Northpointe Community Church

So much has happened since I wrote you last. It is hard to catch up in a short email, so I will update quickly with an overview of what has been happening.  Please forgive my mistakes on the keyboard. It is difficult to write with the keys that have different accents & the shift key is also very hard to use.  I think I last left you with the story of our ministry work at the village.  That was on Friday of last week.

On Saturday, we started our work at the church we have been serving with all week. It is call New Life church or in Portuguese…Igreja nova Vida. It is a wonderful church and the pastor here (Carlos) really has a heart & passion for his community. Well, on Saturday, Alfred and I were split from our original team of 7 and taken to a mission church in a different neighborhood. We were given a translator and dropped off in a neighborhood where we were asked to gather children and then teach them.  (I was so wishing I had Donna Finley with me) so, Alfred and I played partner tag & red light, green light with the kids and then shared about ourselves (on a microphone so the neighborhood could hear us and come see the americanos) and then told some of the story of Joseph. We were asked to invite them to church the next night and the whole experience was kind of a blur of nervousness & excitement.

Sunday, Alfred taught the message to teenagers. We brought LHGH to Brazil!! Of course, he taught with his terrific sense of humor and the rest of our team that taught the women & men commented that they could hear the teen laughing. I am so proud of my husband. He is stepping so far out of his comfort zone on this trip (some of it by “force”) but he is doing a tremendous job and is really being open and used by our Lord. Praise God!  In the afternoon, Alfred and I were again taken to the mission church where we did a home visit before the church service. We met Maria and her husband. Maria is a believer and her husband was not. We shared our story and how it connects to God’s story and their story and invited them to church. Well, they came and they accepted Christ that night! I cannot tell you what a feeling of joy it was to see them walk in and then accept Christ!! Wow, wow, wow! I still can’t even express my feelings in words that will properly describe the experience.

Monday was a free day for us and we did a little shopping, called home & then slept…a lot!

Yesterday, we spent the morning talking to the pastor and then did another home visit. This was with a woman whose husband was on his way to work one day 2 years ago and had a stroke and fell on the train tracks. No one knew what happened to him and 2 hours later they found him passed out and thought that he was drunk. They took him to the hospital and he had surgery. Since that time he has been in a lot of pain and unable to work. The pastor had visited this family 2 times before and had not been able to get the attention of this man to talk to him or pray for him. This time we were able to see him, talk to him and pray over him.  In the evening, we were taken to the schools to talk to the students about 4 things. Stay in school. Learn English, Stay away from drugs, and the thing help you accomplish all of that…have a relationship with Christ.  It was an amazing experience. Cassie was the first to share. She spoke with boldness and shared from her heart & experiences. It was an emotional experience to watch her. I am so glad I invited both Cassie & Sammy to come on this trip. They encourage me with their faith, patience, faithfulness & joy. I also was very excited to watch Alfred teach as I have always wanted to be a “fly on the wall” at the schools he teaches at during the school year. He said he was a little rusty, but I am his number one fan!! He’s wonderful!!

Okay, that was a lot to share…I’ll leave you with that for now. Thank you so much for continuing to pray, for the messages & comments on face book. Today Alfred and I are feeling the emotions a little more as we are really missing Nathaniel.  We love you all very much and will see you soon!

-Ang

Hello everyone! I am sitting here at Igreja Nova Vida in viana. it~s 2:41pm and we are resting after the church service this morning. Lots of very cool…emotionally exhausting things have happened since we last updated you.

On Friday, we packed school kits to hand them out to some of the neighborhood children as they are currently on winter break and will be returning to school tomorrow. We drove about 20 minutes from the farm where we are staying to a small village-like area. When we arrived, a girl that looked about 12/13 ran up to Cristina (the full time missionary here) and embraced her. Cristina spoke to her in Portuguese and we all thought that they knew eachother. it turns out that they did not and Cristina said that these children are just so hungry for love and attention that they will take anything that they can get. No one really visits the area that they are in so they feel forgotten. Forgotten by brazilians and forgotten by God. This little girls name is Daniella and she is 14. she took off after introductions to run and get the other children. I soon found out that the adults were also hungry for love as we were embraced and talked to as though we were long lost friends. at first it was uncomfortable, but I soon realized that this was the center of Jesus~ ministry. His ministry was relational, his ministry was hands-on and he listened to people.

Our transalator, Aparacida, gathered the children and told them the story of the lost son through huge story boards. The children listened intently and responded very well. At the end, our translator had them pray for salvation and all of the children and many adults prayed that prayer. In total it looked like 4 or 5 families and I’ve continued to pray for them as the images of their tattered clothing and bare feet fill my mind as I lie in my comfortable bed at night and put on clean clothes every morning. we also gave the people food and said our goodbyes. Please pray for this village. I’ll try to update again real soon! love & peace!

