The Great Update Drought of 2015

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Last year was the scenario of the unfortunate, the lamentable, the debacle know as " The Great Update Drought of 2015". Supporters and Prayer partners, I have nothing to say except the mediocre, "I'm sorry!" Or maybe, "bad missionary, bad!"

So, 2016 rushes in with a series of BLOG posts and I will begin with a lackluster job of recapping 2015 for all, hitting only a few highlights.

  1. The last post of 2015 was in April, after we spent 4 month in the US on the support trail to be positioned for the next life-phase of ministry in Belo Horizonte. God provided new partners and new support through long-time supporters. Also, the economic reality in Brazil has not been a good one, so the Brazilian currency in relation to the US Dollar has fallen, meaning out purchasing power increased without an increase in salary. Summarized, we are financially ready for the next years barring a sharp fall-off of support or an economic 180º here in Brazil.
  2. As director of the Resource (administrative) Team, 2015 was an important year to consolidate my team. Fabiana really embraced her role and did an amazing job in my absence. We hired Pedro Albuquerque, a recent grad from UFMG and member of my discipleship group. And both Pedro and Fabiana got married during between August and December. They will both continue on full-time with our Resource Team.
  3. Our UFMG campus team continued their coffee-shop discussion groups through out the year, and were a great way to initiate and go deeper in personal conversations about God alongside other Bible-studies and individual times with students. It all cumulated to our summer project in jan 2016, which you can read more about here!
  4. Tathiana and I began to lead a Regional small-group at our church, and has given us the opportunity to grow our pastoral role in the church and invite non-campus friends to events where the central focus is on Jesus.

PNP 2016 - Summer Project Recap

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We love because God loved us first. (1 John 4:19)
Where is the the love? We used this question during the semester to challenge students and their thoughts about God. Everybody longs for love. Everybody arrives at the same conclusion when considering the the problems in the world: “the answer is love.” So...where is this love that we long for but cannot begin to actually put into practice?

After numerous discussion groups we presented an idea; how could discuss love and not hear Jesus’ opinion on the matter? After all, is there another historical character that addressed love in such a brazen manner other than Jesus? And surely, if asked to answer our question, he would certainly say, “love is in God.” He is the source. He loves first. No one can love without first being loved by Him.

Prosa na Praia - Summer Project:
Jesus’ viewpoint concerning love was the focus of our discussion time during our annual summer project, called Prosa na Praia (Discussion at the Beach). We had the amazing opportunity to spend a week with 40 students we have been investing in by living in the same house and sharing quality experiences. The beach, sports, games, food, talent show, sunrises and sunsets among many others! All together our week was full, fun and helped us create a sense of real community.

Beyond the fun and games, we had a daily time to go deeper into our discussion about “love is in God” thru Bible studies, talks and facilitated discussion groups and lots of informal ones! By the grace of God, we could truly see the Spirit moving in that place! Many students asking honest questions, new people interested in studying the Bible and investigating more about Jesus, young Christians growing in maturity and, overall, the gospel making sense like never before for so many. We are extremely humbled by what God is doing among us!

I got to help with the graphics for both the 2015 Coffee-shop discussion group image and project images. Go to the Media page to some of them.

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