XM, Author at Xingu Mission

Hi everybody! This is Ronã.

We are finally back home after one week of traveling. But all this trouble with the airline company didn’t damage the great experience I had with you guys. That was definitely the best trip I’ve ever had.
When I was denied for my tourist visa the first time, I felt so disappointed. I had prayed so much for the visa, and God knew I really wanted to visit the U.S. What I didn’t know at that time was that He was preparing a greater experience. He wanted me to enjoy the U.S. and Canada with my son.

Some people asked me what was the best experience in the trip. The answer is hard to tell because I had several great experiences.
I loved getting to know Allison’s family. They were so good to us all the time.

Family in North Carolina

My mother-in-law, Mona

Family in Columbus

Family in Montreal

Family in NYC

Visiting Allison’s home church and the other churches that have being supporting us was also a great experience.

Morrow County Vineyard

VIneyard Tuttle Crossing

Alive Vineyard in Neward

Northside Vineyard

VCDC

I enjoyed having meals with our friends and supporters. So many stories and paths that connected to us because of Jesus.

Home group of Jim and Jo Ann McCann

The Lovely LaVerne

The Helsers

And all the adventures I had were very pleasing and exciting.

Climbing Stone Mountain in Atlanta with my mom-in-law

Going to the spring OSU football game

Seeing Niagara Falls

Going Ice Skating

Seeing the snow for the first time

NYC blew my mind!

Visiting the Columbus Zoo

Oly and his cousins

I want to mention here how proud I am of Oliver. He did so well on this trip. He’s definitely a blessing. With all these travels, we expected him to be very upset, but instead, he was spreading his joy everywhere he went. Allison also put a lot of work into planning this trip. I’m so grateful for the wife I have.
Now is the part when I tell you what I took away from America. I know that you guys have your own issues, but I never felt so safe and never saw so many opportunities and high quality of life as I did in America. You guys share of what we wish we had. And when I see that almost all the missionaries that I know are from the U.S. or Canada, and how the churches in North America has being supporting churches all over the world, I understand why God blessed you all.
In a few days we’ll start our new mission in João Pessoa (Jampa). We want to honor your prayers and support. Pray that God uses us in many ways.
I also want to ask for your prayers for one of our supporters. His name is Steve Kocher. He recently had a heart attack, followed by triple bypass surgery. Let’s pray for his healing and recovery.

Steve Kocher

As you can see from Ronã’s pictures and comments, our trip was truly a blessing in so many ways. I want to thank you for welcoming our family with open arms into your homes and hearts. Your generosity and faithfulness through prayer and support allow to do this amazing work God has put before us here in Brazil. Thank you!

Love,

The Moura Family

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XM

Memories for a Lifetime

Hello Everyone!

Our time here is beginning to come to an end as we will be leaving to go back to Brazil on June 1st. I can’t say enough about what this trip has meant for our family. It will be an experience that we will hold onto for many years into the future.
Since our last update, we had the privilege of taking a 2 week road trip up through New York and Canada to visit family and friends. What an adventure!
I have a cousin on my mother’s side who lives in Brooklyn, NY, so we spent a few days there doing some sightseeing.

Ground Zero Memorial

A stroll through Central Park

Time Square

In Canada, we visited family in both Montréal and Toronto.

Family in Montréal


Family in Toronto


Oliver playing with cousins!

We also had the pleasure of spending a few days with our very good friends and mentors, Art and Cyndi Rae. Art and Cyndi have been on sabbatical for the past year in Cambridge, Ontario, and they will be headed back to Brazil in August to continue training leaders in the Living Waters program. We had missed them so much!

Since coming back from our road trip, we have started meeting with our supporters again to reconnect and making some new connections. This week, we had the pleasure of visiting the Schoppelrei family who are apart of the Morrow County Vineyard.

