Ministry | Tylers in Brazil

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A Day in the Ministry

Posted on December 17, 2012 by admin Leave a comment

Yesterday was quite a day! My morning got started quite slowly, but I soon jumped into the work that was cut out for the day. I had a couple things on my list that had to be done before nightfall.

Monday is the day we hold our weekly Bible studies. We always look forward to the Bible study, but at the same time it does require preparation. Each week we work on developing Bible studies and preparing ourselves to teach the Bible lesson. This week we also decided to print a registration card to help us gather a little more information about those who participate in the Bible study.

John and I worked most of the morning on getting the website ready for putting our Bible studies online. We created a few pages, styled them for the lessons and uploaded some of the materials we had.

In the afternoon Amanda wanted to go run a few errands, so we ran around town looking for a few things. Though we did not find any wrapping paper, we did find mini marshmallows! (This really has nothing to do with the subject, but I thought I would throw it in anyhow.)

When we arrived back home, the registration cards needed printed, the lesson needed to be printed and reviewed also before getting ready for the Bible study. The Lord allowed everything to go smoothly until we were about ready to leave for the evening.

I had asked Amanda and the boys to come to the Bible study with me this week. As we were about ready to leave, I sent the boys outside to wait by the car. Shortly after I heard a scream! Judson had fallen down the steps leading to the car and had skinned up his knee pretty good. We brought him inside and started to doctor him up when there was a knock at the gate.

With perfect timing, the neighbors had come to invite us to a birthday party they were having which started in 15 minutes. We obviously declined, but they told us we were welcome to stop by after the Bible study if they were still outside. Needless to say, we were a bit late leaving and still had to go pick up John before going to the Bible study.

When we arrived at the Bible study, the room was buzzing. There were half a dozen or more new faces in the room and others soon arrived. We had a record evening with about 24-25 people there and several faithful people were missing. Because it is the week before Christmas, several have traveled and others were busy with practices at their churches and things like that.

God blessed in a great way in the Bible study. The lesson was on true worship. You could see on people’s faces the concern they had about their means of worship. As always, we spent a good deal of time answering questions when we were done.

We arrived back home around 10pm and noticed that the neighbors were not quite done with their party, so we decided to go say happy birthday. We planned on just saying hello and leaving, but when we arrived, then expanded the circle of chairs to include us, and the husband began chatting with me.

We have been praying for these neighbors since we moved here and have had just a few opportunities to speak to them about the Lord. The husband is a freemason and heavily involved in the lodge. Every Wednesday he takes part in their meeting and often on the weekends they have a get together at the lodge.

The Lord has put a burden on my heart for these neighbors. The opportunities to speak to them are not many because they all work and stay busy with other activities. So, this being said, the opportunity to interact was at hand.

He began to talk small talk. We talked about what we had seen in the news recently, or what he had been doing for the last few days. Then as the people began to leave, he began to open up a bit and talk about an auction he had helped for a hospital that is connected to St. Jude. This opened the door for us to speak about religion, the situation of churches today, true christianity, and a few other things along those lines.

His wife expressed interest in us having a Bible study at their house, and contrary to what anyone expected, he was not opposed to it. The Lord has given us a great opportunity to influence our neighbors for the Lord!

So, how did it all end? Well, at about midnight, we walked back across the street being the last ones to leave the party. We have been invited over for dinner later in the week, and a great door of opportunity is opening before us! Please help us pray for these neighbors. The wife and daughters attend a church, but do not necessarily show evidence of true salvation. We would love to see them trust the Lord as their Savior and watch the Lord do a wonderful work in their home and lives.

The work of the Lord is full of surprises! We are called on in many different circumstances to go out of our way and take the light of the Gospel to many different people. I was tired at 10pm when we came back from the Bible study, but after our visit, I hardly slept a wink thinking about what God was doing in our neighbor’s lives.

We serve a wonderful Lord and Savior who is alive today and working all around us. May we open our eyes and see what God is doing.

“This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.” Psalm 118:23

— Jeremy

Posted in Bible Studies, Literature, Ministry, Old Blog, Websites

God is Working all over Brazil

Posted on December 9, 2012 by admin Leave a comment

It is amazing what God can do when we simply allow ourselves to be used of Him. One of the most exciting things in missions is to know that God is at work all over the world. He is at work in the lives of all 7 billion+ people on this earth. Since He is already working, all we have to do is get in on it.