Angela

I just needed to update you again once more as we just experienced the most amazing night of worship & fellowship. Cristina ( the full time missionary here) arranged for the women of the group to have a tea time with some of the women she has gotten to know and love.  It was awesome!  She had 2 women share their testimony of surviving breast cancer & leukemia. Each woman spoke with passion & confidence of God’s love for them & their love for God & others. The first woman, Soyemis was diagnosed with cancer at a time in her life where she was feeling depressed and really didn’t care much that she had the disease.  She was blessed by several people in her life telling her that she was going to be okay and that God would provide for her.  She also was prayed over by an American group that came to Brazil and filled her with love & hope of God the healer.  I was so overcome with emotion that I cried and felt the Lord lead me to pray for her.  The next woman is only 27 years old and was diagnosed with leukemia and also is currently in remission.  She also experienced the love of God~s people through bone marrow transmissions & lots of prayer.  Both women went through radiation & chemo, but trusted the Lord throughout and really learned to depend on Him and not themselves.  Regiane ( the second woman) is going to get married this year and her fiancé came in and joined us when we were drinking tea & enjoying snacks and he started an impromptu worship time.  He sang both in English & Portuguese and it was beautiful. The people here are beautiful, warm and loving. I already feel like they could be life long friends. We have laughed, sang, cried and shared life tonight and it was pure & holy.

-Ang

Hey it’s Cassie… Well you may or may not of heard all the crazy clumsy thing that have happened but I can’t help when the clumsiness is passed down. Yesterday I attempted to swing on a vine. Just as I swang over an edge, the vine broke and I fell flat on my back. Well today as if that wasn’t enough, I finally saw a cat here in Brazil. As I tried to pet it, a donkey was near it. That donkey was NOT fond of me. It looked at me, turned around, and kicked. Thank God I have a quick reaction time because just as it kicked I arched my back and booked it. The donkey missed me by less than an inch… Brazil is definitely interesting. I am so thankful I have had the opportunity to come. Not just for these interesting moments but for the opportunity as a young girl to get to know my personal Savior as a more personal friend. See ya!

-Cass

Hey guys!

So, this is my first impression of Rio de Janiero:  I saw a lot of goats roaming the streets and tons of graffiti. To be fair, we only drove through Rio on our way to the next airport…still in Rio.  We flew from Rio to Vitoria and saw the beautiful scenery on our flight.  After arriving in Vitoria we took a very sketchy bus ride to the Koinonia farm (where we are staying). It was pretty dark out so I didn’t see the terrain we were driving on, but we were asked to pray at one point because our bus was sliding off  cliff. Fun times!!  When we arrived at the farm a delicious, warm meal was waiting and hospitality was the key word we experienced.  Sammy, Cassie, Alfred and I are staying in the same Casita and Gel is with some of our San Jose family.  Gel has quite a story revolving around a tripped breaker and walking in the pitch black to find someone to help.  Today was a relaxing day where we enjoyed another wonderful breakfast and then had orientation, prayer in our ministry groups and meeting with the pastors that we will be serving alongside.  Now we are in town using the full time missionaries computer (thank you, Cris) and just wanted to update our NorthPointe family.  We all love you guys and are very grateful for your continued prayer support. Tomorrow we will tour a few of the sights here in Espirito Santo and possibly ride the Brazilian banana.  We have no clue what that is and our only point of reference is the banana on Houseboats. We will check in again as soon as we can. Just know we are all doing great. Oh, and we start our work in our ministry teams on Saturday.  Friday we will go into the schools and hand out our donations of school kits. Cioa for now!!

-Angela, Alfred, Gel, Sammy & Cassie

Hey! This is Josh from the Haiti team. Today Daniel passed the blogging honors off to me so I get to talk about our amazing trip. The last three days have been exciting and extremely moving. We have all experienced God in unique and beautiful ways.

Three days ago we went to an orphanage and helped remove rubble and do repairs there. The orphanage was personally devastating and amazing. We all figured that there were about 80 children and only two people that were taking care of them. From the minute the team walked into the orphanage we were bombarded with children running at us with open arms looking for affection. The kids needed love so desperately that when the team member wasn’t working there were only rare opportunities that a team member wouldn’t be hugging or playing with a kid. It was really hard to leave the children because whenever a team member put a child down they would instantly start crying. We could all sense the kid’s desperation and need for affection and love. I was in a state of helplessness when I was there but felt God’s presence in an beautiful way when I realized, that really, the only thing I could do was love the kids and pray that they would accept Jesus; a father that will never leave them.

While we were at the orphanage we also helped remove a ton of rubble that surrounded the outside of the orphanage. What took two or three hours could have probably taken twenty or thirty minutes if we had modern machines, but we didn’t, so it was pretty much up us to move as much rubble as we could into two dump truck loads by hand.

Yesterday we celebrated the fourth of July by taking a tour of the city. It was amazing how much damage the quake has done. The Haitian palace( pretty much the Haitian white house) was destroyed in the quake along with countless homes and businesses. After the tour of the city we went to a pizza place called “Mun-Cheeze”. After pizza we went to one of the highest mountains in the city that overlooked the town. From the view on top of the mountain we could see most of the town, which was absolutely beautiful. From there we all went back to our house and I took a legit nap!

Lastly, today we went to another village and distributed more filtration buckets to help the people have clean water. The hike today was not as hard as the one before but it was really hot! In the village we got to hear the school children sing for us which was beautiful. Our friend and unofficial (official?) tour guide, Fritz, later, got an awesome Haitian dance going with the some of the kids from the school.

I hope you are all having an awesome time in Fresno. We miss and love you.