What an interesting time to be alive and serving the Lord full-time. We have seen people who are usually closed to the Gospel have an open heart and mind to consider the good news that we are sharing with them like never before. Even in the difficult moments of life, we can see the Lord at work, drawing people unto Himself. What a privilege it is to be able to be in ministry and reaching out to these people.
As you can imagine, with the current environment here in the U.S., all of our meetings for the next several weeks have been canceled. Thankfully, these churches are live-streaming us in or requesting a video greeting/update, so we still have the opportunity to share our future ministry goals. I genuinely feel for all of you pastors who have to navigate such an unusual time in our country’s history. I am praying for you weekly. In spite of being stuck in one place, God is opening some amazing doors of opportunity that I believe will greatly impact our next church plant. Just within the last two weeks, we have been given the opportunity to record as much video content for our church as we desire, which will then be professionally edited and given to us to use on any media outlets that we wish to there in Brazil. How wonderful!
I have been in regular contact with our church in Guarulhos during this time. Brazil has implemented many of the same countermeasures to try to stem the spread of the virus as the United States has, so our church has been holding online services as well. While it is not ideal, they have seen an uptick in participation in the services by some of the fringe attenders. I believe the Lord is using the current situation to get some people’s attention. Praise the Lord! He is not limited in reaching people just because of a pandemic. Each week until last week, I was able to go out door knocking with the men of the church where we are staying for several weeks. Two instances come to mind: one where I was able to share the Gospel with a young man who said he couldn’t accept the fact of the Resurrection and another where a young mother was trusting in her religious background to get her to Heaven. Both listened intently, but neither person was ready to put their faith in Jesus right then. Pray that they will respond before it is too late.
Several churches have reached out recently in regard to our return to Brazil, asking how they can be praying and if there are some specific needs they can be praying about. I will give more details in our next prayer letter, but for now, I would simply ask for prayer for these:
• That the quarantine measures will be lifted by the time of our return
• For our travel costs of getting back to Brazil with about 20 pieces of luggage
• For the start-up process of the church plant this summer (building location, materials, etc.)
• For the team that God is putting together to impact the northeast of Brazil
Thank you all so much for your faithful prayers and support, especially during this time. We are getting more anxious every day to get back to our field and to see the Lord do great things. Thank you for partnering with us.
Declaring His glory,
Wes Palla
Psalm 96:3