Years ago we started the Gospel website ConhecendoDeus to spread the Gospel to different areas around the world. This ministry has grown quite a bit with the help of Facebook and a few other tools that we use. Though it is not an enormous ministry, it does take time and effort to keep it going.

It has been several months since we have updated you on this part of our ministry. God has increased our influence over the past few months.

The blessings are many, so I will share just a few…

Every week we receive a few prayer requests from all over Brazil. These prayer requests vary in subject, but many of these are requesting God to give them back a boyfriend, bless their health, help them find a job, and things of that nature.
Over 500 people receive a daily posts on Facebook about a passage of Scripture and the application of it in their lives.
We are in contact with people all over the globe because of this website. Recently I have communicated again with our friends in Pakistan that we met through this website.
We are able to provide many resources for pastors, Sunday school teachers, and others who want to study the Bible. Every day people access the site through searches on the internet. Most don’t stay for long, but a few stay for over an hour reading and studying through the site.
Every month we get hits from every state in Brazil as well as hits from other countries around the world. This year alone we have had visits from over 50 different countries.

Specific situations…

Please pray for a man named Erinaldo who has been corresponding with me this week. He was about to end his life when he found our website and wrote asking for prayer. Over the past few days we have corresponded and he wants to be discipled. He related how he had trusted Christ as his Savior about 6 years ago, but was never taken any further. He has a desire to know the Lord and has requested that we teach him and counsel him.
Another individual recently wrote on the website asking what kind of Bible studies we were giving. He wanted to join the Bible study, but was unsure about the methods used. He wanted to know if it was by correspondence, by internet, or how we conducted the studies. Unfortunately we had to write him and tell him that all of our Bible studies were local and being held in person. We are not yet ready to developing online Bible studies. Yet, it seems as thought he Lord keeps urging us to set up some sort of online study. Dozens of people have requested this. It would require a few hours of work a week to video, edit, and upload the studies. Please help us pray!

The Limitations…

We need more laborers. This area of the ministry takes many hours each week. Others have volunteered their help at times and God has used them to get us where we are today. However, we are constantly adding more content and expanding the website useability.
We also need wisdom. John Kokenzie and I have both stretched ourselves in the area of technology to try to reach more people. Our knowledge of web design, graphic design, computer programming, photography, audio/video technology, etc… are being used as best we can.
Our resources are limited. Everything we have done with technology so far has been through open source programs that are free. There are two reasons for this. The first one is because missionaries operate on a limited budget. The second reason is because we want what we do to be reproducible by the national pastor or his people. If he cannot afford what we can, then our tools are useless to him. He will then covet our money, not our God.
God’s blessing is essential. No matter how much we try, we believe that this ministry will only be used as God blesses it. The real work is done by the Holy Spirit in the heart of those that come to the website. We also believe that the Holy Spirit is the one who leads people to search the website and find the things that this website offers. We pray often that God would lead people to the website that need and want to know who God is.

— Jeremy

Posted in Bible Studies, Ministry, Old Blog, Websites

Another Project Complete

Posted on October 11, 2012 by admin Leave a comment

Through the years, we have worked on many different projects. The Lord has given us a burden to reach our generation. One of the tools we have to reach our generation is the internet. This has become such a vital part of our ministry and efforts because so many people are spending time online.

We live in a very remote part of Brazil, but that has not stopped technology. In our city of over 37,000 people, over 15% of the population uses Facebook. The numbers of internet users are much greater than this.

Though our work is not perfect, it seems to have somewhat of a professional look and it is useable. We work with the resources we find at relatively no costs other than time invested. Sometimes this causes some issues, but the Lord keeps us pressing forward through the difficult spots.

This week we finished a new website for the one of the only Independent Baptist publishing companies in Brazil. We have partnered with them by moving them forward in the technology realm. We realize the importance of Christian literature and have invested in this project knowing that it will pay off in the future.

Good books are hard to find in Brazil. Therefore, we created an online store for this publishing company, Editora Maranata to help them get the word out and become accessible to the modern world. Click on the picture below to visit the new website and also online store.

