Momentum can be a fickle thing. Perhaps you can attest after watching “your” sports team reel off several wins after several losses. Perhaps you can even give testimony to seeing it at work in your church. And who can possibly forget that one time that you came “back from the dead,” so to speak, while playing a full-contact game of Risk or Monopoly? Momentum. We love it when we have it; we work feverishly to try to get it back when it departs. We are very blessed to have some healthy momentum in the work right now.
A few months ago, we moved our Spanish Ministry over to the community where they all live. We are now seeing growth in attendance and in their personal involvement in the church. Adults make up nearly half of the crowd. They are starting to give, they are starting to invite neighbors, and they are getting involved. Our Brazilian congregation is starting to see more consistent growth as well. We have several families that are a “lock” to show up each service. (Believe me, that’s a big deal when the step prior to that is “Man, I hope somebody shows up.”) They, too, are starting to give regularly. We have had a family recently get baptized, and we have several folks who are consistently inviting and bringing visitors to church.
For anyone interested in the numerics of the mission field, I can say that we have baptized 3 within the last month, and our Children’s Day outreach in October was a great success. Our church people worked incredibly hard in many facets of having a big day: they cleaned, decorated, invited, bought candy and prepared goodie bags, and helped with singing, games, and crowd control that day. We held 2 Bible Clubs on consecutive days—one in Portuguese and one in Spanish. We had over 200 people attend, nearly 70 salvation decisions, and 3 different families visit the church the following Sunday. Two of those families have continued to attend since. God is good, and prayer works!
Thank you for laboring with us to reach the lost here in Brazil. You are a key part of this ministry, both now and moving forward. Please continue to pray for our converts to grow. Pray that we will have the means to legally organize the church during the first quarter of 2018 (big step!), and we would also ask you to pray for many new families to be reached. Our desire is to see God radically transform this community for His glory . . . one family at a time. God bless you. We love you and thank God for you.
Declaring His glory,
Wes Palla
