Russel and Aline Toler
Hello friends,
Thanks to those who prayed for our carnaval retreat, it was a great time! There were about 30 of us, and we rented a 'sitio' about an hour away, buried in the jungle. It was so nice and refreshing for all of us to get away from the stress of city life and be with our family of believers for four days.
One of the highlights of the trip was the restoration of a marriage of one of the girls in our church. She had been coming to church for a few months with her little 2 year old daughter who has (I think) pretty bad scoliosis. She convinced her husband, who was no longer living with her, to come to the retreat. He agreed to come, had a great time with all the guys, and ended up giving in to the conviction of the Spirit during one of the times of prayer we had after a service. What was cool about it, is that there was no pressure from anyone. No one, as far as I know, had even brought up the issue of his marriage or his walk with God in a conversation with him - it was completely the Holy Spirit working in him.
The family showed up to church together the following Sunday. When so much work and prayer goes into something, it is amazingly refreshing and awesome to see some fruit...
As far as the church goes, here's what we have planned for the next couple of weeks.
- I'm going to start teaching the mid-week study, and I've decided to teach through the book of James. Please pray for me, and for the study as a whole - the people that go, the fellowship and prayer and worship that will happen there, and most importantly, the transformation the Word will have on us.
- We're going to start having a Bible class every week before the Sunday night service. Pray that everything works out - that people will be able to come and be exited about it, that God would empower and infuse the teachers with the Spirit, and that those that participate would 'get' what's being taught and "be transformed by the renewing of their minds."
- We have a young missionary here for a month named Taksuhiko (or something like that) from Calvary Chapel West Tokyo. He doesn't speak much Portuguese or English, but he's really good at acting out what he wants to say. Pray for his time hear as he is passionate an very eager to help wherever it is needed in our church.
Thank you!
Russell