Unfortunately, I don't really talk that much about tutoring in the Webb program, and so I have talked about that in a separate page that talks a little about tutoring at Webb.

A Little More News;

The last two weeks saw the start of English Classes at the seminary's Webb Institute English school. To get some idea of how popular the Christian-based English program has been here, last semester was the first time official English classes were truly offered for general open registration by those outside the Seminary. There were 14 students. This semester, there were 52 students with the last count that I had heard, and there were still people trying to get in. The people who are running the Webb program were hoping to be able to gradually build up the program, starting with entry-level students and then slowly build up to higher level classes. The development of the higher level classes is going much faster than planned due to the number of students coming from the secular schools in town, as well as the sheer volume of students. While it is true that having so many students has its own set of problems, as the developer of the program said, "This is a very good problem to have." There are now 4 levels of classes being taught, plus a young adults class that has people too advanced in their English skills for the level 4 class. This class is leading to the development of some new materials by the school.

At about this time, the trees were removed from in front of the seminary. They had grown too big to be satisfactory in an urban sidewalk planter, and were one of the reasons the sidewalk was to be replaced by the Valley View team.

Jan Dormer is one of the leaders of the Webb school. After some experience with the English as a Second Language textbooks available off the shelf here, determined that she would use the Cambridge University Press series of books for this set of classes going on this year. However, she is not particularly impressed with this set, or any of the other resources available, and has therefore decided to take on the task of developing her own textbook for the courses. She hopes to have it available next year.

Pastor Sadarta, helps paint the inside of the Missionary Church of Jardim Veneza. He is the head pastor of the church.

Since I am not able to be in two places at once, I have therefore been unable to do too much out at the new Church in Veneza. However, I did help start the painting process last week Saturday. Apparently the painting is nearly completed, and all the chairs arrived several days ago. They installed a set of new flourescent light fixtures on Saturday as well, and the place is starting to look much more like a church, and much less like a cave. On Saturday we will start distributing literature advertising the church's presence, and this coming Wednesday evening we will hold a Bible study in it. It will be the first event held in the building, and serve as a test run to see if everything works well. The Free Methodists have also started to make plans for a church in that area. The leaders of our Veneza church say that this is a good thing, as no one single church is going to be able to reach that whole area of the city by itself. A few days ago, the church work crew was paid a visit by the owner of the bar across the street. He was apparently married in the Airport Missionary Church ( an affiliated church ), and apparently he is very interested in the church's activities in the area.

There is not yet any sign of the Universal Church of the Reign of God, which is a good thing. This is a cultic church that has started to spread like a weed throughout Brazil and other areas where there are many Brazillians ( such as Miami ). I don't know too much about them, except that their churches are very large, and apparently they have a reputation for passing the offering plate around many times to extract the most amount of money that they can from the congregation. This apparently at times includes requests for cell phones, watches, and just about anything else the people happen to have on them. Apparently these people are using the spiritual needs of the nation to further their own personal wealth, and of course one reason they are able to spread so quickly is that they have all that money to dump back into spreading to more areas. We are hoping they don't show up in Veneza.

[ Please note that the above paragraph was written due to what several Brazilians told me about this group of churches. Two years later, I can look back and say that there are also few in that church that have a good reputation. At least one of their pastors graduated from the ISBL seminary, so it isn't as if the ISBL (the OMS Seminary I was involved with) is enemies with the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Yet, there seem to be many other Brazilians, both Christian and non-Christian, that don't like this group of churches due to various evils they see it imposing on the Brazilian people. What I reported here was, as stated, the opinions of other people, and the fact that certain members of the church and neighborhood, while welcoming the efforts of the Free Methodists and other churches, did NOT like one particular church. All I can suggest is that you do some research into what that church teaches and preaches and draw your own conclusions. In English look for Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and in Portuguese look for Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus ( a link to their web site - useful if you can read Portuguese). My own impression is that some of the leaders in this church takes advantage of the economic climate in Brasil and the church's particular teachings about money to unfortunate advantage. God says "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings." (Hosea 6:6) Money is an indicator of where a person's heart is, but to God the important thing is love and knowledge of God. It is important to discuss money from time to time in church, but any church that concentrates only on wealth and not on the importance of love and knowing God has a problem. At least in the Londrina area, some of the IURD churches have a reputation for concentrating too much on wealth. ]

Another photograph of the church as they install the border and new lighting. The transition over the course of the month I watched this happen was quite interesting and exciting to see. I had never participated in the birth of a church before.

On Wednesday, the mother of Julie Keller arrived here. Julie is the woman who is serving as the treasurer of the OMS mission here in Brazil, and has only been here about a year. There apparently were no major problems with her arrival here, which is a good thing. On that day they also had an airplane hijacking in the area that caused some problems at our airport. I don't know exactly what happened, but this is what I was able to understand from what little Portugese I know. A plane was leaving Iguaçu Falls with about 66 passengers, bound for the Capital of the state. However, it was diverted to a small airport just north of here by armed robbers, who fired one shot to let everyone know they were not fooling around, and who were after R$5 million ( about US $3 million ) that was being transported in suitcases by the Bank of Brazil. The robbers got off the plane at this small airport, and disappeared into the countryside with the money. The plane was then flown to Londrina, because that was the nearest airport able to actually support a commercial jet. There were no deaths or injuries, but apparently the Londrina airport was a bit of a mess for several hours in the afternoon. Airplane hijackings are virtually unknown in Brazil, and the newspaper had to go all the way back to the 1970's to find anything similar happening in this country - and that was on a flight from Cuba, not a domestic flight.

Jennifer Noah, the daughter of one of the missionaries, was supposed to leave early this morning. There were more airport problems of some sort, and so as of this writing she has not left yet. She will be one of the last English Camp team members to leave. The only other one who remains here, other than myself, is John, who is from England.

Lamar and Kay Ziegler, two other people who were here during the English Camp, have been working on raising financial help to pay tuition costs for students who have financial difficulties. These efforts have been appreciated by the staff here.

With all the growth that the English program here in Londrina is experiencing, and with the time limitations of the teachers, they would really like me to stay here until December. I am still trying to decide if, and if so how much, extra time I will be able to stay here.

My thanks for your prayers and the support that you all provide in the e-mail that you continue to send.

-Glenn

Just a reminder: this is the e-mail address of the missionary family I am staying with, and therefore it would be best to put "For Glenn" or something along those lines in the Subject line when sending mail here.