Over the last two years, the Lord has slowly expanded the influence of this publishing company. We now are sending the monthly paper out to almost three times as many people and that number is growing at a steady pace.

Please continue to pray for the future of this ministry. We hope the web store will enable and expand the sale of books on a national level so that the publishing company will be more self-supporting and less dependent on churches in the US. There is a group of pastors and missionaries working together to not only keep this ministry alive, but to move it forward. There are three new books being prepared for publishing, and several others asking us to publish their materials.

Good literature is essential to soul-winning, training disciples, and equipping leaders. False doctrine is spreading very quickly across Brazil and we must continue to battle the false doctrine and defend the faith which we so dearly cling to. This ministry is one means by which we are seeking to do this. Please keep praying.

— Jeremy

Posted in Literature, Ministry, Old Blog, Websites

Results of Soul-Winning

Posted on October 11, 2012 by admin Leave a comment

Recently we have started reaching out by going house to house. John Kokenzie and I have been going out once or twice a week to get to know people and take the love of Jesus to those around us.

Early this week we went out in the early evening to talk to a few people. We were able to find someone at every house we went to. We chose this specific time of day to go out because it was cooler, and we thought we might find more people at home. So far, it has worked.

After talking to several people, we came to a certain house where a young man nineteen years old came out to talk to us. He said he was from the First Baptist Church, but when I mentioned the pastor’s name he did not recognize it. So, he ran into the house to call his mother to ask her what his name was.

When his mother came out, she quickly confirmed that she attended the First Baptist Church and invited us into the house. Their house was very simple and the walls were nothing more than brick and mortar. No finished walls, no paint, and nothing fancy at all in the house.

After a little more casual conversation, I asked the mother, Andréia, when she trusted Christ as her Savior. After receiving an answer from her, I asked Ricardo, her son, if he had ever put his faith in Jesus as his personal Savior. He responded, letting us know that he had never been saved.

His heart was ready and after a little explanation we bowed our heads and prayed. Yes, he asked the Lord to save him! What a thrill it is to see people give their hearts to Christ.

Please pray for Ricardo and his mother, Andréia. They have been through many difficult times, but the Lord has something special for them. Pray that we will be able to help them and encourage them to move forward in their relationships with Christ.

— Jeremy

Posted in Ministry, Old Blog

Cujubim – Rondônia – Brazil

Posted on September 9, 2012 by admin Leave a comment

I just returned from a weekend holiday trip to the city of Cujubim where I participated in a type of youth congress teaching young people about music. The Lord blessed in a great way during the trip!

CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PICTURES

There were representatives from about five or six different churches present at the meeting. The fellowship was wonderful and the Lord was working in the hearts of the young people as well as the adults.

Bro. Adelmo is working in the church there. The Lord put him in Cujubim about eight months ago to help the church. He will soon be ordained and become the pastor of the church. Please pray for him as he works for the Lord in Cujubim.

During my three day stay, he took all the teenagers out several times to hand out tracts and do some soul-winning. Though no one trusted the Lord as their Savior during these times of outreach, I was glad to see some young people out talking to people about the Lord and inviting them to the meetings.

From my point of view, the leaders benefited more from the lessons than did the young people. They were quick to admit their need to change the music in their churches. Some, I believe will take steps of improvement, while others will continue doing what they have always done because it is the “easy way”. Many times we have the opportunity to hear good preaching and teaching on certain subjects, but how often do we actually act on those things and change something in our lives because of it?

The challenge many times is not only to present truth, but to encourage people to act on it. A quote, I believe to be by Mark Twain, gives us the truth… “It’s not the parts of the Bible that I don’t understand that Give me fits, it’s the parts that I do understand that trouble me the most.” We have the Bible and truth at our fingertips, but yet we are many times unchanged and unaffected by it.

Please pray for our churches here in Brazil. Many stories could be told of the churches that have strayed into Pentecostalism because of music. Though I am certain that music was not the only factor, it is one of the signs that will most certainly pop up before the church heads that way.

