Sunday, October 16, 2011

Community Church Day at Word of Life Camp

Every year on the Brazilian holiday: Children's Day, all of the community churches in Brazil get together for one big camp day. This tradition started in 1999 and this year was the first year that Tele Moraes was not able to be there. He was in the US sharing about the ministry to all of our supporters. The camp day was an uplifting day of fellowship and games. The exciting new game that was added this year was paintball, and both young kids and older adults enjoyed shooting each other with paint at the sectioned off battlefield. For pictures please go to our facebook page at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/World-Renewal-Brazil/58818349777

Monday, July 18, 2011

Back-to-Back Trips Educate Children about Christ

Joesph Hook helping kids with their projects
From July 6 through the 13, Brazil welcomed a group of 9 visitors from Greensburg, Indiana. During their stay, they conducted 3 different vacation Bible schools in Carpina, Guadalajara, and Lagoa de Itaenga and brought a total of 37 children to Christ. Through their Bible lessons, craft projects, and activities, these kids were able to laugh together and be educated about the undying love of Jesus. Joeseph Hook, visiting Brazil for the first time, described his time here as a "life-changing experience." He had the most fun communicated with children and building his Portuguese vocabulary.


Brookville Road Youth Group
But Brazil only had 1 day to rest before welcoming a group of approximately 30 teenagers on July 15. These teens will work together in an English camp preceding the first week of school and also host a youth conference. The English camp will not only help Brazilian kids with their pronunciation, but it will also further educate them about the universal love of God. Following the camp, the teens will lead a youth conference. The Community Churches of the area each chose teenagers whom they felt were qualified to be leaders in their congregation and the conference will serve as a learning period to equip the Brazilians with knowledge to lead younger believers.

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Assuerio Naque prepares for Mission to Africa

Assuerio Naque, pastor of the Community Church of Ameixas, is getting the opportunity to live a dream that he's been shaping ever since he was seventeen years old. On July 3rd, Naque left Brazil to go to Mozambique, Africa. There, he will spend 32 days passing out leadership material that will help to prepare the pastors in Southern Mozambique for the challenge of planting more churches in the North. Then, in 2013, Naque will move his family across the ocean to begin his church planting mission.

The main focus of the mission, as Naque repeatedly stressed, was to "Train the leaders, plant a church." Although he set up his own time table of 5-7 years, Naque added that this was only his personal agenda; what God has in store cannot be known. Since that is the case, Naque is prepared to stay in Africa ten or twenty years, fully trusting in God's plan.

When asked what the biggest problem this mission might face would be, Naque said that the traditional religion of Mozambique would probably be an issue. Spiritualism is present everywhere, he said, even among the doctors. There has even been a history of violent situations from the spiritualists against missionaries in some cases.

Considering that Northern Mozambique has a high population of Muslims, Assuerio Naque commented that he didn't feel he would have any difficulty with them. In fact, Naque said that he felt a love for the Muslims because they are good people and family oriented, so they would not want to cause trouble.

Assuerio asks that everyone continue to pray for him and this ministry in Africa as well as for the power of Jesus Christ to be strong wherever he goes.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Tele Talk: Not something you want to miss!


If you weren't tuning in Thursday morning (June 30) at 10:00 a.m., then you missed out on a fantastic program. Tele sat down and gave an extensive update on the recent projects of World Renewal Brazil which include the Oasis Rehab Center and the implementation of Celebrate Recovery into the church program. Tele also mentioned some of the other groups visiting this summer who will organize activities such as English camps, youth conferences, vacation Bible schools, and basketball clinics during their individual stays.

Tele took this opportunity to express his excitement over the arrival of a new missionary family this July. Rogerio and Susan Soares, plus their five children, will be joining us in the effort to bring families to Christ in the Carpina area. Their home is conveniently located within walking distance to a major public school in the area which makes it an ideal spot to minister to the local youth.

Once the general updates were made, specific questions about the Oasis Rehab Center arose. Tele pointed out the great need in Brazil for a place for addicts to go and find hope. Not just recovery, but a pure, solid hope in life. He pointed out that even the Brazilian government has recognized that they are steadily losing their youth to drugs and have appealed to the churches for help. The Oasis Rehab Center, Tele professed, will hopefully be the first of many centers in Brazil where men can go and to find the recovery they need and the future God desires for them.

When it comes down to the needs of the ministry, Tele gave a few things to pray about. First is that the Lord will bring forth leaders. These leaders are the ones who will go out and help plant more churches and bring even more people into the ministry. The next prayer request is for more financial support. The Rehab center, along with other programs, will only grow if they can get a steady form of financial support.

For a chance to ask Tele your own questions about what the World Renewal Ministry is doing in Brazil, tune in to the next Tele Talk on Thursday, July 21 at 10:00 a.m.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Brazil Welcomes Group from Brandywine Community Church, Indiana

This past Wednesday, June 22, a group of four guests from Brandywine Community Church in Indiana kicked off what will be a short series of conferences that will help to start the Celebrate Recovery program here in Brazil. Celebrate Recovery puts a Biblical spin on the standard 12-step program that turns victims of addiction, abuse, and bad decisions into leaders for others to turn to. It offers hope and accountability, making it a widely successful program.