Out to dinner with the Schoppelrei family

Financial Goals:

We believe we are about $500-$700 away from our monthly goal! This is amazing! So many of you have already signed up to donate monthly, which has been so encouraging. Your desire and commitment to support us has confirmed even deeper the calling that God has on us for our new mission in João Pessoa. We know that we truly have a great team backing us as we move our lives and our family to this new work. Thank you!
If you have already signed up to support us monthly, it would be really helpful if you would send us an email to let us know how much you have committed to. This will help us to know exactly where we are at and how much more we need to raise.
allison.rupert@xingu.org

If we have not met with you already, we still have a little bit of time available. We would love just to catch up with you and answer any questions you have about our work in Brazil. Let us know.

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Love, the Moura Family

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May, 11

XM

May 2018 Newsletter

Dear Family and Friends,

Wow! What a month. It has been crazy, but awesome.

My home church, Vineyard Church of Delaware County, sent a team to visit us. It was great to spend time with them – and with J.T., my brother.

The VCDC Team

I’ve got to be honest, though. The best part of our month was the birth of Denise’s and my son, Jonas Taylor (J.T.) Meyer. He was born on April 28 at 7 pounds, 3 ounces. He is healthy and doing great. Denise had a C-Section and is recovering well. We have had a full house both with Denise’s parents staying with us as well as visitors. We’ve been really busy but with lots of good stuff.

Our Family

The church plant is doing wonderfully. Vineyard Viva is enjoying an increase in numbers both by birth J and visitors.

Thank you for your prayers and ongoing support for us as we adjust to being a family of three and continue to pastor our growing church. We love hearing from you.

In His Service,

Christopher & Denise

Contribution Link: https://xingu.org/opportunities/giving/meyer-ministries/

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Apr, 10

XM

Half Way There

Hello Everyone!

It has been such a pleasure to spend time with all of you on our visit so far. It has already been quite the journey, and we are only about half way there. For Ronã and Oliver, especially, this has been a time filled with new experiences.

When we first arrived, we spent a couple of weeks in Georgia visiting with my Mom. It brought me so much joy watching her interact with Oliver and Ronã.

When we arrived in Columbus, we spent the first week hanging out with my Dad and his wife, Mimi. They invited over all the family and some friends to welcome us home.

We also got the chance to visit my grandparents and some old friends in North Carolina.

Dinner at my Grandparents’ house

We are so glad that we have been able to spend time reconnecting with old friends and making some new ones!


Having lunch with Chris and Amanda Saul, and their beautiful daughter, Cora


Visiting the small group of Jim and Jo Ann McCann

Financial Update:

I am thankful to say that we have made some progress toward our financial goals, but we still have a ways to go.

The Xingu Mission asked that we have at least $5000 as an emergency fund available. As of now, we have about $4000. We are almost there!

For our average monthly support, we are expected to have around $3,300. At the moment, our current monthly average is about $2000. I know that many of you have recently signed up to become our monthly supporters, and we are so grateful to you. For those of you who have not, we ask that you prayerfully consider investing financially in what God is doing in Brazil.

After speaking with our leaders, we decided it was necessary to extend our trip here by a few weeks in order to create more opportunities to meet with people face to face and continue working towards our financial goals.

If we have not already had a chance to get together with you, we would love to schedule some time for either lunch or dinner. Below, I put some dates that we still have available.

Thursday, April 12th: Lunch

Tuesday, April 17th: Dinner

Wednesday, April 18th: Lunch

Saturday, May 12th: Dinner

Monday, May 14th: Lunch

Thursday, May 17th: Dinner

Friday, May 18th: Lunch or Dinner

Saturday, May 19th: Lunch or Dinner

Tuesday, May 22nd: Lunch or Dinner

Thursday, May 24th: Lunch or Dinner

Friday, May 25th: Lunch or Dinner

Thank you all for the love and support that we have received from you during our journey. Ronã has told me how welcomed he has felt here. That even though you have never met him before, he has been treated like an old friend. Thank you for welcoming me and my family into your hearts and homes!

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Love, the Moura Family

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Mar, 29

XM

March 2018 Newsletter

Dear Friends and Family,

Denise and I wanted to take a moment to say hi and thank you again for your prayers and support. You mean so much to us!

As you can imagine, we are super busy with the church plant and preparing for the baby. We are super excited to meet our son. Here are a few fun picture so you can share in our excitement.

