Hey Friends and Family!

We hope you all are having an enjoyable start to your summer!

Our family is doing well. Thank you for your support, texts, calls, emails, and prayers! All of it makes a difference. Update on our family celebrations and wellbeing is below. 

The two churches are likewise doing well. As Christopher and Denise are away on stateside assignment, our pastors and leadership have embraced the opportunity to step into the roles they have been preparing for. The children’s ministries are thriving, small groups are growing, we have a rotating preaching team that is serving well and faithfully, and we will need to have a baptism service soon. 

In addition, Amanda and I now have a group of people in our neighborhood with whom we are partnering with to share the Good News! We are very excited about this, and there is more on that below. 

Please be praying with us as we are beginning the process of discernment for this next season. Pray that we may have clarity and discernment for these things which God has placed in our hearts. 

Pray also for God to continue to raise up leadership in the church, specifically in the area of kids church directors, and treasurer responsibilities, so that we can begin training the next generation of leadership here in Macapa. 

Also, please be on the lookout for some communication from us around The 300 Campain – which is our effort to grow our prayer support base. 

Much Love, 

Derek, Amanda, Selah, Amaris, Josiah, and Adalee

May and June have been a whirlwind of celebration for us as a family!

In May, I (Derek) traveled back to the United States for my last residency and graduation with my Master’s degree. The program is in Christian Spiritual Formation and Leadership through Friends University in Wichita, KS. 

To say that the program was life-changing would still not do it justice. I received practical theology,  hands-on training in discipleship, spiritual direction, the ministry of writing, and the role of community in formation for mission. I also made life-long friends. Those wonderful folks in the bottom picture are my small group within the cohort. I am not exaggerating when I say that we talk every day. I highly recommend Friends University to you all!

After returning home, we took a week of family vacation (stay-cation) and just enjoyed the time with each other and with our Brazillian friends. 

June is also a month of celebration for the Blaylock family. We celebrated Dia dos Namorados – Brazillian Valentine’s Day on June 12. 

Then on June 14, Amanda and I celebrated 15 years of marriage! The Lord has wonderfully blessed our marriage and having the support of our wonderful families, friends, and Christian community has made our marriage even better. 

Then on June 17th, we attended a neighborhood celebration for the Festival of St. John. People dress up like country bumpkins, serve traditional dishes, dance, and sing karaoke. Through this, we made some new acquaintances that we hope to get to know better in the near future. 

But wait – there is more! Amanda turned 38 on June 18, and Derek turns 38 on June 25th. 

This has been a wonderful few months of celebration for our family and we are doing very well. 

A significant part of our transformation as Christians happen when we begin to move from operating out of willpower to the development of godly, automatic habits. Willpower is a finite resource and if we are going to make much progress at all it will be by grace-fuelled automatic responses to life and the development of godly routines. 

As a family, we seek to have a few simple routines that we undertake in order to be faithful to Christ’s mandate to make disciples. 

These routines are ones that we adopted from a guy named Dave Furgeson from his book: B.L.E.S.S. 

BLESS is an acrostic that stands for:

B – Begin in Prayer

L – Listen: To your neighbor and God at the same time. 

E – Eat 

S – Serve

S – Share the Story

Suffice to say that our family has been living into these practices ever since we moved into this neighborhood. But now we have partners!

Through our efforts to live into these rhythms, God has brought together a few other people (pictured above) who also have a heart for Jesus and want to share the Good News in this neighborhood. We are beginning in prayer -together! This last week we had our first neighborhood prayer-walking session together – asking God to open up doors to serve our neighbors and share Jesus with them. 

I’m very excited to see where this goes, and ask that you join us in prayer for this endeavor. We hope to have a small group of new believers meeting together in the near future. 

Simple, faithful, quiet, scripturally informed, Holy Spirit-empowered routines are the way God uses His people to change the world. If this is something that you are interested in hearing more about we would love to chat with you!

Prayer Support – The success of our church planting here is very much dependent upon the faithful and fervent prayer of God’s people. If you know someone that might be interested in receiving these updates and praying with us please send this link. They will get an introductory letter about us and the mission when they sign up. 

Financial Support – Our family is currently taken care of thanks to your generosity. However, the recent events surrounding the BRICS economic agreements may bring about a less favorable exchange rate going forward and we may need to undertake some fundraising efforts to make up the difference. We are approaching these next few months in prayerful discernment about how to proceed given these new developments. 

There are always needs here in the churches and if you would like to contribute additional resources please use the link below!