Wes in Brazil

Wes returned home! Leighton and I were badly missing him while he was gone to Brazil for 10 days. 10 days is a long time when you are used to being with someone all the time, every day! We were able to facetime him a couple times which was cool. Leighton would say "Dada" and kiss the screen.  I was happy that Wes also got to spend sweet time with my brother and Dad. I believe the trip made them all closer and I am thankful for these men, their relationships with me and their relationships with each other. Nonetheless we are very happy to have him back. Mom flew back with me after our trip home to keep L while I worked and Wes went to Brazil with Michael, my Dad, and a few other people   to share the gospel in Teresina. They served alongside Jorio and his family (a local missionary). Jorio and his family are the nicest, sweetest people and though I havent been able to spend as much time with them as other members of my family, they feel like family too!

Below are some pictures of their trip and a blog post Wes wrote for the Hallow's Church Blog! Enjoy!

Jorio and Nordely Ferreira with Dad

Michael and Nordely

service

the team

Wes with some fans

This past week I spent time doing mission work in Teresina, Brazil. As I learned about the city I could not help but notice similarities between Teresina and Seattle. The cities of Teresina and Seattle both have roughly 1 million residents with only 3-4% of people claiming Christianity. Seattle is a highly educated city where it is more challenging to serve the masses as one can do in a more poverty stricken area with food, medicine, clean water, etc. The neighborhood of Teresina we spent most of our time in was also highly educated and wealthy. There wasn't much of a "service" we could provide. This was unlike other contexts I have previously served in overseas and domestically. In those experiences we had met a need and shared the gospel. However on this trip, we were engaging with educated people who were primarily set in their beliefs and asked thought provoking questions. Each door we knocked on we truly had to be prepared to give a reason for the hope we have in Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, Teresina is a city in Brazil that Americans really have no reason to visit. We did not see any other Americans during the week. I'll try to paint a picture of the area. It is not set in the beautiful Amazon, or decorated with mountains like Rio. It is not nestled up against the Atlantic ocean with miles of gorgeous beaches. It is a few degrees hotter than other cities in Brazil, flat and has a small river. Homes are surrounded by 10 foot concrete walls with an additional 5 feet of an electric fence. The streets became very dangerous at night, even in the wealthy neighborhood. The missionary we worked with has had his wall breached and family robbed at gunpoint. Each night we left his home, we had a body guard pull up on his motorcycle to detour any potential robbers who might be plotting to rob the Americans. We worked in a poverty stricken neighborhood one day where we had to carry bibles visibly because the drug lords struck a deal with the pastor that anyone visibly carrying a bible would be left alone.

Throughout the week our faith was rejected, accepted, challenged, and discussed. We spent each day walking the streets of neighborhoods, knocking on doors, inviting people to services we hosted each night in hopes of them coming and hearing the gospel. Sometimes we were denied conversation but other times we were invited in to have a Coca-Cola and talk further with individuals and families.

The dangers of the neighborhoods and the challenges to our faith could have discouraged the team, but instead I believe it fuel our motivation to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ all the more. Just our presence as Americans drew people in to our services and gave us automatic forums to share the gospel when we went into schools, orphanages, youth detention centers, and college dorms. Everyone we met either in a large group setting or one on one would ask, "Why are you here?" They knew we were not there as tourists fulfilling a lifelong dream to visit Teresina, but rather that there was some other reason we left our families to travel 24 hours by plane to be in their city. That question open the door for the good news of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection. Our goal was not to make converts, but to make disciples. Seeds were planted, watered, and harvested. We saw people give their lives to Christ, we saw people begin to think about the gospel, and we saw people flat out reject it. I met many people who had a Catholic background that was intertwined with either native or African pagan religious tradition. This was the ground the Gospel was falling on.

My prayer is that the people who gave their lives to Jesus would be followed up with by the missionaries and made into a disciple-making disciples of Jesus. That God would give the growth to those seeds that were planted. That the gospel would not get lost or meshed within people's existing Catholic/pagan beliefs, but stand opposed to their current beliefs. That they would be forced to choose between their existing beliefs and the gospel. I pray for the missionary we worked with, Jorio, and his family. I pray that the Lord would use them to reach their neighbors who are wealthy and "need" nothing but the gospel. I pray that the Lord would open a door for him with a few families who live near by and that together they can magnify and multiply the gospel through Teresina to the ends of the earth. Jorio faces many challenges to the gospel from the syncretized Catholic/Pagan tradition, the Prosperity Gospel, Atheism, and spiritual mysticism. I pray that God would open a door for the gospel in Teresina and people's lives would be transform through Jesus Christ and God would gain glory for himself through that city.

            For His Glory, 

Wes