For some reason, when I so desperately want to talk about the mission trips I have gone on, or any other opportunity of serving, I want to be very careful that I am not drawing attention to myself. I never ever want that to be the case. I just get really, really excited about what God does! I am still learning about his sovereign ways and it makes me passionate about telling what HE has done because it is so amazing! I recently read this scripture in Psalms 9:1 that gives me a freedom, and a sort of obligation in telling stories from my mission experiences. It simply says... "I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders." So here goes my attempt at beginning to tell you of our Lord's wonders in Brasil.
First of all, I feel like I need to give some background information before anything else. For the 3rd time in the last 3 years, I was able to go spend about 8 days in the beautiful country of Brasil. Our team from my church, Olivet Baptist, partners with Builders for Christ, and Pioneer Missions to build a new chapel for a church in Brasil. Each year I have been, it has been in a different part of the country. This year our project was in Northern Brasil in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, in the city of Campo Grande. Just as a little background. These churches are not new church plants, they have to meet requirements in order to receive one of these new chapels. One of them being that they as a church have to be the owners of the land where the chapel is built, and have to have the foundation done when we arrive. That may not sound like a big deal for a church in the states, but it is a huge sacrifice for a congregation in other countries. The brothers and sisters we worked with this year worked on this for months leading up to our arrival. So much goes into these projects before we even begin making travel arrangements. They prayed, worked, and sacrificed money and time to insure that this was done in time. This congregation was able to save money on renting a building by having their services in a nearby school. You can imagine their anticipation and excitement to finally be so close to having their own chapel to meet in and to call their own!
So, when we arrived after many many hours of travel on a Saturday evening, we are greeted at our hotel by the pastor and his family, and a few members of the Igreja Batista of Campo Grande, RN with a sign welcoming us "Our brothers and sisters in Christ"! That is just the beginning to a wonderful week of God working. But, he has already started working there, and he has already been working in us. People from our church have been praying, people from their church have been praying, people from Pioneer missions and Builders for Christ have been praying! God's work has already begun before one single block has been laid! Can you just see the smiles? Feel the excitement in the air? Feel the heartfelt hugs and greetings that we were a part of? It is really indescribable at best!
But, over the next several blog posts I am going to try to describe to you in as much detail as possible the great wonders of our Lord. I hope you will stay tuned, and check daily for my stories. I trust and pray that it will be worth your time and maybe even encourage you that God truly is still on the throne! He still performs miracles. He still saves people from a life of sin, and He still loves the WHOLE world, our neighbors, families and co-workers! So much so that he still sends people thousands of miles away and just across the street to share his great love of hope and redemption through his son Jesus.
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