Send us your e-mail, if you'd like to receive the prayer letter!

Prayers, planning, invitations, running around, phone calls, coordination, verifying attendees, more prayers, soulwinning, announcements, placing an emphasis, preaching, picking people up, preparing food, clean up, decorating, cleaning, housing, giving directions, discussion, more prayers, order of service, encouraging, pleading, going to bed late, making sure everyone is on the same page, more prayers and waiting on God were the ingredients that made up the Gospel Day on the 3rd and the Evangelistic Conference on March 8th-10th of 2012. However tiring it was, we are so happy to have been a part! God truly blessed and we look back knowing that God used the preacher, blessed the music, and turn hearts toward himself.

• 27 people called upon the name of the Lord.
• 7 churches were represented.
• 100+ people participated.
• Several folks had their first experience soulwinning.
• Jesus Christ had the preeminence.

The spirit of the week was thrilling. People really gave of themselves to be in the services, invite others and help where they could. From the special music to the preaching to the food preparation to the canvasing, we were blessed on all sides. 


We deeply appreciate your prayers. It was an extra special blessing for people to write us and tell us they were praying for the meeting. Thank you! 


On the last night a huge storm took the power out, and I was not able to enter the house or church for an hour. When I finally got inside, a significant amount of water had gotten in, and soaked many of the seats. On top of this, mud from the roof had so saturated with water that in large clumps they fell to the chairs causing quite a mess. I was in a great hurry trying to clean up and rearrange the chairs, unsure who would be able to make it for the last night. The night before, we had had about 50 (which is probably a pretty good limit for our size auditorium), and though I had expected a good bit more this last night, I wasn't sure who could come due to the terrible weather. 


Then, soon before the service was to start, I received a phone call. A new couple to our church asked if I could pick them up. I made my way to their apartment and found roads blocked by fallen trees or accidents. I ended up being quite late, but did get this family to the service. I entered the auditorium and it was packed with about 80 people! From front to back and on into the church "kitchen and bathroom area" there were people. I started by showing a video on the history of the Bible in Brazil. (I used this time to go into our house and grab every chair we had to help get everyone still standing a seat. Thankfully, everyone eventually had a seat.)


God blessed the service too. From the altar in the front to the bathroom in the back around 7 people raised their hands because God had touched their hearts about salvation! We were able to work with each individually personally, as God had provided a great number of people to help us.


One of the main reasons I wanted to host this conference was for the sake of two ladies in our church (a mother and daughter) who always have struggles with their salvation. Sadly, they did not attend the conference! The next day, Sunday, they were in church, as they always are on Sunday morning. One lady, who had come to help us during the conference, was with us, and after the service she was able to help them both with the assurance of their salvation! 


Also, last night, one teenage girl who has interest in an unsaved boy, brought him to the service last night. I took it as another divine opportunity. I began my message by completely giving the gospel and then I applied it. At the invitation, he raised his hand expressing his uncertainty of his eternity! May the Lord continue to work in all these lives, that they all may know the way of the Lord--Jesus Christ!


We now have many new contacts and more people to work with. Please pray. There is much to do, and we need the Lord's very clear direction. May the Lord bless each of you for your steadfast prayers on our behalf!

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--John

If you recall in the last post about our move, we were very unsure about what the next few days would bring. As a testimony to the goodness of God, we are safe and sound in Itapuã do Oeste, in the State of Rondônia.

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I early on made an online flyer and made contacts with pastors. It was a delight to find so many people interested! One by one, pastors and their churches committed to participate. I began to realize we were going to have quite a crowd, and I was estimating at around 70 people. Julie bought 70 plates for the food. The highest number we had seen before, on earlier Gospel Days, was about 45.

I had put together a conference flyer to be passed out in conjunction with the soulwinning, but it was disappointed with delays. After repeated conversations, I was told that the flyer would be ready on Tuesday! That's tomorrow! I needed them at 9am this past Saturday! So, needless to say, I cancelled the order. Then I quickly grabbed the flyer and made a Word document, took it down to the local paper store, and got 3,000 copies made. I then had to return to the church to cut them. This kept me up well passed 2am, the morning of the Gospel Day. Julie was busy preparing food, and I think she got even less sleep than I.

Breakfast was to start at 9am, but I set it to last until about 10:30, a time that would also include instruction on how to win a soul and explanation of what the day would involve. As 9 o'clock rolled around, there were just a handful of people here at the church. Busily, our ladies were in the kitchen preparing a mountain of food, which was to be served to a whole lot more than a handful of people. I tried to keep my heart and mind focused on doing what I could with whatever the Lord gave us.

