On June 6, 2014, Pastor Gary Stephens at the Abbotsford Vineyard Church talked about forgiveness, which included the following assumptions about what forgiveness is not.

• Forgiveness is not making excuses for what was done to you.
• Forgiveness is not pretending it never happened.
• Forgiveness is not waiting for an apology.
• Forgiveness is not pretending it doesn’t hurt.
• Forgiveness is not a one-time event.
• Forgiveness is not overlooking justice.
• Forgiveness is not trusting.
• Forgiveness is not restoration.

Posted with permission.

Rick Bergen.

Jen and Phil organized an outreach last summer to raise some toys for the children in our neighbourhood here in Marabá. They found an engineer who was travelling to another part of Brazil who was willing to bring their suitcases full of gifts. The engineer had connections with a trucking company who transported them up to Marabá for free. Here is a video and some photos of the event.

Sorting and wrapping children’s gifts.

Deanna lays out the strategy with the volunteer helpers.

It rained all morning, which was no problem for the 100 children and leaders.

Mary was quite protective of baby Jesus.

Everyone loved the morning.

Julianna soaks it all in.

Mary looks around while protectively holding baby Jesus.

Mary is pretend sleeping while the angel talks to her.

“Sai da frente!” “Get out of the way, we’re coming through!”

Antonette and Madute were great helpers. They are entering the church through the Alpha program.

Deanna organizes the gift draw.

Little Emily wanted me to sit beside her while she ate lunch. Deanna came and took our photo.

Annika spent the morning holding her friend’s babies while she helped with the event.

Mary was very pregnant while she rode the donkey to Bethlehem.

The Sunday School class did an impromptu Christmas story play. Emma and Adriana were the teachers.

Reinact the Greatest Story Ever

Mary was pregnant, and they had to travel.

Mary sat on the donkey when she got tired.

The shepherds can all were brown shirts this year, thanks to some generous donors.

All the wise men can wait over here.

The wonder of it all.

What was the kings name again, who wanted to kill baby Jesus? Let’s call him Ruan. King Ruan.

Juliana can be The Angel of the Lord who tells the shepherds the good news.

Brazil has a National Day of the Bible. Our youth took the opportunity to spend the day eating together and getting ready for a Bible Character Dress-up night at Church.

Emma and her good friend Thaís. Thaís is about 5 months pregnant.

The young people in the church dress up as Bible characters. Emma and Bella were the main costume finders.

The young people stand at the back of the church so they can dance during the worship part of the service.

This is Ivanildo’s wife, Monica, and their daughter, Bruna.

Douglas can really play the guitar! I hope he makes it through to adulthood serving God. God has big plans for him.

The boys at the back of the church.

Aline is in Grade 11.

The worship team dresses up as Bible characters.

We’ve got Ruth, and Esther, and the Bride of Christ, among many other great characters.

Another Aline. All these Aline’s have very sweet spirits. The Sunday School kids love them. They all radiate love for God. They are such nice girls, all of them. May God bless them with ALL that He has planned for them.

This is Aline who married Eliel. They are the Youth Group leaders.

Bruna

Deú is Deanna’s friend who comes over and paints her fingernails every so often.

She is a key person. There are always a group of ladies around her telling stories at her house.

Deú loves God, but experienced Him differently last week-end.

The girls started out thinking they would paint a snowman on a popsicle stick, but the project grew to where everyone could make their own manger scene.

Emma the Teacher

Emma and Bella created a manger scene craft.

Bella the Teacher.

Could you show me how to do this one part again?

Quiet Concentration

Now you carefully paint the stick.

Fun with friends.

We are ready for you to come and visit us.

Snack Time.

Vandro delivers steel around town for a job. He is not a church person. He started coming with his mother-in-law, and sometime later his wife started to come to church with him. Now they both want to be church planters in São Luiz someday. I am not sure they consider themselves Christians yet, but sometimes we don’t get the order of these things exactly right. It is the direction we are heading that counts.

I drove to Altamira on Monday for our annual year-end leadership meeting. Among other things we all submit our next year’s budgets at this meeting. Where we spend our money and time has a direct relationship to our values. If the Xingu Mission can be remembered for only one thing, I hope it is that we are focused on starting a national movement of Church Planters. We love the local church and Brazilian people.

During the Leadership Meeting on Tuesday, November 12, 2013, Clenildo and Elba shared their vision for planting churches across Northern Brazil. About two years ago Clenildo shared a vision with me and others that he felt was from God. There were fires being lit in seven northern states. These fires grew and starting spreading, sparks jumping out and starting other fires. He felt God was calling him to lead this movement to plant churches in these states, an impossible task. He asked God how he could possibly do this. God said something like this, “First you talk about it. Then start visiting these places. Then watch it unfold.” Clenildo has already travelled to some of these states on survey trips, and shared this vision with the national church leadership team. Christian leaders who knew nothing of this vision have told Clenildo they have seen him in many Brazilian airports visiting these other states. This has happened at least a couple of times.

Last week Clenildo and Elba presented us with a paper entitled “Project to Plant Churches”. The seven northern states they want to plant churches in are Amazonas, Acre, Rondonia, Roraima, Maranhão, Ceará, and Piauí. This is in addition to the three states where we are already planting churches, Pará, Amapá, and Tocatins. The plan Clenildo and Elba presented is really optimized for their growing council of Brazilian church here in the North. Currently churches give 5% to an outreach fund for church planting. The mission wants to work with the young national movement.The really cool thing is that the plan presented does not depend on the mission. It can continue on without us if necessary. Clenildo and Elba are challenging the local churches, and us as a mission, to help with church-planting in the way that was summarized by William Carey. He said missions or sending agencies need to plan, plod, pray, and pay.

Dream of Planting Churches in Seven More Northern States.

Clenildo and Elba shared at the missionary leadership meeting.

Clenildo shares the vision for planting churches in 7 more states in Northern Brazil.

Friday is a national holiday here in Brazil. Emma and Bella took the afternoon off to make special cupcakes to sell at the church fund-raiser party.

Emma and Bella decorate cupcakes.

Bella’s teeth are blue from eating the icing.

The brown cupcakes are owls.

The cupcakes sold out quickly at the evening event.

Special Cupcakes.

Cupcake art.

First Ivanildo prepares the soil.

Then he invites everyone to a Corn Planting event.

Now everyone is looking forward to the Harvest Party in a few months.

Ivanildo prepares the cornfield.

It takes the right person to have a lot of helpers and to still come out with something reasonable like you thought it would be.

The corn seeds are coated with pink stuff to keep the little bugs from killing them before they get started growing.

Angelo gives Ellen a handful of seeds to plant.

Corn seeds get buried and die so they can produce 100 times as more corn than was planted.

Eliete loves plants. She brought a lot of helpers.

The best time to plant corn is just before the rainy season.

Yara helps with the planting.

pink hands!