2020 Year-End Giving

What a year, am I right? 2020 brought several new things to our lives. And 2020 has also continued to bring some common realities. Year-End giving is one of those things that continues to be very important to our sustainability on the field.

For the past three years, Year-End giving, special one-time gifts, campaigns and the like have been the lifeline that our support account needed to be able to sustain the following year. This year is no different. 2020, COVID-19, quarantine was tough for life-on-life ministry, but the loss of a few more supporters has made these final months a bit tougher. Year-End giving is as vital as previous years.

We are aiming to raise $6500 in Year-End, one-time giving in December 2020 and January 2021 in order to realistically expect to finish 2021 in the black.

If any of our faithful supporters are able, we ask that you consider participating as so many have in the previous few years; and even ask new year-end givers to participate this year. 

We continue to believe in what we are doing here in Brazil. We pray that God would use our wonderful support team to continue to supply for our needs.

For online giving, follow this link: www.campusoutreach.org/donate/jon-elam

Merry Christmas and Happy 2021!

Try, Try and Try Again - 2nd Semester 2020

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Next week our Campus Outreach Belo Horizonte team will have our semester planning as we continue to try, try and try again to regroup, reinvent and re-up our efforts to do ministry in the conorovirus reality. At least now we know what to expect - sort of.

Belo Horizonte has had an up-and-down reality with COVID-19, and currently the situation is still far from stable. We are closing our dry, winter months here, so we are still in peak cold and flu season - aggravants in the midst of a viral pandemic. UFMG, our primary campus, was hit hard with uncertainty and limitations during the initial phases of quarantine as a public, federal university that offers free education to its students. Because not everyone in our context has access to online classes, UFMG was simply forced to interrupt activities until an inclusive plan could be put into place for all students. Therefore, since March, all undergraduate activities have been on hiatus. Next week, in August, the university will resume the first semester of 2020 via online and distance classes.

Up until now, the vast majority of our contacts and young Christians had a lot of free time, since UFMG abruptly halted activities. However, we now know that the rest of the year will be a crunch for them, since they will be cramming 1.5 semesters into the rest of this year and the beginning of 2021. Students' free time was a commodity of which we were able to take advantage, but that will soon be in short supply.

We do not expect to be back on campus this year, and we understand our students will have many academic demands.

We are trying to seek God's direction and continue to be faithful in personal relationships via social distancing and virtual options. It really has us depending on God for any and all fruit - but it is still happening! New conversions, Bible studies starting, discipleship groups having the best quality time they ever have had, and young leaders being trained. As you can see in the group pic above, there are blessings in the madness. God is still sovereign.

2020 Starting Block

The new year has already been with us for a month. In Brazil, the new year is smack in the middle of summer, so it has a slower pace. We spent January in the US for our vacation time and Tathiana and I spent a week at a “Marriage Intensive” in Rome, GA (ask me more and I’ll tell you all about it). We took our long voyage through multiple flights, airports and exhaustion to get home just in time to see February make it’s appearance.

We are back to our life, poised at the 2020 starting block, ready to start the next yearly race!

• We surpassed our Multiples of 40 1-Time Campaign goal! The goal was $10k and we ended the last quarter of 2019 with a total of $11,100. Thank you so much to all who donated and prayed.

• The city of Belo Horizonte has been pounded by record-setting rains this month(estimated at 1000mm - 40 inches). The city has regions that suffered from floods, landslides and structural damage that all together lead to over 50 deaths. Everyone is still talking about it.

• The kids started back to school already, their school supplies and materials still slowly coming in as we find out what we forgot to purchase or gather.

• Classes at UFMG do not start until March, so this month we will have our annual planning meetings, extra time with students who live in the city and special projects that different staff groups are working on (support raising, language classes, leadership team meetings to discuss the year and upcoming changes).

• 2020 will be the transition year for Pedro Albuquerque to take on the Regional Director role, and I want to help facilitate this transition between Demps, our veteran Regional Director, and Pedro as much as possible.

• Our local church will be continue the process of searching for a new lead pastor/elder. I will be involved in helping facilitate this process with a small commission from our church.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we get geared up for the race of 2020.

I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. (1 Corinthians 9:23-24)