Last night we had our Christmas Cantata here in the little São Paulo Baptist Church. I was a bit concerned it would not go over well because our digital piano has been acting strangely. It will cut off and on. Thankfully, every service and every official practice, it has not done this. We continued praying and thanking the Lord that the piano workedwhen it was most needed. 

I prayed a lot yesterday before the Cantata, that the piano would work. I knew we could try singing a capella, but we had always practiced with the piano. To make the story short, just before our 5:00 o'clock rehearsal, the power went out in the entire neighborhood! Not only did we not have the piano, we did not have the screen which shows the new congregation music, the sound system or any lights! The way the auditorium is situated, that made for a rather dark place. As the Cantata participants funneled in, I prayed and told them, "With or without power, we will continue." They each agreed.

When 6:00 o'clock came, we were supposed to start. Not only had the power not come on, but also almost no one had come! I thought, "What do we do?"

I looked about the auditorium, and no one seemed to be bothered (except me, of course). I continued to smile, encourage people to be ready, pray and discuss with my wife exactly how we should go about it. As time passed, about 30 minutes or so, people filed in. Eventually, by my wife's estimates, we had about 30 people total there! 

I told Julie, "I am gonna start." The church owns only six hymnals (for this reason we use the screen), and so we distributed those, found two Christmas songs, and sang--a capella. Thankfully, that went very well. I found a way to open the dark windows and had enough light shine in on everyone's scripts so that they could continue with the Cantata. 

As I read the Bible passages for the Cantata, I reached a portion that talked about light. As soon as I said the word, the lights turned on. Of course, this got all the people to laughing. The lights flicked off again, which was disappointing, but they did not stay off long. They finally came back on. With some quick efforts on the parts of my wife and some others, we got the piano and the screen working. From there on, things went very well!

I hope to post pictures soon. 

Of the people in attendance, I counted three who were unsure of their salvation after I gave the gospel message. Please pray for these. Also, please pray for many others who came that need a good church home and need to understand that faithfulness to church is better than their current chosen way of life.

Thank you so much for continuing to pray for and support us. We are a very blessed missionary family.

-- John

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