with the guys too. Please pray for an opportunity to bridge the communication gap.

Tomorrow is our last official outreach day were we hope to openly worship, share the Gospel, and perform the dramas a couple of times. Currently we are planning on going out by our hotel again into the confluence of walkways for shopping, commerce, and the park. Please continue to pray for God's will to be done, for people to be saved, and for the Lord's work to be done in our hearts as we share testimonies or all that God puts on their hearts.

Our devotion times in the morning have been wonderfully encouraging. Rory took us to IKings 18 this morning with the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal. We also had a great time of prayer and sharing our hearts. The unity of this group as been outstanding...something we have been praying for since the beginning of our time together, and the Lord has truly delivered.

Saturday is coming soon. It has been a blessed trip, but we are truly looking forward to seeing many of you and sharing all that the Lord has done.

James

PS: Sorry there were fewer pictures today. My camera isn't working well and I could only get a few from others tonight. I'll try and get more tomorrow. Blessings on you all.

A Sea of Beautiful Faces

God truly loves the little children, ALL the children of the world! How precious it was to behold so many of His beautiful ones today. We spent the day at a school outside of town in a poorer area. We spent time with 200-300 kids each session (morning and afternoon). They schools run three different sessions each weekday for about 4 hours and the families decide which one their child will attend. The school was a very simple structure with a concrete wall around it and locked gates at the entrances.

John led us off in the morning with an ENERGETIC worship time, that the kids loved and really got into. I joked with him later that I

never saw him lead worship like that back in Corvallis!

We followed up with our typical format of a few more songs by a couple of the team members, and then invited some kids up to pound on the wooden box. After the "drum lessons" the teams performed each drama; which the kids loved. With the explanation of the dramas and the alter call, about 50 to 75% of the kids responded that they wanted Jesus in their hearts. It was precious to behold.

They seemed to really connect well with the team as everyone got into playing with the kids following the formal presentations. The game of soccer got a little wild with half the kids in the place wanting to take on whoever had the ball. We ended up breaking into smaller groups with some doing Gospel bracelets with older kids, and skipping rope or playing duck, duck, goose with some of the smaller kids. When it was time for the morning kids to leave there were lots of hugs, kisses, slapping hands, and knuckles with big smiles. Love seems to overcome any cultural or language barriers especially with children!

The afternoon session was similar to the morning, expect we broke into smaller groups, with some going into the four older classrooms to do Gospel bracelets and talk further.
Inside the classrooms we also handed out some homemade Portuguese scripture cards that put together before we left and gave them a taste of American chocolate! They had lots of questions about the US and enjoyed being with the team. I left a copy of the New Testament in a modern Portuguese language with the teacher in the classroom that we went in and asked that she read it to the class after we left. She seemed very thankful. We also encouraged the children to ask their teacher to read it and to help remember our visit.

After class, every one of our team members were covered with kids pushing booklets or extending bare arms for us to sign our autographs for them. Apparently, this is very common with American visitors. We signed our name, provide some scripture references, and generally just truly enjoyed being with them. Thank you Lord for your favor with these kids, their teachers, and with this country!

We again ended our time with various displays of affection and a lot of our heart left with the children as we boarded the bus. And yes, we left them with a soccer ball that we brought with us.

Tomorrow we team up with YWAM and go to a high school for extreme sports demos, our dramas, and more opportunities to share the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you all for your continued prayers. Please keep our faithful translators in your prayers and ask for a special blessing on their lives--especially Karen and Tim who have been with us each day. All the team is doing well and missing you all very much!

James

Weekend Retreat...A refreshing and encouraging time

While the bus ride proved longer than expected, the Lord had an incredible facility to refresh the team for a couple of days. We arrived about 10:30 at night and only caught a glimpse of the beauty that would surround us. The facility had a wonderful meeting room, great dining area, and about 30 bunk rooms each with a private bathroom.

While this was planned as an opportunity to come together with the two Calvary Chapel Churches in Curitiba (one pastored by John Hwang and the other by David Dawson) and have the team encourage them; it proved to be a wonderfully refreshing time for the whole team with the Lord ministering to us and providing an opportunity to make new friends.

We started Saturday morning off with worship in both some songs in Portuguese and others English. Pastor David shared a message on the love of God (in Portuguese only--a new experience for many of the team members, followed by Pastor Rory sharing on the Grace of God. In the afternoon we split up between the men and women with Chris leading the guys in a group discussion on what it means to be a man of God and Cindy lead the women by sharing her testimony and in the call of a godly woman. Following these break out sessions we spent some time teaching the Brazilian's how to play softball (we brought a bunch of equipment given to us by Heather Smith to leave with the church--Thank you Heather and Mikiah)! Cody led the training session and I have to say they picked it up very fast. The smiles when they started batting practice was priceless. A few Brazilians also joined Chris Cross in a little American football game. Unfortunately, a thunder storm put an early end to our games and we retreated to the ping pong/Billiards /Foosball area. But it was a great time to make new friends and strength the relationships with some of the brothers and sisters we had met Monday night at our reception at the Church. This is a couple from Australia and Brazil that met at a YWAM camp in Denmark. They have only been with the Church for about 1 month. A couple of the boys from our team are shown in Peter (Pedro) who has been a favorite. He is the nephew of John's right hand person (Adriani) and her sister Karen (holding one of the children on the retreat)-- who has been our main interpreter all week (Karen also leads the children's ministry at the Church).

