June 2013 Newsletter
We’ve been in the city of Pacajá for a year now and working with our Brazilian team mates for six months. We’re in a neat phase of expectation and newness as we work together to establish a church here. We appreciate your prayers and support.
Our main focus at this early stage is getting to know people and getting known in our community. We’ve been having cookouts, get-togethers, visiting people, and anything else to get to know people personally.
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We seek to apply the Gospel to the daily reality of our community (its interests, its problems, its culture). To that end we’ve started a few outreaches.
One is a community development center we call CDR. CDR Pacajá is currently offering an English school, though we hope to offer more programs with time. English as a second language is a felt need of many Brazilians, even in a small rural community like Pacajá. Marsha is teaching introductory English and next semester we hope to offer two levels, Marsha teaching one and Logan the other.
Another activity we started is a weekly soccer game. Ferreira is the champion of this project and is doing a great job organizing and inviting new people.
Most soccer in Brazil is very competitive which ends up leaving out kids, older, injured, or busy enthusiasts. Our soccer group is much more recreational and relational. It’s turning out to be very relevant to a number of folks.
In March we broke ground on construction of a multi-purpose building. It will serve as our CDR building and the initial church building. In the future we hope to build a larger attached auditorium. Part of the project strategy is to get better known in the community as we run after material work with others, and visit with curious neighbors.
Two short-term teams, the Marabá church planting base, and a number of financial supporters have been a blessing to us as we undertake this large project. If you’re interested in helping out, please contact us.
We’ve been overseeing a small church plant in the interior (KM 120) for several years. The leaders there come from Maranhão, the next state over, and have a very large extended family there. For some time now Virgilio and Joana have wanted to share with their family how God has radically changed their lives.
Prayer requests:
Small Steps Towards God
First Contact – Introduction
Strive to treat all people with respect and dignity
Feeling Part Of
It’s amazing how much we need to feel a part of something, a group, a community, an organization, something. It’s even there in the most independent people among us. They identify with something and want to be with like minded people, or at least they like feeling part of a group of like-minded people even if they don’t have much personal contact. At the very least they are comforted to know that other like-minded people are out there somewhere.
You can see this perhaps more vividly in small communities. In small communities there are always a few people who identify with a particular sub-culture that is virtually non-existent in their community. This used to be the case with skaters and punk rockers….I’m too disconnected from the US to know what it might be today. Locally, they seem like outcasts, isolated, distant, but they long to be part of the larger sub-culture and they participate virtually, through magazines, TV, the internet, concerts, etc. They have a longing to be connected, to fit in, to be part of the larger sub-community. — (that’s a good evangelistic key by the way)
After seven months in Pacaja we are just starting to feel part of the community…a bit. Our Brazilian friends and teammates have been here for about a month, we have small group of regulars at our weekly home meetings, and we’re starting up a small community center that’s generating interest and helping us become a fixture here. It feels good.
On top of this our small group is gaining credibility among some churches here. We have been very well received by three churches in the community and this past week we had the opportunity to preach and lead worship at one of these churches. The church seems to share some of our values and we really felt at home and well received. The congregation was open and responded well to worship, the message and ministry time. It really felt good for our team.
Having mentioned this “evangelistic key”, let me elaborate a bit more on this “feeling part of” thing…God is present and faithful even when we don’t feel accepted, part of, or at home. God has called all of us to be heroes. A hero is someone who against all fears and visible odds, chooses to live such that Christ’s character shines through them in the hope that others might encounter real and abundant life. There are thousands and thousands of people out there who want peace, joy, and hope (real life). They don’t know it by those names, but that’s what they are running hard after. These people are in search of someone who has these qualities. When they see these qualities they will know it and be attracted to it. They are seeking to be part of that which they don’t yet know.
If you and I don’t find the courage to live as heroes, people will find other groups or sub-groups to be part of, but they will likely not encounter the peace, joy, and hope which they truly seek. I want to dare to be a hero even though I don’t feel like one, even though it is scary.
Please pray for Pacaja and our team here. We want to live in such a way that people will encounter some of Christ’s character in us and ultimately encounter Christ himself.
Blessings,
Keith
January 2013 Newsletter
Happy New Year!On September 20, 2012 we completed 8 years in Brazil. We want to express our thankfulness for everyone who has supported us with prayer, moral and financial support these years.

On December 27th our Brazilian colleagues (Ferreira and Fernanda) moved to Pacajá to complete our initial team. With their arrival we have started actively as a church. We held a New Year’s celebration inviting the friends we’ve been making in Pacajá. We began meeting as a leadership team and we’ve started a small home group.
Our vision for Pacajá includes being part of the community in a relevant way. That means going beyond meeting spiritual needs, and trying to meet felt needs in the community as we are able to. One way of doing that is providing English classes.
We shared this vision with the City officials and it was received very well. They wanted us to immediately start providing English lessons as part of a program for children and youth.
Marsha started in October with children from one of the underdeveloped neighborhoods. Many of the kids are a bit high energy, but Marsha’s interest in the kids is having an impact on their behavior.
We are considering building a structure to open a Community Development Center to reach out to the community. Our first activity would be a English school open to the general public. This will be one of the first things we explore as a team.
v Health and safety of our family and team
Please keep us and this work in your prayers.
Spiritual Drift…..a gradual and deadly monster
Keith