Another Profession of Faith in Christ

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Every week we are going soul-winning. John and I normally try to go out several times a week. We also work on contacting people by phone, by email, through Facebook, stopping by their work places, or however we can get in touch with people during the week. It is interesting to see how God is working.

Just a few weeks ago we started another Bible study not far from the Kokenzie’s house. We had been knocking the doors on that particular street and a lady said she wanted us to do a Bible study at her house. John and Julie began the Bible study and are teaching this lady, Fabiola, every week.

Just this last Tuesday, we tried to make some house calls because it had been raining. When everyone we contacted was not available and the rain died down some, we decided to go ahead and go out to knock some doors. Because we had not yet finished knocking all the doors, we decided to go ahead and finish the road where the Bible study was started.

The first person we found at home was a young lady with a six month old child. Her name is Dayelle. She showed some interest, then when we asked her about her salvation, she admitted that she was not saved. She said she did not know if she would go to heaven.

Even though it began sprinkling and she was holding her baby out in that damp weather, she wanted to hear what the Bible had to say. We showed her some verses and showed her how she could be saved. I prayed for the Lord to work in her heart while she was praying that the Lord would save her! How exciting!

Because there is such religious confusion in our area, this is not a common thing. Few people ever admit that they are not saved, even though they say they don’t know if they are going to heaven, they almost always say they have been saved and Jesus is the only means of salvation. However, being a Christian is in style here, especially in this part of the country. That means most people know the lingo, but hardly ever trust Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. They always have their own thoughts about who God is and how to be saved without having Bible to back them up.

After praying with Dayelle, she told us that they had just moved into the area because her and her husband had been sent away to seminary. They later found out that they were used as part of a scam and were mistreated. The pastors that sent them away were removed by the church. It is amazing, that people like this who know very little if anything about God or the Bible are sent to get seminary training.

Please pray for her husband. We have not yet met him, but are praying that the Lord will work in his heart also. She has been invited to the Bible study tonight on her street. Pray she will come, her husband would come, and we would be able to help them spiritually. Pray for John and Julie as head up this small Bible study this evening.

The Lord is working in many lives around us and we are very happy to be a part of it! Keep praying!

–Jeremy

Posted in Ministry, Old Blog

A Day in the Ministry

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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.

Bible Study

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

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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…

  1. 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.
  2. Over 500 people receive a daily posts on Facebook about a passage of Scripture and the application of it in their lives.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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…

  1. 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.
  2. 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…

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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

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    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

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    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

    Thoughts About the Rainy Season

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    Having recently moved to this part of the world, we are yet to get the full effect of the rainy season. When we arrived in Northwest Brazil over six months ago, we were at the end of the rainy season. We experienced the rain every day and the mud that was caused by it. We lived on a dirt road with a dirt yard and had mud on our feet almost every time we entered the house.

    Within a few months, the dry season came and we started fighting the dust. You can clean, wash, wipe, rinse, dust, or mop, but when all is said and done there will be a red layer on everything you have just finished cleaning within a couple of hours.

    Slowly, things begin to change. Our grass was all brown from no rain. I had not cut the grass in two months. Then just about two weeks ago we started getting rain. Several places around us had received some rain, so we knew it was on the way.

    It has rained about three or four times in the last two weeks. The grass is all green, the weeds are high, the mud is back, but there were a few things we did not expect. These things come by surprise because of being in a different house.

    Storm

    The Storm

    When the first storm hit, it hit between 3-4 in the morning. We were sleeping quite well until the wind woke us up. Then all of a sudden, we got out of bed to see the rain. I walked into the kitchen and stepped in a puddle of water, as I was trying to get that mopped up, Amanda called from the bedroom and said there was water in there! Wow! Our bedroom became a small swimming pool!

    Though it did not rain very long, it took us nearly an hour or an hour and a half to mop up all the rain. We were able to get back to sleep just before needing to wake up and begin our day.

    Yesterday, we received another BIG storm. This one we were ready for. We placed rags under all the doors that would let water in. We closed the windows and got out the rags. The wind was once again very strong and blew the rain right against the bedroom window. We were prepared for water to come in, but a little more than expected came in. When we pulled the curtains back, here is what we saw…

    Waterfall

    THE WATERFALL

    So, with a strategically placed thumb we were able to hold back quite a bit of water. It did not keep it from coming into the house, but it did prevent it from shooting out into the middle of the floor.

    The good thing about this last storm is that I found where the problem is in order to try and seal it up. When the storm hit in the middle of the night, I was not awake enough to figure out what needed to be fixed.

    Spiritually speaking, we are in a dry season here in Brazil. Yes, we get a few drops here and there, but we are looking for the rain. All over Brazil, in the large cities and in the remote scattered places, the story is the same.

    It is amazing to me that we live in such a remote place, but at the same time, we have so many modern conveniences. We have indoor plumbing, electricity, high-speed internet, cars, microwaves, online shopping, and much more. Yet, at the same time, within just a few minutes I could take you to places that have absolutely none of these modern conveniences. There are places near here that you could not get to in a car during the rainy season. They have no internet. They still use they use outhouses and may or may not have electricity.
    Yet in all of this, God is to be praised! It is by His grace that any of us lives another day. With or without the modern conveniences of the hour, our Lord is the one who holds the world in His hands. We will either see His hand working around us, or we will face this world on our own and get frustrated, confused, and materialistic about it all.

    My heart breaks when I stop to ponder the reality of our situation today. In this day and age when we have the most modern conveniences of any period of time in history, there are more people out there who have never heard a clear presentation of the Gospel than ever before.

    Truth is, the statistics are even more warped by the fact that religion obscures the Gospel. You can be a part of an evangelical “Christian” church for many many years and never hear the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.

    Many statistics now reflect Brazil as a Christian nation. Just because it is a very religious country, the second largest missionary sending country in the world, most everyone you meet seems calls themselves a “believer”, and a good part of the population holds a copy of God’s Word in their hands, does not mean that they have heard a clear presentation of the Gospel.

    “Christianity” and religion have become some of the largest hindrances to the Gospel here in Brazil. In almost every city in Brazil, we are not winning the “heathen” to Christ. We are simply reaching out to nominal Christians who have never been saved. They use the same Bible we do, they use the same language we do, and some even have higher standards of dress than we do. Yet, they do not know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.

    The good news in all of this is the Gospel!!!! God’s Word is able to divide asunder between soul and spirit. It can also discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.

    Bringing this back to the story related above, we are praying for rain!!! I personally am praying for revival in Brazil. It seems as though we are in a dry season where many are discouraged about serving the Lord and few are true disciples of Jesus Christ. Yet, if we are still serving and believing in the God of the Bible, then we have hope that the drought will end and the rainy season is on the way!

    Please join us in praying that souls would be saved, that people would be baptized, but don’t stop praying for true disciples of Jesus Christ. Pray for truth to be spread and false religions to be revealed.

    Pray for us as we seek to reach people here in this part of Brazil with the Good News of Jesus Christ.

    — Jeremy

    Posted in Culture, Family, Old Blog

    Cujubim – Rondônia – Brazil

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    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!

    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

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    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

    Posted in Ministry, Old Blog, Preaching

    Blessing of the Jungle?

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    What kind of blessings do we get from being near the jungle? Well, below is a picture of one of the BIG blessings we have here in this part of the world. Giant Cicadas!!!! This particular one is about six inches in length. It was right outside our kitchen on the back wall. They also make a large amount of noise. Anyone want to come visit?

    Cicada
    Posted in Culture, Old Blog

    Machadinho do Oeste

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    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.

    Preaching

    — Jeremy

    Posted in Ministry, Old Blog, Preaching
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