May 2014 Newsletter
May 2014 Newsletter
Greetings friends!
The church in Pacajá is over a year old now! We rented and moved to a larger nearby building and have seen more visitors and a little growth.
The most significant growth has been in our small group. This group meets in a house near our future church building. Often the group is larger than our attendance on Sundays.
Several that come to small group don’t have transportation, so walking to church on Sunday night with little kids poses a significant hurdle. When we move into our own building, we’ll be excited to see the Sunday group and the Wednesday group blend into one family.
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For the last six months, we’ve been investing a great deal of time in construction as we push to complete phase 1 of our multi-purpose building.
Our goal is to start using the building by June 1st. We had a “barn raising” type workday with 26 men working to pour the concrete roof / second story floor. The rough structure is now finished and we are working on the internal and finish work. Please pray for favor as we sprint to finish this phase.
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We continue reaching out to our community with activities that help build relationships and meet felt needs. Our community development
One event that has been successful at building relationships is our weekly soccer game. As fruit of these relationships we’ve had several youth come to Christ. Our small dirt soccer field is in the same neighborhood as our future church building.
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Early March brought Carnival to Brazil. This festival of the flesh is celebrated in virtually every city here. As an alternative, many churches offer some kind of retreat, normally geared towards youth and young adults. Our group of churches calls our retreat Cristoval.
The first major event for our new church in Pacajá was Cristoval 2014.
We were blessed with a great location somewhat isolated but within the city. For two days and two nights, we gathered for a marathon of fun and games, worship, teaching, and food. We had almost sixty people come!
Several leaders from the church in Altamira and two new friends from Belo Horizonte joined us to help make this event a success. It was such a blessing to have them with us.
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May 1st is a holiday in Brazil. We like holidays as they give us a chance to do something together as a church family. On May 1st we held a baptism and picnic celebration at a creek about 6 km outside the city.
Baptism is such a beautiful outward step for those deciding to follow Jesus. We baptized 10 people! Afterwards we grilled meat and had a potluck lunch followed by lots of playing in the water and good conversation. These times bring such great opportunities to deepen our relationships.
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It’s been 3 years since our last visit to the States and we’re now planning our next visit. We’ll be arriving in Ohio on June 5, 2014 and we will be returning on September 2, 2014.
Our goals during this trip are to visit with family and friends and share about what God is doing here and in our own lives.
We look forward to connecting with as many people as possible during this short time. If you would like to get together individually or as a small group, please let us know so we can schedule a visit.
E-mail: marsha.wilson@xingu.org
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Prayer requests:
· Spiritual growth for the new believers
· Wisdom to guide this growing group
· Family—health, unity, college, etc.
· Preparations for our trip to the States
Thank you for all your support! Please keep us and this work in your prayers.
Blessings in Christ,
The Wilsons