Dear Praying and Supporting Friends,
Ministry News
The work here at New Life Baptist Church has been going well. Praise the Lord for souls saved and for Christian growth in the church. Rebekah was able to lead Julia to the Lord, since she got saved Julia has begun bringing family members to church. Last month we launched teen soul winning. Praise the Lord for 14 people being saved through this ministry. We just finished our mini-VBS and had 102 children attend and over 10 accepted Christ.
A young deaf girl named Jessica (pictured) has been coming to church and Rebekah, who grew up working with the deaf in the United States, has taken on the challenge of learning Brazilian sign language. Part of the challenge is teaching Jessica her own language. She knows some signs but religious signs are not taught at school so she has to be taught all the religious signs before we can even begin to tell her the plan of salvation. (For example she does not understand the sign for sin) Several members have shown interest in learning sign language so as soon as Rebekah has it figured out she can teach the others.
ELO
We are excited to announce that a second book has been published in Portuguese. People are responding very well to Christian literature they can trust. Pray with us as we are writing a Sunday School Curriculum that we hope to launch the beginning of next year. It will be the one of the only All-inclusive Independent Baptist Curriculum in Brazil. We already have churches lined up to purchase the curriculum and with this we will be able to make a much bigger impact in Brazil.
Prayer Request
You may have read in the News lately about the drought we are experiencing here in Sao Paulo. The cities water supply has been very nearly depleted. We only have 5% of the water in the reservoir left. Our water is being rationed severely at this point. We are asking each of you to lift our city and state up in prayer for rain. It has become a crisis that will only grow as the rain fails.
Our second request is for God’s leading in our lives. The missionary we are covering for is returning in January. We are praying about several opportunities to pastor here in Brazil. Pray that God will guide our steps, the need in Brazil is great everywhere and we would like to go where we can be most effective for God.
Family News
The boys are doing well. Jeff and David are volunteering one day a week at the Trinitarian Bible Society. They are the group that produces the Bible that we use here in Brazil. The boys are enjoying the work. It is giving them some work experience before college. Lee is doing well in his first year of high school. Rebekah has kept busy teaching the boys as well as giving private piano lessons. As always, her goal is to train future church pianists. Each class includes practical, theory and Christian philosophy of music. The Christian Philosophy (Frank Garlock’s Music in the Balance) has really revolutionized several of the students personal music habits, Praise the Lord!
In His Service,
Bryan & Rebekah Johnson
Jeff, David and Lee