We wrapped up Saturday night with a message by Pastor Chris on God's chosen method to bring about character in our lives--hardship and suffering.

Sunday morning Pastor John preached on the character of God as Moses met Him face to face and God revealed Himself as "merciful, gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands (of generations), forgiving iniquity and

transgressions and sin, by no means clearing the guilty (just)" Ex 34:6-7a. We ended the morning session with a baptism of three Brazilians. One American (Rory) also unwillingly got an opportunity to going in the pool when John gave permission for all the boys to catch Rory and toss him in.

After lunch we packed it up and had one last group picture. Unfortunately, the bus was late in arriving so when we arrived back at the hotel, we only had 10 minutes before we had to be back on the bus to head off to the Sunday evening service. We arrived home late that night and enjoyed a day off on Monday.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will go a a school in a Favela. Please be praying for this outreach to be fruitful. I will try and post again tomorrow night.

James

Day 3 of the Outreach (sorry we are late)

Friday was the third day of the outreach with the team headed down about 1 mile down the road (walking with our equipment) to a local University. We were immediately met by a couple of Christians that were very encouraged by our presence. A couple of them stayed around to help translate. Again we found ourselves not only reaching out to the unbelievers, but providing encouragement to the believers. We have been starting each of our drama times with some praise and worship (picture shown to the left) and trying to give everyone an opportunity to minister. It has been awesome to see the team coming together and supporting one another! I know I share the same thought with all of you that, "I have no greater joy than to hear (see) my (and your) children walk in the truth." 3John1:4 I wish each of you could see how the Lord is using your children and how the Lord is growing their faith and trust in Him as they see His faithfulness to fulfill all that is on his heart.

The giftings that the Lord has given each member are really coming through. While everyone is performing their dramas, we have those that are gifted in sound system, others gifted in singing, others gifted in instruments, and everyone handing out tracts and praying for the harvest.

You can see the picture on the right with students gathered on the steps in front of the university as the team performed their dramas. They also stopped along the street and behind the team as well, curious to see the performance and here the message that the team was bringing.

We only performed each drama once this day and then Taylor Sabo got a chance to get up and share the meaning of the King of Hearts Drama, mix that with a testimony of his life, and give an alter call. It was another great response with about 10-15 people responding and many more in the valley of decision. Several people who didn't respond by coming forward were obviously touched by the Gospel as well and have received the Good News through the performance and a tract that the team gets in the hands of everyone that walks by or stops to listen.

At morning devotions, God put Isaiah 43:1-13 on our heart to remember to fear not for He has redeemed us, called us by name, and we are His. That though we pass through the waters, the rivers, or walk through the fire we will not be hurt. Because He is God, we are precious in His sight, and He is with us. (v 1-5a). He then reminded us that He is the Lord and there is NO other...that when He does the work there is none that can reverse it (v 11-13). Praise be to Him who is doing an awesome work! Continue to pray the Lord of the harvest would not only save people, but that they would respond to the call for discipleship and growing in their new relationship with their Savior, Jesus.

It was a shorter day of outreach as we had to go and get ready to leave for the weekend retreat. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to post to the blog and the retreat center had no forms of communication (phone or internet). Probably good for the team, but not so good for all of you at home wanting to hear what's going on :( ....sorry.

James

Day 2 of the Harvest

We had our devotion time in the park at 9:00 this morning as all the conference rooms in the hotel were filled. God knew, as he drew two different men to stop and inquire what was going on. Tim, an Englishman who has been has been an absolute joy to serve along side and who has only been apart of the local Church for just over a week, shared the Gospel with them both. One of them walked away and the other stayed around to listen to us worship. You could see God was drawing the young man's heart to Himself, but he wasn't ready to respond. God was pursuing him though and the Father would not relent, as later in the day he came back, watched the drama's, and responded to a call to repentance.

As you can see, God drew many to repentance during the afternoon singing and dramas. Here about 30 people responded to the invitation to receive the Gospel. During the late morning presentations another 10-20 responded as the harvest is ripe. Many are openly crying and are joyfully coming forward. We have also been met with encouragement from several Christians who are elated to have our team in their city and "marvel at our boldness." Several adults commented on how the youth in our group were filled with the Spirit and how it provided hope for the mother's that their children had a future. God had put that on Alison and Hannah's hearts earlier in the day that the mother's with young children were seeing a better life for their kids.

I met with a man named Rafael who was trying to break free from an association with darkness. He was experiencing attacks in his home and he wanted to know what was going on. He told me that when he came out of his place of business this morning he saw a vision of a dove. The dove led him down to where we were and he watched our presentations of the Gospel. After answering questions and sharing the Gospel through a translator, he prayed to receive the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. We then prayed for an Acts 16:31 experience for him and his family as he is on the verge of divorce and has a young child. When we asked if he was familiar with the Dove descending on Jesus after His baptism, he answered no. We explained that is was God's Holy Spirit that drew him and the angels in heaven were rejoicing over his salvation. He plans to join us for Church on Sunday night. Give glory to God, another one snatched from the enemy!

Thank you for your continued labor with us in prayer. We are truly enjoying the favor of the Lord and witnessing His outpouring of grace. At the same time, the enemy is attacking the team on different fronts, trying to discourage the work. But as Pastor John exhorted us on Tuesday morning, with Isaiah 51: 12-16, it is God who comforts us, why should we be afraid for "I have put my words in your mouth; I have covered you with the shadow of My hand, that I may plant the heavens, lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion, "You are my people"

James