June 20th - Happy Father's Day from Brazil!

A few pictures, they are not organized very. The post is below.










The view from the top of the mountain and the High Valley.









The worship band leading last night.













Eric after his slide down the path.









Amanda sharing her testimony.













Shelley after taking a spill even before the hike began.









Will making a friend over chili dogs.













The WOW factor team and "Everything"













Ryan and the EvangeCube.

Oi (hello in portugese)

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads reading this in the U.S. (or another country if that is the case). Hopefully all of you had a great Father's Day. And as an aside - Happy Birthday to Joel. He is sick again this year, but not as bad as last year and it sounds like he turned the corner last night and is doing better today. Although he took a nap this afternoon instead of watching Brazil play the Ivory Coast, and knowing how much he loves soccer and the World Cup, he must have really needed that nap. The day has been rainy here most of the day and actually made for some fun and laughs this morning, but more on that and the rest of the day in a moment.

Yesterday ended really well although I think most of us were tired by the end. We finished our last English session for the day with a great team effort.

The WOW factor team (Shelley, Will, McKehha, Karissa, Jordan, Jon, Charmae, Ali) presented a drama without words to the Lifehouse song "Everything". Some of you may have seen it before, and if not, it's easily found on YouTube. Needless to say, it was very powerful and moving. Immediately afterward Amanda shared her testimony which was a great message and an appropriate follow up to Everything. And lastly Ryan did what he does so well and explained the EvangeCube to all the students. We then broke up into our classes (separated by students ability with English) for a time of teaching, discussion and games. The night ended with a time of community and conversation over chili-dogs. (I mis-spoke yesterday when I said it was a cook-out)

Today was a less busy day of ministry. First off a word of recognition to Greg Megrue who climbed a mountain today. And this was a feat unto itself. Our team met this morning at the church to go climb a large hill (or a small mountain depending on how you look at it I guess) that is a little way outside the city. This field trip was also opened to any of the English camp students that wanted to come along with us. We went to the same place last year and the location provides a great view of the High Valley where Rio do Sul is located and helps give perspective to the vision Pastor Johny has for this area to be be filled with church plants. Well we woke up this morning to a gray and overcast sky. And by the time we got to the turn off for this mountain it was starting to slightly sprinkle. Most of us had to climb and walk some distance before we got to the last path to the summit of the mountain. The area is kind of like jungle and it has been plenty wet here the last several days which made for muddy paths and wet grass. Many of us fell and slid down the path several times and were quite the muddy mess. And for some of us several attempts were necessary to make it through a particularly slick spot. Greg slipped several times, but finally through a bit of team work he was able to persevere and I'm so glad he did. And just a note, it was not a dangerous path, just messy. When we come back to Nebraska make sure to ask us about this, because I think each of us had a different experience. For me personally it was a lot of fun and a great time of laughter.

After we all made it back to church we had lunch together and some team time to talk about what has been happening over the last two days, have a devotional time and encourage one another. We returned to our host home for the afternoon to watch the Brazil World Cup match and experience a little bit of the culture here. By the way, in case you aren't following the World Cup, Brazil won 3-1.

Tonight we are at the Celivris E-Free church in Rio do Sul for the Sunday night service. It was another team effort as Karissa gave her testimony to a packed house. It looks like many of the students from our English camp over the last three days have showed up tonight, which is exciting. The worship band (Joel, Cam, Eric Rock, Tahner, Karissa and McKehna) is helping lead worship and the WOW factor team is performing the skit again that they presented last night. And Ricky is bringing the message on the prodigal son.

Through all of this the good news message of Christ is being preached and spread. And it's encouraging to remember that we may not necessarily be the harvesters; we may be the planters, or the waterers.

I know I'm sounding repetitive, but thank you for your prayers and comments on the blog, they are greatly encouraging. Continue to pray for us again as tomorrow comes. We are splitting into three groups to go to several different schools to interact with students in classes. Much of what we will talk about will be a shortened version of what we have talked about during the English camp. Also please pray for God to open hearts and minds to the truth of the Gospel. We aren't allowed by law to make an invitation and ask the students in class if they want to pray to accept Jesus as their Savior, but we can pretty much say anything else. Even telling them how to ask Jesus to be their personal Lord and Savior. So please pray that we would boldly proclaim, remembering that God's word does not return void.

Until later.