Ivanildo Travels to a Men’s Retreat

Ivanildo and two of the guys from our church braved the bus ride over to Altamira to attend a Men’s Retreat. They left here at noon and arrived in Altamira at 5:00 a.m. Many times they had to get out and push the bus through big mud holes. Ivanildo was telling me three cowboys were on the bus with them. They each wore a pair of tall, beautifully polished cowboy boots. This, in itself, is kind of unusual. Most cowboys here wear ankle high cowboy boots. Anyway, after everyone climbed back in the bus after pushing the vehicle through a big mud hole, the cowboys would pull out their knives and scrape the heavy red mud off their beautiful boots. Ivanildo laughed when he told me this, remembering many times in his own past when he had done the same thing. One of Ivanildo’s specialties when he was a cowboy was breaking wild horses. And he had a wild reputation to go with it. At this Men’s Retreat he met an old friend from his younger days. This guy could not believe Ivanildo was now a pastor. Blink! Blink! He kept coming up to Ivanildo, grabbing his arm and dragging him over to introduce him to someone else. “You see this guy? You did not want to know him before he was a Christian. He was very dangerous.”

The three guys came back from the conference pumped. They were phoning their friends here in Marabá and telling things they had learned. Ivanildo is planning a mini-conference here to pass on all they learned. There is such an eagerness and hunger. This is God’s time to be planting churches in this region.

Here is a photo of Ivanildo’s shoes in front of his door, after the 18 hour bus ride home. The conference  took place at “The Ranch” conference center, very near where Ivanildo grew up. A huge thank you to everyone who helped to make this event a success.