Hello

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!!!  We are so grateful for all your prayers.  Bless you!  We have great news to share with you below.  Thanks again so much for your prayers!  If we can pray for anything for you, please let us know.

We have great news to share as a follow-up to last month’s update.  First, thank you for all your prayers for the new church plant in Belém (Translation: Bethlehem).  I want to share a quick back story.  Before returning to Brazil this last August, we had the opportunity to attend the National Vineyard conference in the USA.  During that conference, we received a prophetic prayer: “I know that you do not have anyone to come and join your team in Belém, but the Lord is going to bring your team together all at once.”  We heard the prayer and felt very encouraged, but we were unsure how it would get accomplished.  Fast forward six months, and the Lord has brought three strong leadership couples to come and plant a church in Belém with us.  The feelings of despair we felt in August have turned to overwhelming joy. 

Within one month, two couples moved to Belém, and another couple committed.  Clenildo and Angelita, and Niltinho and Mayara, and Ramon and Rayassa. 

I will summarize them because their accreditation would take up a lot of space. 

Clenildo and Angelita have two sons and have been part of the Vineyard Church in Brazil from the beginning.  They planted the first Vineyard church in the North of Brazil along with Elba over 25 years ago.  They are national and regional leaders. 

Niltinho and Mayara are from the Colina Vineyard church.  They both are very gifted in worship and training.  Niltinho oversees the North region in Brazil for worship.  They have the potential to be Senior pastors of this church or another. 

Ramon and Rayassa are from Portel and are recently married.  Ramon has been leading our water filter project for many years.  He is also very gifted in music and training.  Rayassa is passionate about the children’s ministry.  Ramon and Rayassa will be moving to Belém soon to help with the church and continue operations of the water filter project.    They have the potential to be Senior pastors of this church or another. 

Now that we are starting to have a consistent number of people come to our home weekly, and we have a team in place.  We will be having our first church service on February 18^th.  We rented a room for our first church service.  We rented a room because we have very few resources to rent or buy a building to hold church services.  We are excited that after so much time, we can hold our first church service outside of our own home.  Please keep us in your prayers, and I will share an update next month. 

The girls are starting back to school.  The school year in Brazil starts in January.  Alyssa is starting her Junior year of high school, and Camilly will start college.  Alyssa really likes school, or at least the socialization part of school.  She has many friends and likes to play Volleyball.  Camilly will be studying Biomedicine with an emphasis on esthetics.  She likes the beauty industry.  Here is a picture of us with Michael and Helen Hansen.  We got to go 4-wheeling, which was a blast!

We appreciate your continued prayers:

·         Please pray that we will identify the new senior pastor of the Belém church plant.

·         Please pray that the Lord will continue to reveal His plans to the church and us.

·         Please pray for our church, leadership, and congregation to help people draw close to God. 

·         Please pray for our family, especially our girls, in this phase of our lives.  

·         Please pray for our spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, and financial health.  

·         Please pray for the rejection of this virus from your loved ones and its eradication.

Much love, Steve, Elba, Camilly, and Alyssa

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