Dear Praying and Supporting Friends,
CHURCH NEW
So much has happened since our last letter to you so we will jump right in.
September
In September our ladies traveled to the city of Limiera to participate in the a ladies retreat. The ladies had a fun time of fellowship on the 2 hour journey there and were spiritually refreshed by the teaching. Fellow missionary Garry and Pam Tyler hosted the event. Rebekah taught the teen girls for one session. The Theme this year was Mission Impossible. Thank God for decisions made.
October
In October we had a music conference. We so desperately want our people to understand the need for good God-fearing Christian music. Pastor Jose Mauro was our speaker this year. We were pleased at the response our people had. One of our greatest responses came from Lucas. Lucas is the young man who is legally blind and mentally challenged. Somehow Lucas won tickets to the Justin Beiber concert here in Sao Paulo. He talked to us and asked us if it would be alright for him to go. We assured him that going would be very disappointing to God as well as to us. We talked with him a long time about it but we were not sure he understood or would listen. The Sunday of the concert he walked in the door with the ticket in his hands and said that he had decided to make us and God happy and not go to the concert! We recognized him in church and ripped up his ticket at the altar! The church bought all the CD’s Pastor Mauro had brought with him. This puts 2 new good CD’s in nearly every home represented by our church family. Praise the Lord. Pray for us and the choir members as we are working on a new CD ourselves. The process is much more complicated that we had hoped and we are working on learning and recording at the same time.
Julia, one of our faithful teen girls, celebrated her 15th birthday during the conference. We celebrated the next week with a God honoring party. The service of thanksgiving for Julia started with a harp hymn special by Bethany Bennet, a missionary daughter, and was followed by hymn singing and specials. What a difference Julia’s party was compared to what her friends would have done. Rather than getting drunk and dancing the night away God was the central focus of this sweet young ladies birthday celebration.
We continued with the remodeling of the church. We now have the auditorium roof fixed and the auditorium is painted. We were able to hire someone to come in and texture as well as paint the front of the building. We will start painting the sides soon. Be in prayer as the hallway to the nursery still leaks terrible every time it rains so the moms and babies have to dodge the drops to get to class. We are trying to rectify that situation as soon as possible.
November
We have just returned from Camp. We had 11 people from our church who were able to attend camp this year. The Theme this year was “What is the Value of Wisdom?” The whole 4 days was about seeking and finding Godly wisdom. The pastors at the hosting church in Jundiai, as well as Bryan preached. It was a wonderful camp. All of our teens had a wonderful time and learned a lot. They were also able to make new Godly friends as well as renew old friendships. Our teen group is still small so they can some times feel alone in their fight to live for the Lord. Camp is an excellent place to find friendship with others who are fighting the same fight and still serving the Lord. On the last night at camp we had an old west night. They had hired in a mechanical bull. Lee had lots of fun on that
December will be a very busy month for us with Christmas parties and our Cantata on the 18th. Be in prayer for the Cantata. We would like to see souls saved through the program.
FAMILY
Be in prayer for Rebekah as her health situation has been acting up again. She has had very little energy and she needs it to keep all the things going that she works with. The boys are doing well. They have been a great blessing and help to us both at home and in the ministry.
Thank you for your prayers and support. We could not be here without you.
In His Service.
Bryan & Rebekah Johnson
Jeff, David and Lee
