2022 Year in Review & Year-End Giving

This year brought many things, both rewarding and challenging. 2022 was much different than the previous two COVID years here in Belo Horizonte. I want to review quickly and celebrate with all our partners what God has done.

Personal & Family:

• Celebrating 20 years in Brazil with Campus Outreach

• Kids - growing and maturing in wisdom, stature and favor with God and man

• Decision about the next 10 years of our life and ministry in the USA

• God providing for our 20-year campaign

• Facing stress, sadness and excitement about new chapter in the US in 2023

Campus Ministry:

• Back on campus full-time after 2 years

• New contacts, new conversations, new doors open to the gospel

• New life! Students coming to Christ

• Reinventing ourselves as a ministry at UFMG

Team:

• National leadership growing and leading

• New Campus Director thinking for the movement

• Hiring new staff, both Brazilian and American

• Transitioning current staff to new opportunities in the marketplace.

• New intercultural families forming

Year-End Giving:

Thank you to everyone who gives faithfully and sacrificially throughout the year. If anyone would like to make a year-end gift beyond your current giving, please follow the link here. These gifts help us make up for the monthly support we currently lack and finish the year in a strong support situation. LINK to Online Giving - https://www.campusoutreach.org/donate/jon-elam/

Strengthening in 2022

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This second half of 2022 has been invested in specific ways in our ministry, our team, our church and our family (more on this post). Over the entire network of Campus Outreach the emphasis on "strengthening" has been repeated and encouraged. Seeing how the book of Acts clearly states this as an emphasis in the early church has been very encouraging. ​​Here are just a few examples: 

• Acts 15:32 - "strengthen the brothers" was the focus of the Jerusalem leaders in visiting Antioch.

• Acts 15:41 - "strengthen the churches" was the focus for Paul and Silas.

• Acts 16:5 - "the churches were strengthened" was the result of Paul and Silas' ministry.

• Acts 18:23 - "strengthen the disciples" was the focus of Paul's missionary team.

I want to highlight a few ways we are focused on STRENGTHENING on the following fronts:

CAMPUS MINISTRY

The first half of 2022 was our initial return to the campus after 2 years of pandemic hiatus. UFMG returned to in-person classes, and we were trying to find our bearings and also make new connections with the 50% turnover in the past two pandemic years. The second semester of this year provided us with more opportunity to organize our staff and think strategically about how and where to invest in relationships. God has really opened doors for us. Specifically, our team has made significant relationships and been able to engage in spiritual and significant conversations at the Physical Education/Physical Therapy college and the Engineering school. With so much unknown at the beginning of 2022, God has STRENGTHENED our initiatives and our impact on the campus.

COBH TEAM

Earlier in October, we had what used to be an annual Staff Retreat and Training that we call Staff Stimulus. The last one we had was in 2019. This year was a time to get away from the routine, spend quality time together and STRENGTHEN our interaction with training presentations and discussions about community and contextualization. Our church pastoral staff and our Brazilian Advisory Board joined us this year and God used it to open up some important conversations about how we think about the culture and context in which we are inserted on the campus and also about our fellowship as part of the body of Christ and a ministry team. 

CH CHURCH

Campus Outreach has a rock solid commitment to the local church, and our tenure in Brazil has had a lot of investment to STRENGTHEN our hub church. I have served as an elder since 2007, Tathiana spent 10+ years as the volunteer children's director and more recently I have walked side-by-side with our new pastor who was confirmed right at the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020.

A memorable event in the past weeks is Pedro Albuquerque - my friend, former discipleship brother, my co-laborer and now my boss! - was confirmed as an elder in our hub church, Comunidade Horizonte. It was a celebration of God's desire to see this ministry and this church be led by godly men who are committed to the local church. 

Also, Tathiana and I have had a drive to STRENGTHEN some of the marriages of leaders in our church. From opening up some impactful counseling tools that have helped us with some couples with young families to pre-marital counseling with one girl from Tathiana's last discipleship group. It isn't easy, it requires a lot of personal energy and spiritual warfare. Our desire is to see these couples have an impact because of their spiritual and emotional maturity in their homes.

God is moving and active in our midst, please pray that we would be used as agents for His love here in Belo Horizonte.

"Uh oh, PEOPLE!" - Getting ready for 2022

The past two pandemic years have challenged us and our relational ministry strategy. We are looking toward 2022, but not looking to "start back" where we left off in 2019. We are truly asking God to help us "start over", and there are some specific ways that will play out in 2022. 

Campus: The university in BH, UFMG, has altered their calendar due to COVID, so the current semester will continue until the end of February 2022. Then, the first semester of 2022 will officially begin in April. We expect UFMG to resume in-person classes, and also for our team to have at least limited access to the campus and to students! We may not be able to enter buildings, but we can take advantage of common spaces and the general buzz of people being back on campus for classes. One of our challenges and a reason to "start over" is that there has been a 50% turnover since we were last engaged in-person at UFMG. Half of the campus population has graduated and incoming students have come to replace them. There are students who are half-way through their college career and have never had a class on campus. We have never had a chance to meet 50% of the current student population. While this is intimidating, it is also a new opportunity to see where God will open doors at UFMG.

English Initiative: GringoEnglish, our English-instruction project, will start 2022 with in-person classes. Very exciting! We have revamped physical spaces, refined our strategy, tweaked teaching hours and clarified how we will use this front in our overall ministry efforts to "build laborers through the campus for the lost world". I have spent the second half of 2021 focusing on this portion of our team and efforts, and am really excited to see how 2022 will provide a new means for us to impact UFMG and Belo Horizonte. 

Church: Our church has been executing a "preparation strategy" during the second semester of 2021 in order to transition well into 2022. It is not enough to be desirous to re-engage in life as a community and in ministry in our city, but to be prepared, active and have momentum toward re-engagement. Our leadership has had many conversations, strategy sessions and the beginnings of corporate events to get us ready for 2022. It won't be perfect, but we are excited to think about 2022 and what God is going to do in us and through us in Belo Horizonte.