Day One Church: US Missions Team

We continue our series titled Day One Church, following the church plant in Desterro from the first day it started.

Living Stones & Church Planting:

For the past year, Living Stones has had an outreach in Belem, the name of one of the three communities that are along the two mile stretch of road called Desterro. It was logical that the Living Stones outreach would partner with the new church plant so close by. A short-term missions team from the Shelbyville Community Church provided a great opportunity to start the partnership.  The team provided the resources for a party with the Desterro church last week.

The Living Stones and the church plant had an interesting start together when they brought all the kids from Living Stones to the church only to discover that it was locked! The new Pastor Marco was running late from work and arrived 45 minutes late.

So, what should you do in this case? Throw a party in the street! So, what happens when you throw a party in the street? Well, it turns out a party in the street is a great way to attract attention! God seemed to ordain the lateness this time! By the time they moved into the church they had a very nice crowd that followed!

Near the end of the party Pastor Flavio (the Director of Living Stones) was testing kids to see if they could read, if they could then they were given an Action Bible and encouraged to read to a friend who couldn't read every day!

New Evangelical Friend's church near Paudalho

This is the road called Desterro. It is a small community outside of Paudalho.

This area has no evangelical church near it. The church building that World Renewal Brazil just purchased had been boarded up for 9 years. Now is the time to revitalize the area and show God's love once more to this gospel needy community.

The church building is under some general maintenance and upkeep right now. Pastors from WRB are helping in all sorts of ways, to get the church ready to start receiving people. It has been amazing to see everyone come together to help out this latest church plant. 

The building was purchased for R$65,000(USD$29,000) with the down payment of R$22,000(USD$10,000)  paid for from the Evangelical Friend's churches in the US.

Pastor Marco (Word of Life background) will be the pastor of this Evangelical Friend's church on Desterro road. The full name of the church is undecided.
Marco wanted to have a prayer and vision meeting inside the church this last weekend but while they were cleaning the roof tiles they found and killed 35 bats. It was not safe to hold the prayer meeting since bats carry lots of decease and even their poop causes allergies.

A few of the bats killed: 35 in all with one big ring leader bat.

Pastor Marco and his Family

Please be praying for this new church plant on Desterro's road. They will be having their first meeting very soon. World Renewal Brazil also needs to raise the rest of the money to finish paying for the building. This month we will need R$14,000 (USD$6,500) total more needed to pay off the church building is: R$43,000 (USD$19,000).