Vineyard Viva

Denise, baby and me

This month, Xingu Missions asked us to write an article for their quarterly newsletter. We thought you might enjoy reading what we wrote:

It was just over two years ago that Denise and I arrived in the city of Macapá. We originally came here to help the existing church. There was also an additional plan to plant more churches in the Macapá region. This second plan always seemed a bit far off. I knew that at one point we would want to plant churches, but I always looked at it as pretty far down the road. After a year and a half in Macapá, we realized that things were moving a bit more quickly than what we anticipated. The church we were sent to help was doing great, the divisions in the church had subsided and the attendance had tripled. We began to realize that maybe it was time for us to start really thinking about planting. After having talks with the leadership in the church along with some of our missionary supervisors, it was decided that it was indeed time for the next step.

This last December we made it official and along with fellow missionary Bob Lesher and 8 others we had our first service for our new church, Vineyard Viva (Alive Vineyard). In the 3 months of our existence, God has taught me many things. Of the many things he has taught me, the most significant thing I have learned is to keep my focus and the church’s focus on Him. I know that this sounds simple, but let me unpack this a bit. With a new church, everyone is extremely excited with a lot of ideas: ideas for “in church” ministries, ideas for outreach, ideas on the style in which our church will operate, ideas for everything. The temptation is to make “ideas” and “vision” our Number 1 focus. Although ideas, vision and planning are good things, one thing I continued to hear God speak to me was that we need to be extremely deliberate in placing our focus on Him before anything else. I really sensed God saying that if our focus stays on Him, he will bless our church.

We have already seen God’s blessing on our church. Our numbers have begun to rise, but most importantly, we are seeing God come and meet and impact people. We are already seeing lives changed and this more than anything is exciting. We know we are at the first steps of a long journey and have much to learn, but we couldn’t be any more excited. We feel as long as we stay connected to God and His leading, we will end up exactly where we are supposed to be.

Prayer Requests:

Please pray safety and health for Denise and our son through labor and delivery.
Pray for the upcoming transition as we go from a family of two to three.
Continue to pray for our church as it continues to grow.

Thank you again for your prayers and support. We love to hear from you.

In His Service,

Christopher and Denise

Contribution Link: https://xingu.org/opportunities/giving/meyer-ministries/

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XM

The Way Forward, Christmas in Canada, University Alpha, Educating Luke and Faith

Thank you!
To all of you who read, pray, support and love us thank you! We love you all!

Home for The Holidays

What Were We Thinking? Winter in Canada is COLD!

Although we are questioning our sanity going back (as are many others) for apparently the coldest winter in 36 YEARS we thoroughly enjoyed being with friends and family and making some new connections during our time in Canada.

Christmas with my big beautiful family!

Our very wintery drive to Ohio

Our time in Canada was short, and we apologize if we were unable to connect with you on this visit, please know there is an open invitation to visit us in Brazil or we will have to make sure we see you on our next visit!

Winter’s beauty at our home church

Thank you to all of you who loved us, kept us fed and warm and reaffirmed to us how much we love our Canadian family!

Making winter memories!

This wonderful family puts up with us and lets us call their home our home when we are back in Canada, we love you Fellmans!! or as we like to call ourselves ‘Snellmans’!

The Way Forward

As we have shared our stories of what God has been doing through us during our first year in JoÃ£o Pessoa and our ideas and hopes for the future, we have been so encouraged, things have evolved and we have vision and so much excitement for the future.

We are beginning to see the girls in their homes, this gives us the opportunity to meet and begin to build relationships with their families neighbours and friends, and we know that that will only increase as we get to know them more. As we prayerfully move forward we can see where God is giving us more and more opportunities to expand our relationships and the Kingdom through these growing relationships!

We are continually surprised at how God has connected us in such a short time. A year ago we arrived in a city of almost a million people and the only people we knew left the city. We now have a large circle of friends and a ministry we love! Blessed beyond measure!

Join the Team-Donate to the Snells

University Alpha

Last August Phil began running Alpha in a state University English class. The opportunity came about when one of the people who had been taking Alpha in our home suggested it might be a possibility.

