Thank You! 

We want to start by saying thank you for all your prayers, moral support, and financial support.

We are so very thankful for you and how God has continually used you to strengthen and encourage us in many ways. We couldn’t do what we do without your support!

The Process

As we reflect on where we are with this new church plant in Palmas, we also reflect on our experiences from the last 19 years. Connecting and identifying with a new group of people in a new context is always challenging. It takes time, demands great intentionality, and it stretches our natural personalities.

Though our current context seems harder to break into than others, we are thankful for some key relationships that God has blessed us with and which continue to develop. We feel like we are entering a season of ripening. Having been here two years and working hard to develop visible routines, we feel some new relationships will develop over the next six months. We also sense we are in a season of retooling as God further molds us to work in this new context.

Please pray that God will continue working in us and that some of these loose connections will mature into more personal ones. Pray that God will give us discernment and great favor.

Exciting Developments

As a group, we are excited to move our meetings from Wednesdays to Sundays starting in April.

For now, we will maintain our informal small-group format. However, this change to Sunday has some significant implications for a loosely connected group with some non-churchgoers. We’ve been praying about it for some time now, and we were very excited when the group started expressing interest in the change.

We will also gain another member for our church planting team in mid-May.  Abilene (photo above) is a Brazilian woman who was part of a church plant in Altamira back in the days when we arrived in Brazil. She has been part of the national church family for many years and is very talented, balanced, and wise. She will be joining us for an undetermined amount of time, perhaps a few years, and will be significant to the next phases of this small group.

Finally, another family we know has been planning a move to Palmas for over a year. They are from here, know many people, are outgoing, and love the church. Finally, everything has lined up for them to move, and they just secured a house here, with a move planned for later this month.

We sense these changes will significantly impact the group’s development over the next several months. We pray that the church can move out of our house by year-end into a more commercial space!

Prayer

Please continue praying that God will connect us with key people and give us direction as we seek to guide this group and form a community of Christ followers.

Blessings in Christ,

Keith and Marsha Wilson