Missão Xingu: Blaylocks in BrazilHello Friends! I wanted to start with a confession of sorts. Im terrible at taking pictures and remembering to take pictures. It’s not usually on the top of my mind. So please don’t fear, even though Adalee is hiding behind her brother in the top right photo (with a fellow Vineyard pastor in Recife – Antonio), she is doing very well and the entire family is accounted for and doing well! September has been a good month all-around. We have plenty of great updates about the prayer request from last month, but before that we wanted to take a moment and celebrate our oldest mini-missionary. Selah turned 13 this month! We have our first teenager in the house and we could not be more proud of her. She is prayerful, thoughtful, kind, generous, studious, hardworking, lover of all things cat, and a lot of fun to be around. The kids have been training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for about 4 months now, and this last month Selah competed in her first ever tournament. She was the first North American in this tournaments history and she took home 3rd place in her category. This has been great fun for the kids and is starting to bear some relational fruit for us as we have gotten to know the other kids and parents in the class. Below are the updates about those things you have been praying for, along with a few adventures in Kingdom ministry from this past month. Thank you for all that you do for the sake of the Gospel, and for the love and support you exhibit towards our family. We could not do this without you! Love, The Blaylocks Donations:If you would like to donate to the ministry you can do so through through the mission’s secure giving portal here: Prayer Request
Amanda has been feeling much better! Last month we wrote about the harshness and frequency of Amanda’s migraines and you all have responded in prayer on her behalf. This month has been a much, much better month in that regard. New Group Fundraising Needs: Thank you for everyone that was able to give above and beyond towards this. Thanks to your generosity they have everything they need to get started well and the group is off to a good start. September Outreach: The September outreach resulted in a lot of fun, some new connections, and some great conversations that went from meaningful to spiritual. It also resulted in a few people getting to hear the presentation of the Gospel in a natural way and in some followup questions and further meetings. Pray for these folks that they will continue to receive the Good News and come fully into the life of the Church under the lordship of Jesus. Kingdom AdventureIn the Gospels Jesus primarily describes His life, ministry, mission, death, resurrection, and ascension primarily in terms of inaugurating the Kingdom of God. From his first recorded sermon in Mark 1 (Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand!) to His parting words to his disciples in Acts 2 (“He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God”) the primary theme of Jesus is the in-breaking of Kingdom of God. In the Gospels Jesus is continually announcing the present reality of the Kingdom, teaching about what life in the Kingdom is like, and demonstrating the reality of the Kingdom in power – healing, deliverance, miraculous provision, etc. This last month for the first time ever I preached on this theme of the Kingdom to our group. In leading up this I spent a lot of time also praying that the Lord confirm this message by working in power during ministry time after the sermon. And, I’ll confess I was nervous – I always am even though we have seen God show up and do the miraculous in our midst. The thing is, God is infallible, but I most certainly am not! What if I mess up or what If I mishear the Holy Spirit? But, as we say in this movement – Faith is spelled R-I-S-K. At the end of the day, Im not in control of the outcomes, our Father is. The best I can do is, to try my best to respond to the Holy Spirit and leave the results up to Him. Sometimes that might mean I look like a fool. Sometimes, its amazing! I also happened to be leading worship, and so after the sermon during ministry time I picked up my guitar and just started strumming softly. Almost immediately the Holy Spirit told me “somebody here is dealing with sharp pain in their left knee”. It felt like a very certain word. So, just calmly playing some music I announced what I felt like the Holy Spirit had told me. And nobody responded. And as I continued playing and offering space for people to pray and respond to God I was also praying – “Oh no Lord. Did I mess up? Did I mishear? I just spend the last 30 minutes talking about this stuff!”. After a few more minutes of ministry time one of our church members came back into the meeting space. They had slipped out to attend to their kid who needed something. They had to pass by me while returning to the seating, and when they did I quietly asked them if they had pain in their knee. This person immediately started crying! It turns out they did indeed have a lot pain and stated they were feeling overwhelmed that God loved them so much that He gave a word of knowledge about this to us. We had no way of knowing, but God did! With a great amount of relief I invited a few people to join me and pray for God’s healing. They experienced immediate relief of the pain and reported to me the following week that the knee was healed. It is a great privelage to join Jesus in His continued ministry of the announcement of, demonstration of, and teaching about the Kingdom of God. It will also, always require us to R-I-S-K and step out in faith in response to what the Holy Spirit is doing as we seek to join Him in His work. We may look foolish, we may at times get it wrong, we will often not always see everything we hope to because the Kingdom has come but it is also Not Yet. But our call is to bear faithful witness to the Scriptures and the truth of the continued ministry of Jesus through proclaming the Kingdom, teaching about what life if like in the Kingdom community, and demonstrating the present reality of the Kingdom in His power. Amen. Bless you all.
© 2025 Derek Blaylock
|