The churches in this particular area of Brazil are very needy. This is not only in the area of music, but in every area. There is very little teaching on doctrine and few qualified teachers or pastors. Out of the eight closest churches to us, four of them are without a pastor and being monitored by the same missionary. Each of these churches has a male leader, but many of these have little if any training and some do not even understand the basic fundamental doctrines that we teach, yet they are in leadership in that church for lack of others who will take on the role.

People are begging us for a Bible institute, music training, pastoral leadership, and much more. Where do we begin? Should we just neglect what God has put in our hearts to help these people with their needs? By no means! Yet at the same time we must pray to our all-knowing God who said that He would send laborers at our request. Let us not be guilty of “doing everything we can” without doing what God has already asked us to do.

Posted in Ministry, Old Blog, Preaching

A Great Start to September

Posted on September 2, 2012 by admin Leave a comment

This past Saturday, September 1st, was a good beginning to the month. Pastor Marcelo from Machadinho, mentioned just a few posts ago, invited me to go with him to conduct a service at his uncle’s house. His uncle lives in a small town called Alvorada do Oeste, about 60 miles from our city of Ouro Preto. It is definitely a smaller city and is not even labled on Google Maps.

Our entire family was planning on going, but because of all the circumstances of the past few days and upcoming days, we decided it would be best for them to stay at home. I drove down to Alvorada, then out of town a few miles into the country to get to my destination.

The service was conducted at a house on the farm. The purpose for the service was for Bro. Apolinário to give testimony of what God had done in his life. He wanted all his neighbors and relatives to know that he was now a Christian. Through the past three years he had undergone many cancer treatments and had come near death several times. In fact, he said his heart quit beating for about 25 minutes. Yet, one of the nurses did not give up on him and was able to help him come back to.

We had an absolutely wonderful time down there. There were several relatives there that did not know the Lord as Savior and we were able to present the Gospel to them in a very clear way. Pastor Marcelo did a great job preaching to his own family and pointing them to Jesus. Altogether, there were about 28 people in the service.

The Lord blessed and also gave us safety traveling back and forth. I did see a bunch of goats, a very large cow, an opossum, and a huge pig on the highway, but thankfully the Lord protected me from hitting them. Though this is considered a main highway connecting several cities, there were probably 30 speed bumps I had to cross going and coming back. There was a total of about five miles of highway that was still dirt. They have been working on paving the road for several years, but it is not finished yet.

Please keep praying as we make more contacts in this part of the country and seek to follow the Lord’s will here.

Below is a picture of our service at the farm. There is also a link to the pictures page where you will find a few more pictures of this trip.

— Jeremy

Alvorada Pictures

Posted in Ministry, Old Blog, Preaching

Machadinho do Oeste

Posted on August 31, 2012 by admin Leave a comment

Last weekend, our family was invited to visit a church in Machadinho do Oeste. It is about three hours from where we live right now. The church was started by fellow missionary Tom Brewer.

Pastor Marcelo invited our family to come spend the weekend with them. I preached on Saturday evening and on Sunday morning and evening. Amanda also spoke at a ladies meeting on Friday evening.

It was a great blessing to see the Lord working in so many lives up there. We had a great time of fellowship with Pastor Marcelo and his family. Pastor Marcelo has a great heart to serve the Lord and has taken a stand which has set him apart from so many pastors. We wish to encourage him in the work the Lord has placed him in there in the city of Machadinho do Oeste.

Many Brazilians have been so influenced by the pentecostal movement and the gospel of prosperity that they are always looking for a “blessing”. This has so dominated the country that people have sold their houses and lands and separated large amounts of money to give to their churches expecting to receive double in return from God. Because of this I preached on “Destroyed by a Miracle”. I related many examples how victory, blessing, and miracles lead to spiritual or physical destruction. Gideon, Simon in Acts 8, and many other examples could be given. I showed them that many people are looking for the Miracle and missing God altogether.

Sunday evening, after a message on the Potter and the Clay, a lady trusted the Lord as her Savior!!!

Altogether, we were refreshed by the fellowship and enjoyed the time away from home. We even were able to spend just a little time out by the river with Pastor Marcelo and his family. The boys really enjoyed climbing around on the rocks.

View Pictures of Machadinho do Oeste

— Jeremy

Posted in Ministry, Old Blog, Preaching

Update on 2010 Trip to Porto Velho

Posted on August 7, 2012 by admin Leave a comment

I have been wanting to post something about this for a long time, but only now was I able to get the picture.