The professor gave one stipulation, â€˜If even one student complains, we have to shut it downâ€™. At the time any kind of religious based study was prohibited in the University.

Not only were there no complaints, there were passionate discussions that often flipped from english into Portuguese as they asked the hard questions and wrestled with what they believed. It went so well and the students enjoyed it so much that we have been invited to do TWO classes this year! This is great news as it introduces us to new people.

When we return we will be starting a new small group and inviting the people in the class to come.

Educating Luke and Faith

As most of you know we made the decision last year to put Luke and Faith into a Brazilian school. After four and a half years of homeschooling (which is a callingâ€¦.and I donâ€™t have it!) and going from living somewhere where they were surrounded by other kids to a big city where we live behind walls, we felt that the healthiest decision for them and our family was that they start going to traditional school.

Ready Set Go! The school year just started!

It has been the best decision we could have made! They love being surrounded by people, even though it has meant a lot of blood sweat and tears as they learn to read and write in their second language. They both passed their first year which is a small miracle in itself and as a mother, I see it as fruit of the strong willed personalities they have, they persevered and it paid off!

The school they attend is private and fully Portuguese. The public school system in Brazil is not equipped to handle the kind of accommodations immigrant students need and unfortunately the system is broken in many other ways. There are frequent strikes and students suffer because of it.

The cost of schooling privately is high, but the benefits for our children and us as a family are immeasurable. They finally feel as normal as they possibly can as missionaries in a foreign field. Not to mention they are getting an education and becoming fully bilingual. When they reach high school age (only a year away for Luke!) they have the option of entering a dual diploma english program that will give them a Brazilian diploma and an American one. Both Luke and Faith want to pursue their post-secondary education in Canada, so this dual diploma will ease the transition.

Homework time

The downside is that the cost is something very difficult to carry on our limited budget. We have started a go fund me to help with the cost of this crucial need for our kids.

We are asking friends, family and supporters to consider giving towards this campaign or investing in them by sponsoring them on a monthly basis. Investing in a kids education is priceless and you are indirectly helping our ministry by helping us keep them in school.

Hereâ€™s the link to give to the campaign. If you would like to help monthly with their expenses, just reply to this email and we can discuss how you can go about doing that.

https://www.gofundme.com/Lukeandfaith

Prayer Requests

As we settle in to our other home it stirs all kinds of emotions, although we love where we are living and what we get to do, having your heart in two places can make transitioning difficult, especially for our kids.

Please pray that they have a great transition back to Brazil and back to school and routine

Please pray that we are able to pick up where we left off. Leaving so early into the ministry was hard, the girls asked often, â€˜youâ€™ll be back right?â€™. We have tried to keep in touch as much as possible but we know itâ€™s also possible that we may have some ground to make up.

Please pray for wisdom as we move forward, our greatest desire is to always be in step with our Father and what His plans are.

Please keep our friends and co-labourers Allison and RonÃ£ and their son Oliver in your prayers, they are about to start the process to fundraise and move to JoÃ£o Pessoa to join our team! We are so excited to have our team grow!

Finally, please pray for the girls we are ministering to, that they would increasingly feel the Fatherâ€™s love so deeply, that they would have the courage to take the necessary steps forward to see their lives changed!

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XM

Cristovál 2018 Fotos 2

The Snake

The first day someone almost stepped on this boa constrictor, which was wrapped around an iguana. We caught it, took some pictures, and then set it free back in the swamp.

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XM

Cristovál 2018 Fotos 1

Cristovál started with an evening of games. The next day one of the big events was a cross-country run, where your team only got points when everyone was at the finish line. This encourages the stronger ones helping the weaker ones.

The

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XM

January Amazon Update!

Thank you so much for your support and prayers. We usually like to send our updates in the middle of the month but we have been traveling for the last 21 days and just got back. It was a great time and adventure. Bless you and pray that you enjoy the below update!

As I mentioned above we just got back from traveling for 3 weeks and it was an adventure as we slept in many different places and traveled via boat, planes, and automobile. I did not do so well with the driving part. OPPS. Thankfully no damage….except to my ego.

