"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.

Lonely BH, Once Again

Empty streets in BH due to COVID-19

Belo Horizonte (BH) is a lonely place, once again.

Our city has retreated back to only essential services as of Friday, March 5th. The COVID-19 scenario in Brazil and BH has worsened, and vaccination has not shaped up to be as organized or wide-spread as needed at this moment.

In the last weeks, we had the first in-person ministry event with students of the year, and our church was weekly increasing the number of people participating in-person. Everything has screeched to a halt for now, and we will be going back to basing our efforts and events via online access and socially-distanced formats.

It is a hard reality to accept, as things were ramping up, new relationships, depth of in-person interaction and studies. Pray for us! Pray for Brazil.

Leader's Training & Gazillions of Zooms

Leader's Training

On Saturday, September 26th, I had the privilege of leading the first of a series of video meetings via Zoom with our Campus Staff team and a group of student leaders to dig into a demanding subject - LEADERSHIP. I loved seeing these students excited to meet and talk about leadership on a Saturday morning. Remember, I work with college students, Saturday mornings are rarely the best option, but they themselves picked this time because they wanted to be sure there was no competition.

One student made it all worth it when she said, "I often think of a leader only as those who have a huge impact or someone far beyond my ability to influence, so I had all but given up on the idea of being a leader. But, seeing and hearing that God uses people differently, for larger or smaller impacts, and that a Christian's calling to follow Jesus is synonymous with influencing and leading others toward God has given me new hope in being a leader."

Gazillions of Zooms

Just like so many others in the world, COVID-19 has not stopped life from marching on, but it has increased video meetings a gazillion-fold. We are no different!

• In August, our team had a 10-session Training Course with our church pastor about a Christian Worldview.

• Each throughout the month, I have meetings with our Campus team, Leadership team, entire COBH team, bible-studies, workshops and church Elder Session.

• In September, our team met for a 4-session Evangelism Training workshop.

• Our team has begun a type of group discussion for students who are really asking great questions about Jesus and how He is relevant to their spiritual reality via Zoom.

• There is, also, the home dynamic of Isaac having school via Zoom 5 days a week!

• And, not necessarily Zoom, but part of our team is taking an online course at the School of Biblical Counseling of CCEF, "Dynamics of Biblical Change." It involved several hours of lecture and reading per week.

Our personal connections have begun to increase as the situation normalizes here in Belo Horizonte, therefore, please continue to pray for us as we venture out, face Zoom fatigue and walk by faith and share the hope and the good news of Jesus.

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.