great help, encouragement, and support for us in the couple s ministry and in day to day life. God bless them and their servant s attitude.

Transcription

1 Hello brothers and sisters. God bless your new year and may He be glorified in all that you do. We thank the Lord for the privilege of having you as our partners in spreading the gospel here in Brazil. We pray this report can give you some insight in what the Lord is doing through our partnership. We thank you for your prayers, love, and support. God be glorified! We praise God that Rosa, after many years of praying for her now, decided to be baptized into Christ. She is the mother of Ryan and Thalita and wife of Miguel. She called me on New Year s Eve and asked if I was doing anything in the afternoon, and told her we had some things to get done, but I asked if there was anything she needed. She said Well, I would like to baptize this afternoon. Needless to say, God changed our plans and we went to Itapua, about 45 minutes from here and Rosa was baptized into Christ. What a great way to end and begin a new year in Christ. We pray that the Word of God will continue being sewn in the hearts of men unto salvation. We enjoyed our Christmas meal this year with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We had originally planned to have Josue, Kaka, and Jair (his father) to have the meal with us since this would be their first Christmas since Cleoni went to be with the Lord. Other people from his family as well were hurting and we opened the door for them

2 to come as well and the Lord blessed us with a wonderful time together. In Brazil, the Christmas meal is at midnight. It was also probably the hottest Christmas I have ever been a part of. It was recorded as the hottest night in Porto Alegre for the year. To give you an idea, the actual temperature was 40 degrees Celsius, which when converted is 104 degrees Fahrenheit. We did not melt away. We enjoyed having a secret friend activity while together. It is traditional here to have this at this time of year. We did one time also when Daingerfield was here with the youth a couple of years ago. We also invited Helena and her family and could not forget our beloved Vanda. God blessed our time together. Continue praying for Josue and Jair with the loss of Cleoni. They were very thankful and God be glorified! H Later on that night, Guilherme Castello passed by our house getting ready for his flight to the United States the next day in the afternoon. He came over the Christmas meal with his family and spent some time with us. I believe it was until 4:00 a.m. Praise God that his

3 flight went well and he is now in the United States. He spent a week with the church in Daingerfield and it was a blessing for him and the church. He has a smile in every picture of pure joy. He also had the opportunity to speak words of encouragement to the church and to the youth. He was welcomed with warm hearts and lots of snow. I would like to thank the Daingerfield for their love and how they show hospitality in practice. We would like to thank Junior and Christie Cox for hosting Guilherme in their house. Praise God they had this time together. He will be staying with others from the church that was part of Let s Start Talking team this year and two years ago in East Tennessee. He will also spend a couple of days in Nashville with a missionary couple who lived here, Matt and Waleska, before his trip home. Guilherme has always been ready and willing to help, serve when they are here and they are excited to have him with them to show this same kind of love. Continue praying for him. Lord willing, He will be arriving here on the 23 rd of January. We are thankful as well to have passed the New Year with Daniel, Luzia, and Mateus in their house. Luzia said that Daniel does not do churrasco much, so it was very special for us to have this opportunity to eat his bar-be-que. It was wonderful. Daniel and Luzia have been a

4 great help, encouragement, and support for us in the couple s ministry and in day to day life. God bless them and their servant s attitude. It is summer time here and many families are on vacation and we ask you pray for their protection on the roads. We ask your prayers for us. We will be visiting Ju s mother and relatives at the end of this month. We were not planning to go but the Lord opened the door. Lord willing, Ju and I will be helping Leonardo and Rebecca prepare for their wedding. They asked to me to do their wedding and we were very honored and humbled. They wanted to help us to go to the Northeast to do this. Lord willing, while we are there I will be preaching as well in the congregation in Cabo, Recife and in Natal where Roberto and Marisa Signoretti are serving as missionaries. The Lord opened the doors us for us to visit family, friends, and preach the Word and to be used in service to Him in this time. Pray for a safe flight. Ju s mother condition continues to be difficult struggling with Alzheimers. I would like thank the men who have stepped here in Agronomia to preach while we are in the Northeast. My prayer is that this year the church in Agronomia will be able to have a full time evangelist. The church in Agronomia also made their first yearly budget including plans for the future of an evangelist and a building. I had preached some lessons about contribution and the essence of thinking, planning, and giving with purpose relying on the promises of God. The

5 church responded. We met together with members and concluded that the budget would need to be 3,000 Reais per month. We asked the members to put in a box how much they believe they could give to reach this goal without their names. They put their names on another sheet just for us to be sure all had the opportunity. After asking them to pray and think a couple of weeks the result was 3,495 Reais per month. Praise God! We will be using this in the future Lord willing for the necessities of an evangelist and a place, while we continue to pay rent at our present location where we meet. Continue praying for the church in Teresopolis for a location as well to meet. It will not be long until the city will take the land. The Lord is blessing us with opportunities; pray that those who are hearing and learning the Word of God will decide to give their lives to Christ and have this hope and peace that passes all understanding. Our theme for this year as well is Members of one body, privilege and responsibility. We pray that you continue to serve the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength wherever you are and never forget this grand salvation we have received in our Lord Jesus. Thank you for your prayers, love, support, and thoughts that go up on our behalf here in Brazil. May our partnership in the gospel be a sweet aroma of sacrifice to our God. God be forever praised! God bless and Keep Fired up, Your missionaries, Mark, Juaneylla, Deborah and Barbara White