At six a.m. this morning the guys loaded up a car and a motorbike for another survey trip. We have heard a big mining company found a large mineral deposit (gold?) under a village, and they are constructing a new village so they can raze the existing one. It turns out to be true. We can get 3 city lots for R$150 if we will build a church building. They are moving all the residents of the old community to this new location and they want an instant town. We have until the end of the month to get back to them. This is an unusual opportunity.
Our guys came back from this survey trip encouraged. Two buses full of local residents were leaving when the team arrived at the coffee shop, and then three more buses full of people pulled in. Ivanildo feels this is a real hub into the ranch country and settlements of that region. They pulled into a restaurant / bar alongside the highway that had a nice lake / swimming hole. Apparently the owner was a Christian but when the pastor put her under church discipline she left the church. She was playing Christian worship music in the bar.
To get started out there I kind of think we need to commit to visiting at least twice a month. It’s a two hour trip each way. We could start working on our property (if we make the deal). There are two suitable lots available. Each one is 100 feet square (three city lots). One is right downtown, in a lower piece of land, and one is a few blocks away by the main road in and gas station, and it has a nice view as it is higher up. We could get a fence or wall around it, and start out by putting up a roof to meet under and place to stay overnight. Then we could hang out and get to know the town people when we visit.
I don’t know. This is a prayer request. Is this our first church plant outside of Marabá? We are familiar with two ways to plant churches. One way is to look around, like we are doing, and then get to know the people where we want to start a church. The other way, which is much easier I think, is to go where we are invited. Sometimes we need to invite ourselves first, and as we get known we get invited out. Does that make sense? In Marabá, for example, we invited ourselves. Tres Poderes has some of the same feeling about it at a much smaller scale. So…what do you think?
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