As time passed from 9 to 9:30, more and more folks came--on foot, by car and by bus. By around 9:30 there were about 90 people at the church!! The auditorium only holds about 50 people, so needless to say, everywhere you went, there were people! Everyone was in awe at the tremendous amount of laborers who had come to participate! (And, the greatest blessing of that, is that the great majority of them came from other churches simply to help ours!) We ran out of plates and some of the food, but God truly blessed. It was a wonderful time of fellowship, and best of all, as people went out to win souls (some for the first time), they were able to lead to Christ some 18 people and also pass out thousands of flyers and tracts! All in all, seven churches were represented among us. 

God blessed in a tremendous way!

I am deeply grateful for your prayers, and also for every participant. People worked so hard to be there and give their hearts to the work. These Gospel Days are proving to be a very powerful and effective tool in our arsenal. Let's pray God continues to open doors!

(I have pictures, and hope to post them later.)

-- John

It never ceases to amaze me how God is in control of every single aspect of our lives. We do not understand His ways, His motives, His thoughts, or His methods of getting things done. We always look at life from a selfish perspective. However, God is always looking from a heavenly perspective.

Here is our situation. Because these kind of things do not normally happen in this way I thought it would be interesting for many of you to read this and better understand our lives as missionaries.

Here is the situation with our move to Porto Velho...

1. About a week ago we purchased tickets for flying to Porto Velho tomorrow morning. We were not sure when our moving truck was going to show up and so we had to wait until then to purchase tickets. We were told that the truck would arrive on Wednesday. Having complete peace about the situation, we went ahead and purchased the tickets.

2. The truck we are getting is not a normal truck for a move. It is a meat truck. What does that mean? That means we decided to get an air conditioned truck for our move! The inside will probably be a little different than the regular truck you might expect. So we will be sending a different herd on this truck. We will be sending a herd of boxes and furniture on this ride! The reason we chose this ride is because it is nearly $5000.00 cheaper than any other moving truck we could find.

3. The truck was supposed to be here yesterday. It is already getting late in the day and we still have no word on the truck. It wouldn't be a very bad situation if we were not leaving at 7:30am tomorrow. Other than the truck not being available yet, there are restrictions on trucks and when they can be on certain streets. Remember we are in Brazil. To get to the house we are loading from, the truck will probably need to wait until late in the evening. The roads that block the entrance cannot be accessed by trucks between 5am and 9pm.

4. We have not yet sold our car. We are planning to take it on the truck with us. The problem is that we are not sure that it will fit on the truck with all of our belongings. We have a 40' truck coming. However, we have our move, the Kokenzies' belongings and a few other things for another missionary up in the area. The other issue is, "How do you load a car into the back of a meat truck?" My first thought would be to back it up to a dock, right? Well, I have not to this moment been able to find a dock. So, my next thought was we get it onto a hydraulic lift at a mechanic shop or something like that. Being in São Paulo, there are not many truck stops around. The closest ones I can find are not anywhere within reasonable range. So we have finally found a solution that will work. I will call a tow truck to lift my car. Then I will drive the car off the back of the tow truck and onto the meat truck!!!

5. Because of our move we decided that we would go to church on Wednesday evening if the truck did not come. We usually go to church on Thursday evening. We decided to go to a church that we have been to several times before. The pastor is a friend of mine and when we prayed together during the service, he asked me to give a testimony about our move to Porto Velho. There were probably about 20 people there including my family and my parents. One of the 20 was a young man who was just visiting the church. He had been doing some business in the area and when church time came he decided to make a visit. After church, the young man came to me and explained that his father was a missionary in Porto Velho for 8-10 years. He explained how he had grown up in that town and remembered many things from his youth there. His father worked with the missionary who will be picking us up at the airport. What a blessing! Looking back, we can see how God orchestrated all of this.

With all of these things in play, what will be the result? Will our truck come today? Will we be forced to load the truck all night before leaving at 7:30 in the morning? Will the car fit on the truck? Will we need to leave anything behind? Will the Lord come back before morning?

With many questions on our mind, we are looking to the Lord and encouraged about all of it. We have placed our confidence in the promises of God and we KNOW that He is in control of all of it. I will post next week on the outcome of all of these things. Hopefully I will be able to get some pictures of this truck and move.

"Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established."