I'm not sure how much people have told you about our visit to the cities of Foz do Iguaçu and Maringà, but I will add my two centavos worth.
First, Maringà, from the eyes of "Clevy" Clevinger, a missionary that has been here since 1955, and therefore knows what he is looking at:
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A total of 300 have been baptized, this calendar year, in the Maringà ministries. Slightly over 200, in the Central Church. That would mean a new congregation of newly converted people won in the first 8 months of this year. And this means individuals who have been converted and who have completed, or will complete, the 20 week Basic Truths Course. A class session of 1 and 1/2-2 hours each week. There are six pastors related to the church. All have graduated from our seminary. As you observed, we have run out of space in the Mother Church. [ People have a hard time picturing the situation in Maringà if they have never seen it on Sunday evening. Between the Central Church and the daughter congregations in other parts of the city, there are 6 services every Sunday. At its highest capacity, chairs are run down the aisles so that the aisles are filled with people. Then they start packing people into the area at the rear, and by the time people stop arriving, there isn't a single square foot of space in that building that doesn't have a person standing or sitting there.] What should we do? Start more daughter churches? And this calls for trained, well qualified people to do pioneer ministry. The goal is to found 10 daughter churches. We are needing a new sanctuary. Not just to have a new building, but to avoid saying "no" to a new congregation of new converts each year! It is harvest time now! Harvest time does not last forever. ( A description of the first daughter church is left out here. I hope to include it later ). In this very poor section of the city, the monthly offerings are averaging $1700. But we are not after money! We are here to be a redemptive influence in the lives of the lost people. And we're looking for workers to join us!
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Foz do Iguaçu ( Falls of the
Iguaçu, or Iguaçu Falls )
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From approximately the same view point as the above, only looking toward the Garganta do Diablo. Notice the HUGE rubber raft (with space for perhaps 40 or so passengers) struggling against the current. This trip, I am told, can take over an hour going up the river, and perhaps 10 minutes on the return trip.
Because others sent photos back to the USA, and I thought that certainly a description of the falls would be included, I did not include a description of the Falls in the message I sent back.
At about that time, some people from the Universal Church of the Reign of God was looking for a building to buy. This is the rather cultic church that has a very bad reputation for chasing money out of its congregation that I told you about earlier. They determined that, despite the amount of money they have, repairing the building would simply not be a cost effective solution. Therefore, they got a tiny building. However, some visionary people from the Igreja Missionaria discovered the structure.
After a year of work, they held their first service in the new sanctuary. This daughter church has a sanctuary that will seat considerably more than the mother church will. It has an appartment upstairs where a caretaker lives. They found a couple >from the church that was having a lot of financial problems, but had some experience in the food service industry, and they opened the first "Missionary Lunch Counter" in a section of the building, and they live in a section of the building as well. They have a classroom upstairs that is used to train new pastors, based on one of the courses at the ISBL seminary in Londrina. Foz do Iguaçu is a 7 hour drive from Londrina, and so it would be hard for the new pastors, who come from the congregations there, to attend the seminary in Londrina. The classroom there is filled with capacity, and it holds over 100 people, for the classes.
There is a new daughter church that is undergoing development in a city that would normally be regarded as completely closed to missions work by Protestant groups. They are severely Roman Catholic in that community, and have been for centuries - the Portugese first came to that area in the 1500's. However, a certain soccer player involved in the Igreja Missionaria made a very great impression on them several years ago, and so they have become open to the Missionary Church. Every worship service ( even on Saturday evenings ), there is a bus that takes a significant number of people >from that community into the mother church, about 1/2 hour drive away. The church is therefore already started in the community, all they need is a building.
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The Valley View church is starting to place a little information about the trip on their web site. If you would like to take a look at it, it is located at:
http://www.valley-view.org/vvbrazil2000.htm
Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to take a look at it, because Acampamento Shalom only has ability to send and receive e-mail. I thought that the one thing that the people at the church lack was some actual letters from the Brazillians that we have been in contact with. So, yesterday I used some spare time generated by a rainstorm ( ie, work stoppage ) and sent a message to a few of the Brazillians and asked them to consider writing the church and telling them what they tell us about how much they appreciate the team coming to repair the sidewalk. -Glenn