Cooks Free to travel

We are so grateful to God for Dan's improvement so that he can travel as planned tomorrow to the States along with his family for their year long furlough. Please contiune to pray for his improvement and adjustments they will have to make. Sunday was their send-off at Koinonia. It was a moving time of celebration for God's grace for our family in sparing Dan as well as a time of hard good-bye's.

Group in the Outback and Missions Conference

A lot is going on these days. First off - thanks for all the prayers for Dan Cook and family. He is now at home and the doctor has cleared them to travel on schedule to the States on June 11th. Please continue to pray for a full recovery for Dan. Thanks so much for remembering him these days.

Yesterday a group got here from the States to help out in the Outback. Carlos is mostly hosting them himself. The group has various Brazilians who live in the States along, so translating should be well taken care of. This church sent a group less than a year ago and is back with some of the same ones and new ones. Pray for all the efforts and outreach these days. Pray for the group's safety and health. They will do mostly rural evangelism but will also be in Solidão and Ingazeira as well as Afogados. Pastor Claudio and I will join them for their last two days there.

Meanwhile our missions conference at Koinonia starts tomorrow. We will have a two day conference with three missionary families giving their reports along with a special speaker. Pray that Koinonia will continue to grow in our missionary vision.

If you happen to be reading this on the post day pray for me as I interpret tonight for a British evangelist at an outreach we are expecting a few thousand to show up for. I have been in four of our prisons here in Recife with this evangelist to interpret for him these last few days. We have seen some prisoners receive Christ!

A Prayer Request for Triunfo

In our recent survey trip with Jorge and Josy (pictured on the right) we saw the possibility of a team forming. Jorge and Josi came back to Recife to pray more about it, but are seriously considering teaming up with Chico and Dalva. We are going to take a trip there along with their local pastor who is a good friend of ours for the church to be involved in the process. We do need your prayer that God's perfect will will be done. Chico has recently reported with joy that a neighbor lady (Rita) who is studying the Bible with them recently gave her life to Christ. They now have Bible studies with three more neighbors.

Pelo Sinal Township Donations

We had promised to give some more details about our ministry in the township of Pelo Sinal. This is a community that we visited last year with a group from a church in North Carolina that partners with us in our ministry in the Outback. This group lovingly brought clothes and toys to donate to the needy in the Pajeú Outback.  Since that visit where we had a public meeting in the town square to present the Gospel, Carlos and Dinalda have been able to hold one more public event.  Besides that they have been able to distribute some clothes and toys. We have been pleasantly surprised at how loving this community is and receptive to our minitry among them.  Upon receiving the gifts the community showed a caring about each other. One example was a little boy chosing between some shoes and another item, when he said "I think my friend needs the shoes more, so I will go with the shirt." This was not an isolated gesture.

Carlos has great joy visiting this community as one of his places of ministy.  He has had a number of great times with some of the leaders in Pelo Sinal, and is praying for these key leaders and their spiritual need of Christ as Savior and Lord.  Will you pray for Pelo Sinal?

A Close Neighbor To The Model Farm

Meet Francisco.  He is a neighbor of our Model Farm.  Francisco is pictured here before the strong rains harvesting some of our farm's grass for his animals. Carlos has visited him in his home and met his wife and kids.  Mr. Francisco is an example of a hard working man, who despite his only having one leg has an upbeat attitude. Pray for this man and his spiritual needs.

Needed Rains bring big problems to Outback

What a land of contrasts!  A land that has suffered from terrible droughts is now having heavy and record breaking rainfall. This is great for all the lakes and water reservoirs that are full and even running over.  The problem is that there have been crop loss and even houses overtaken with water.  Last count in three or four Northeast states was of 400,000 people affected. Our Outback was among the area hit.  We can usually get to the model farm driving over a near empty river bed.  It measured 5o meters across the other day. 

The Model Farm's Neighborhood

One of our objectives with the Model farm is to share the Gospel with our neighbors.  A lot of folks live in the rural communities and have been open to meetings in their houses. Our experience has been that they will round up other neighbors for these meetings.  One of the first converts in Ingazeira is Cicero.  Carlos now has weekly meetings in Cicero's house. Cicero has had ups and downs in his walk with Christ (as all of us) but not having many others around him who shares his faith has made it harder. Pray for his wife and children, that they would understand their need of Christ, as well as his neighbors.