Dear Friends & Family,
There's so much to tell about this trip that it's hard to know where to start! First of all, thank you so much for your love, for your support - financial and otherwise - and your continued encouragement on this seminary journey! It just seems to be getting better and better, and God keeps honing in more and more on where and how He'd like me to minister. It's exciting.
Our group of seven hooked up with our leader, Jose' Pezini of the PC(USA) Outreach Foundation, when we arrived in Rio De Janeiro. "Pezini" as he is called, is from Brazil and travels a lot all over the world helping to train leaders on church planting and connect churches, people, and resources with each other - so of course, I loved him immediately!
We stayed at a church, which happens to be a house (lived in by a church-planting pastor and his family) which is also used as their church. This pastor and one of his parishioners drove us all over Rio the four days we were there, visiting various churches and church-planting pastors - listening to their stories and hearing how they are working together to start churches there and reach out to the upper class people in Rio. This church was an IPI church (Igreja Presbiteriana Independente).
The first church we visited was the IPB (Igreja Presbiteriana de Brasil - i.e., Presby Church of Brazil) of Gavea - (this denomination is similar to maybe the Presby Church of America or the Evang. Presby Church - evangelical and conservative-no women pastors). It is a fairly affluent church in a suburb of Brazil and their main mission focus is helping to start new churches. They currently have 2 new churches in Rio and 9 just outside of Rio, 2 in Spain and 1 in Africa that they have helped start. All of the churches they start also commit to put 30% of their budgets (once they're self-sufficient) towards new church planting as well.
These churches all start with a pastor meeting new people and starting a small group. As the small group grows they eventually start holding worship services at a rented facility. The focus is always on introducing people to Christ.
This is somewhat similar to how churches are begun in the U.S. within the PC(USA) except usually the Presbytery initiates the new church development. In Brazil (like many in the U.S.) the Presbytery is fairly ineffective. So this church in Gavea decided to get things going on their own - and things have just gone crazy. (Also, they don't have paid Presbytery folks, the Presbytery is totally made up of pastors in the area.)
We were able to go to the beach in Rio one afternoon - simply gorgeous - and went to many a Brazilian BBQ - which is basically a huge buffet w/ many side dishes and then waiters come around to the table with various cuts of meat to offer you (filet mignon, top sirloin, chicken, chicken hearts, lamb, etc..) and they cut it on to your plate, as much as you want. Needless to say, we ate a lot of meat while we were there! (I wasn't as excited about most of the side dishes.) Oh - also went on the first day and saw Christ the Redeemer - the big statue of Christ on top of the mountain overlooking the city. Simply amazing.) Rio is a gorgeous city.
Four days after we arrived in Rio we boarded a plane to Manaus (via Brasilia). Manaus is about 1200 miles northwest of Rio on the Amazon River (which is HUGE, by the way).
In Manaus we stayed at a hotel just a few blocks from the Igreja Presbuteriano de Manaus. This church has a 105-year history and, as the pastor says, for many years it was asleep. But it has woken up in the last 30-40 years. An American missionary named Frank Arnold came and partnered with the pastor around 20 or 30 years ago and together they reached out to various villages up and down the Amazon. Over the years the ministry has grown, more has been learned, and the church continues to grow. Their main focus are home cell groups. The current pastor, 16 years ago, took a trip to Korea and saw how the Korean church was exploding through the cell-group system. He brought it back to Brazil and tried to start it in his church. (Here it is SIXTEEN YEARS later, and they still have to keep the vision in front of the people and encourage them not to go back to the "old structure"). Amazing! We humans are so stubborn.
Basically, the cell group system is a small group which meets weekly. They are centered around four "E's" which they take 20 minutes for each "E." First is "Encounter" - ice breakers, getting to know each other, catching up, etc.. Next is "Exalt" - time spent singing and praying, praising God together. Next is "Edification" - they have their bulletin from church which has a summary of the sermon on the front and discussion questions inside. They end with "Evangelism" - they talk about friends or neighbors who they are reaching out to and building relationships with and hope to one day invite to the group. The names of these people are put on a list and everyone prays for them. So much of this is similar to U.S. small groups - EXCEPT that vital last item - Evangelism. These folks are very intentional about meeting people - neighbors, people they work with, people they see regularly, and building relationships with them in order to introduce them to Jesus. They also may use that end time to plan some sort of outreach event - maybe a BBQ to invite friends to, plan outreach at Carnaval, etc..
This church has grown to 3000 people in Manaus (many of which have become new churches - they all couldn't stay at the Manaus mother church), and 6000 more up and down the Amazon.
The other huge thing they do is equip people to become leaders. As folks come to small groups they share the leadership. When the group grows close to 20 people they divide and new leaders go with the new group. People are also trained to be coordinators who touch base monthly with a number of the group leaders, and district coordinators who keep in touch with the coordinators. Monthly meetings are held for the various leaders where they are equipped as well as encouraged, stories of God's work are told, etc. (We attended one of these.) As folks continue to be equipped as leaders some end up being called into full-time ministry, and the church is in the process of creating a seminary. Those who attend seminary continue leading their groups - and many already have a church that they created out of 4-5 cell groups who had multiplied. They are very good at making sure people aren't left out on their own in leadership. Yearly they pay for all the leaders EVERYWHERE to come to Manaus for a week of training and touching base. They've definitely got things down to an art, which is awesome.
The priority is relationships. Eighty percent of the church members are involved in cell groups (so yes, they still have that smaller group of folks who don't get it and bitch about it!). I guess that's inevitable no matter where in the world you live! Go figure!
Anyway - we had an opportunity to go on a short boat trip on the Amazon. Actually it was on the Rio Negro (Black River) and the Solomon River (aka Amazon). These two rivers come together at Manaus and it's interesting because the Rio Negro is black in color and very warm due to a number of things in the water. The Solomon River is more hot chocolate colored. When the two rivers come together they don't mix -- until about 100 km down the river! You can put your hand in the water in one side and feel warm in the blackness and then coolness in the light brown. There's a definitive line between the two. (I hope to add pictures soon). We visited folks who live on houseboats on the edge of the river and even saw the floating one-room schoolhouse where the kids attend school. We fished (in an enclosure) for those HUGE Amazonian fish that are as big as a man - and they actually grabbed on to our lines and jumped out of the water. They're amazing! Just like on the River Monsters show! Ha!
Well, that's the highlights! I'm really pumped because I decided to do this trip for credit, so now I (and a couple of my cohorts) are doing an independent study on church planting! Woo hoo! So far I've read one book and have two more to go. I have to pace myself because I want to devour these books and ignore my other classes - probably not a good decision!
As I read more and more I get more and more excited about what God is calling me to.... I also have become even MORE aware of the need for a strong team of prayer warriors to begin even now praying for guidance, wisdom, and discernment as to what God would have me do when I graduate and where He would have me go.
So if you are interested in making a serious commitment for the next 15-18 months to be a prayer warrior for me, please let me know. I am very serious about getting a committed group of people together to pray for God to prepare the people I will minister to, prepare Kim and I for what is ahead, and for Him to directly lead us to where He wants us to minister.
I hope you realize how much I love you and how much I truly depend on you to carry me through this! I seriously could not have made it this far without all of the love and support from you all and others who have prayed for us, encouraged us, listened to us gripe and cry and laugh and scoff... Thank you.
I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
- Philippians 1:3-8
May God bless you as you have blessed me!
Sally
(Go to the top of this page and click on "Brazil Trip" to see some pictures - I still need to download a bunch, but there are a few there!)