From left to right: Linda Ostewig, Jim Moreland, Nick Fiano, and Gina Colclazier

Prior to the conference at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday night, the group went out to explore parts of the Carpina area. The first stop was in the town of Tracunhaém where they admired beautiful clay statues and figurines. Following that, they visited a school in Santo Antonio where Jim, Nick, Linda, and Gina introduced themselves to a class of students and encouraged them to keep studying while always looking to God for guidance.


This group from Brandywine Community church will not be the only team making a difference in Brazil. Over the course of the next month, two more groups will also join us to share the love of Christ through activities such as a Vacation Bible School, English camp, and a new Sports program for kids. World Renew Brazil looks forward the arrival of these different teams and can’t wait to see what God has in store for all of them during their stay.

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

English as Evangelism, Africa and More Come to Christ

English brings in over 70 people to the church of Acacias

This year the Community Church of Acacias has expanded its English classes and church services to two times a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  Right after the English classes finish they have a church service in English with a translator, to bring the word of God to those that came to the class, but would normally never go to church. We have three churches right now that have English as an outreach and would love to have even more, if we had the staff.





Emily and Lindsay show how to play chubby bunny during an English event.

March for Jesus

The churches in Lagoa de Itaenga (Pastor Ricardo’s town) are gearing up to do a huge city wide prayer walk through the town. They have called all the churches from the community and the surrounding cities to participate. The event will take place in June.

Come to Christ

Flavio was thrilled and is excited to see what God is going to do in his life.

The Living Stones program in Cajueiro Claro has been going strong for several months now and out of that has sprung up church services on Friday nights. Pastor Flavio (who runs Living Stones) has been inviting the people from the community to come. He always makes sure to stop and talk with the town drunk to invite him and he always says he will try to come.
This last Friday he actually came and told Flavio he would like to come again. Flavio was thrilled and is excited to see what God is going to do in his life. At the same service a man from the community told Flavio he was very sad because he could not participate in the communion bread and drink yet. He told Flavio that he knows what he needs to do and wants to come to Christ soon.






Similarly, Pastor Asuério Naque in Ameixas has been inviting a man addicted to drugs to church for more than three years. A few months ago this man finally came to church and gave his life to Christ. He is currently in the discipleship program.

His heart has always been for the Portuguese speaking country of Mozambique

Pastor Asuério will be going to Mozambique Africa in July. His heart has always been for the Portuguese speaking country of Mozambique. This 20 day trip will be the preparation trip for his family to move to Africa. Their goal is to get to Africa in 2012. In July, Asuério will be starting in south Mozambique then move on to the middle of the country for a week long pastor's conference. He also plans on spending time in the mainly Muslim northern region of Mozambique, where he has a strong desire to plant community churches.

Please pray for this trip and please consider how you might be able to help Asuério financially.  For the July trip he needs R$2,500 ($1,560). He has raised R$600 ($375) from the community churches in Brazil, a difficult task because most of the churches are in poor communities.  You can donate online here.





Friday, March 18, 2011

February Tele Talk conference call

For those of you that were not able to attend, you can download the audio file for the last Tele Talk conference call.
Tele mainly talked about the Glory Sports ministry and the impact that the basketball team had.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

ProPresenter Blessing

Thanks to generous donations the ministry was able to purchase a site license for propresenter, which is a powerpoint type program that you can use videos or live video as the backgrounds.

The church in Lagoa de Itaenga just had an open air evangelism night partnering with the other churches in the town. This was the first time we were able to test out propresenter at a service. The service was amazing and nobody in this region had every seen such a program. It helped to draw in the crowds.
Pastor Ricardo preached on the love of God in John 3:16 and we had a closing song. When the song started playing we showed a video background of the crucifixion. It was perfect timing and as you looked around several people were crying. It was so wonderful to see the churches in this community come together to bring the love of Christ to the people.



For those of you that missed the Dialog with Tele, we will put that online soon.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Dialog With The Director of WRB


Dear Friends,
On Thursday, February 24 we will hold a conference call for friends and partners of World Renewal Brazil (WRB) to share about the incredible work God is doing through Glory Sports Ministries.

Glory Sports Ministries exists to engage youth through sports activities with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Recently, God has provided some unique opportunities through the public school system to expand and reach more youth.  We are receiving great favor among local principals who are excited about the work of Glory Sports Ministries because we provide an alternative to the drugs, prostitution and violence facing their students.
Join us as Tele Moraes, President of World Renewal Brazil, and Steve Turner, U. S. Operations Director for WRB, will be live in Brazil giving us the “play by play” of this and other exciting opportunities.
February 24, 2011 at 1:30 p.m. EST

If you would like to participate in the call, please email Jeff Turner at jeffroyturner@gmail.com and he will reply with the call-in number and passcode.
We welcome you to invite others who may be interested in hearing about what God is doing through Glory Sports Ministries.  Please forward them this email and request that they also contact Jeff for the call information.
We appreciate your ongoing prayers and support for the people of Northeast Brazil and the work of World Renewal.
Tele

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Celebrate Recovery gets a retreat home

Celebrate Recovery is an outreach to addicts and substance abuse victims. Pastor Pedro who is involved with the newest church plant in Recife has always had a heart to start this outreach.

From Celebrate Recovery
From Celebrate Recovery

The retreat was given to us for two years rent free. The ministry gets possession of it in March. It is a blessing to have such a wonderful place where addicts can get out of their bad environment learn about the life they can have in Christ.

From Celebrate Recovery