This is a picture of a Brazilian pastor, Antônio Marques and his wife Maria. Brother Antônio Marques and his wife hosted me during my very quick survey trip to Porto Velho in 2010. They were a very big blessing to me during the trip. She cooked meals and they prepared a place for me to sleep at the church.

Brother Antônio took me around the city and showed me just about everything I wanted to see. He drove me by most of the good churches in town. He also took me downtown and to the riverfront.

The only issue in all of this is that he is over 70 years old and I was riding on the back of his motorcycle! After two days on the back of the motorcycle, he did give me a few scares, but nothing terrible. His motorcycle had a little problem changing gears and kept kicking, so I was holding on and very alert.

The very day we moved our family up to this area, I was informed that he was in the hospital. He had fallen out of a hammock and hit his head. This lead to some exams which showed he had a large brain tumor. A few days later they operated on the tumor. Initially he was told that the entire tumor was removed, but since then he has been told otherwise.

He lost all his vision in his left eye and about 80% of the vision in his right eye. He was unable to read his Bible, prepare sermons, or pastor his church. Soon after the surgery he resigned his church.

Last week, there was a preachers meeting in Itapuã at Bro. Brewer’s church. When I arrived, I found out Bro. Antônio Marques was going to be preaching at the meeting. I was surprised that he could preach, but at the same time encouraged that his health was improving.

After the meeting I took advantage of the opportunity to get this picture taken. I also had the opportunity to finally introduce them to my family.

We talked for a little while and here is what he said, “During your visit with us, I was already having symptoms of a brain tumor, but I did not know what it was. They have just told me that the tumor was not completely removed. They also told me that it is a malignant tumor. I have regained about 60% of my vision in my right eye, but I am worried because the tumor is right behind my good eye. I am still afraid I will loose all of my sight.”

This pastor has been faithfully serving the Lord for nearly 40 years here in the state of Rondônia. He has started several churches and has sacrificed all of this world’s good for serving the Lord.

Please pray for him and for his wife. They are precious people and have very little of this world’s good. They are subject to the social health care system and make less than enough to pay for his medications. However, the Lord is using him to encourage other pastors to remain faithful in the work of the Lord.

— Jeremy

Posted in Ministry, Old Blog

2012 London Olympics – True Victory

Posted on July 23, 2012 by admin Leave a comment

One of my projects over the past 6 months or so was the design of a new website for the 2012 Olympics in London. The Olympics will soon be beginning, and thousands of people will be traveling to London from all over the world.

Many of you are excited about the sporting events and the excitement as you cheer on your country. However, others are awaiting this event with the prospect of reaching the world through London. They see the souls for whom Christ died and see opportunities to reach people with the Gospel.

We have been working along side Bro. Allen Johnson and Wings Bearing Precious Seed to develop a website similar to our Conhecendo Deus Gospel website. This website, appropriately named truevictory.net is also a Gospel website. It not only gives the Gospel, but also attempts to give the personal story of athletes who have made professed Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Please visit the website and pass it along to your friends. I know there are several different outreach programs going on in London during this time. Please remember to pray for all these people reaching out to the lost with the Gospel. May the Lord work on the hearts of these athletes and spectators to give them

Posted in Ministry, Old Blog, Websites

Friends in Itapuã

Posted on July 19, 2012 by admin Leave a comment

There are many blessings to being a missionary, but there are also some negatives. We are very blessed to have friends not only in most of the 50 states of America and in many of the 26 states in Brazil, but we also have friends in many countries around the world. The bad part about it all is that many times we must say goodbye to our friends. There have been countless numbers of times when we have had to say goodbye to people we love.Most recently, we have had to say goodbye to the people of Itapuã do Oeste in the state of Rondônia in Brazil. Fellow missionary Tom Brewer and his wife Cindy were a special blessing to us during the four months we spent with them. Their church, Igreja Batista Bíblica do Vale, became very special to us. The people took us in and befriended us and encouraged us. We are very thankful for the time spent there.

Here are a few more pictures of our friends in Itapuã. The entire album can be seen HERE.

Posted in Family, Ministry, Old Blog

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