We spent about 2 week in Santarem and Jacarim. During our stay there we spent time with their leadership and talked about current things that are happening within the church, and the future. We also participated in ordaining 2 couples to be senior pastors. The first picture is of Inilson and Enilda to be the senior pastors of Santarem. The second pictures is of Ricardo and Cleury to be the senior pastors of Jacarim church. Both of these couples are passionate for the Lord, and the lost. Please keep them in your prayers.

We also had the pleasure of being with Richie Bouthillier and his family in Portel. We went to officially inaugurate their church building, and participate in ordaining Geise to be the pastor in Portel. The Bouthilliers are doing a great job in Portel and it was a great thing to celebrate. The mission is all about planting churches, and training leaders. This moment was what we are called here to do. Help plant Vineyard churches, and train local leaders to lead into the future. Praise the Lord!

The girls are doing well. They just started school on the 1^st of February. Actually school started a few days ago but since the girls were with us during our travels they were unable to attend. During our trip, we had a chance to go to Elba’s hometown. Camilly and Alyssa were trying to learn how to fly a kite. It somewhat worked. Elba also showed us the place that she used to get water every morning by bucket and then carry on their heads back to their house. I was fortunate enough to be able to turn on a Fawcett and water came out.

Please also continue to pray for spiritual, physical, and emotional health for us.

Much love, Steve, Elba, Camilly, and Alyssa

Tax deductible donations can be written and sent to:

Please click the donate button to make a secured on-line donation:

I found this English school in Santarem with this name. A lot of my friends in Ohio would argue that this could not be a good English school with the name of Michigan. J

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Jan, 24

XM

January 2018 Newsletter

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you for your prayers and support. They are always very greatly appreciated.

Things have been going really well for us lately. Denise is now at the six month point of her pregnancy! It’s been so cool being able to feel the baby moving around inside her belly. We can’t believe that in three months we will be bringing a baby home! We are a bit nervous, but mostly excited!

Denise and our baby

One slight complication is that Denise has a hernia. She believes she actually got this hernia when she was young, but it was never taken care of. As the baby has grown, the hernia is being pushed out and has begun to show itself again. Because of the strain of giving birth, her doctor has recommended a C-section. During this surgery, the doctor will also take care of the hernia. This has been a bit of a disappointment, but Denise has moved past it and now feels complete peace about the plan.

We are having a lot of fun seeing what God is already doing through our new church plant. We planted our church six weeks ago with eight other individuals. We have enjoyed growing closer to the team and seeing deeper relationships develop. We also have had new people beginning to show up which is very exciting. The last three weeks we have seen between 20 and 30 at our services. We are working hard trying to connect with all the new people and help them feel part of what we are doing.

Church Party

Here is Bob Lesher from VCDC who is part of our church plant, too.

I want to take a minute to share a little personal triumph in my life. As I’ve mentioned in past updates, learning Portuguese has been a battle for me. It has definitely been a “two steps forward, one step back” process. Over the last year, I have seen some huge leaps and advances in my Portuguese, but one thing has always felt out of reach – preaching in Portuguese. Although I have been meeting and counseling individuals in Portuguese for a while now, when it comes to preaching, Denise has continued to translate for me. You see, not only has Portuguese been difficult, but since I was young I have had a deep rooted fear of speaking in front of groups of people to the point of having panic attacks. Since arriving in Brazil my thought has always been, “How could I possibly preach in Portuguese when I can barely do it in English?”

While on my furlough back in the States, I was lying in bed one morning and had a thought cross my mind, “When you return to Brazil you need to begin to preach in Portuguese.” Initially I ignored the thought, but I just couldn’t get it out of my mind. I began to sense that this was really the Holy Spirit speaking to me. Although the thought of preaching in Portuguese terrified me, I made a commitment in that moment to be obedient soon after I returned to Brazil.

I’m happy to report that this last Sunday, I did my sermon in Portuguese. I was nervous beforehand, but once I started, it felt so much more comfortable than I expected it to be! Everyone was very encouraging and supportive. People were actually taking notes! I remember thinking, “I can’t believe they actually understand all this!” I know I have a ways to go, but this step was a huge one for me.

Me preaching in Portuguese