Igneous Quill

The following came to me via e-mail and I pass it along here to encourage anyone in the Midwest who can make the trip to Tulsa this Spring to do so. The Tulsa Workshop is a very worthwhile gathering of Christians, not only Church of Christ brethren but now also welcoming those from the independent Christian Churches.

www.tulsaworkshop.org

Due to recent events and fresh insights, this site is undergoing some changes.  More information will be available over the course of the coming weeks.

Thank you.

The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps. (Proverbs 16:9 NRSV)

No one knows what a day will bring, much less an entire year. While making news years resolutions wasn’t part of my upbringing, I’ve long been into goal-setting.  Is there a difference?  Maybe, or maybe not.  I do know that the year ahead holds quite a bit of potential and that I don’t want to pass any of it up through lack of focus on my part.

First, my brother-in-law Marcelo has succeeded in his request for a visa to visit the United States.  He is the Brazilian missionary who stayed on in Uberlânia with his wife and kids when I moved my family to the United States.  Under his leadership one congregation has become two and a young man who was converted through his ministry went away for a two-year ministry training course.  Great strides have been made in the evangelization of the city, and Marcelo and Selma (his wife) share a vision not only for bringing people to faith in Christ but to truly help people in practical ways.  They work in marriage and family counseling, holding workshops and seminars to help people live better and have happier homes.  There is a recovery aspect to their ministry as well and a group in the church has organized to help out in social projects, such as volunteering at a local orphanage and arranging donations of funds and goods for this work.  Marcelo’s purpose in coming to the United States is to raise awareness and support for the mission in Uberlândia.  He has yet to finalize travel plans but intends to come to New Jersey first, then head to the Midwest.

Second, my family is planning on making a trip to Brazil.  This is especially significant because my wife hasn’t been back there since 2006 and I haven’t set foot in Brazil since leaving in October 2003.  Had things gone according to plan we would have been back in full-time mission work there in 2008.  At this point it seems more likely we’ll be working indefinitely with the Brazilian community here in the northeastern United States and making occassional trips to Brazil.  It would be best if we created a fund for these trips.  At this point we are nowhere near the estimated $3500 we’ll need for airfar, and I’m estimating that renewing our paperwork for travel (including American passports for my wife and daughter who were naturalized in 2008) will cost no less than $1000.

Third, this is the year when we intend to get serious about youth ministry.  A few of our congregation’s young people are now teenagers and we are anxious to begin holding regular youth group meetings in our home beginning in January.

Fourth, my wife and I want to head to Honduras in December 2010 to help with the second annual “Jesus Banquet.”  Click here and here for more on this effort.

Fifth, there are unsettling uncertainties we face here in the year ahead.  The start-up I work with in New York is running out of investor funds.  If we don’t succeed in raising another round of funds by the end of January or beginning of February we’ll have to close up shop.

Through it all, with all the hope, potential and insecurity of a new year, we move forward believing in the living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who was revealed most fully in Jesus of Nazareth.

Your prayers for us and the good we seek to do are deeply appeciated.  Happy New Year!

When I was a child I remember feeling as though the two months of summer vacation was an endless golden expanse of time. My mother told me that the older I got the faster time would seem to go by. Like everyone else I have discovered this to be a sad truth. Looking back at 2009 I see that it was a very full year, however quickly it now seems to have passed.

Some of the best times have been those spent with brothers and sisters in Christ with the Brazilian church in Newark, NJ. Aside from our regular service schedule we’ve also celebrated every major holiday together, held countless cookouts at each others homes, hit the beach a few times (I don’t go in for that myself!) and held our annual church retreat. We were especially glad for the retreat this year, having lost our spot at Camp Manatawny, we found another camp which we were able to rent for a couple of days. We studied the Bible and worshiped together as well as spent a few hours with activities in the camp lake (paddle boats, swimming, etc).  Click here for pictures.

For me, the real high point of 2009 took place at our church retreat when I baptized my daughter into Christ. As I’ve said elsewhere, it really doesn’t get much better than that.  Her decision wasn’t made in a vacuum, of course.  Since she was a little girl I’ve been reading Bible stories to her and my wife and I have prayed with her and discussed what it means to believe in God and follow Jesus.  She’d been saying for a while that she wanted to be baptized, but didn’t seem serious until she spent a week away at church camp.  She returned dead serious about becoming a Christian.  I spent a couple of weeks studying the Bible with her nearly every evening before baptizing her at the retreat.  Another girl from our congregation was similarly affected by her time at church camp and was also baptized at the retreat.  We are thankful that our children are making commitments to Christ and pray to be more effective in reaching people, young and old, beyond our immediate family and fellowship as well.

Shortly after the church retreat my wife and I took our daughter and a young man from church to RevGen, a major Christian music festival in our part of the country.  Click here for pictures. We had a good day there and we began to consider again the possibility of active youth ministry.

There were a number of immigration victories for some of our church members as well.  One couple began the year being granted permanent visas and promptly arranged their first trip in over a decade to visit family in Brazil.  Another couple received word over a month ago that their permanent visas should be available soon, and have been issued valid work permits.  Another man who was actually picked up by immigration authorities over a year ago has been approved for permanency, opening the door for his wife (their son was born in the U.S. and is therefore a citizen).  We rejoice with these good people and continue to pray for our friends who have their cases pending in the immigration courts.

About a month ago I was finally able to get a website up for our congregation.  We are talking about splitting it into two websites, as there are Brazilian and Hispanic congregations meeting in our building and sharing leadership.  For now it is one website which you can see by clicking here.

Last but not least, my brother-in-law Marcelo was approved for a visa to visit the United States in order to raise mission support!  I thought it nearly impossible with our present immigration climate for him to receive this visa, but apparently the consular official looked up our record and that of my mother-in-law (she has been in the States twice to visit) and opted to give him a chance.  He plans to come to the U.S. next year, so more on him in my next post where I’ll talk about goals and plans for 2010.  Click here to see a photo of Marcelo, Selma and their children.

Thank you for your continued encouragement, support and prayers as we seek to promote peace and development in Brazil and throughout the Brazilian diaspora.

You may have noticed that while this site is called “Cristo Invicto,” the domain name is “igneousquill.org“.  Then again, maybe it never occured to you.  Just in case, here’s the explanation.

For pretty much everything I do online I try to use “Igneous Quill”.  When I got to thinking about starting a new non-profit to promote peace and development in Brazil and elsewhere through education, the first name that came to mind was “Igneous Quill Institute.”  That would have been all well and good, except that I then got to thinking about how that would sound to Brazilian ears.  Specifically, I realized that the name would translate rather poorly.  What to do?

The very next name that came ot mind was “Cristo Invicto Institute.”  Since two of the words are already in Portuguese, translation is quite simple.  Further, the name identifies well with the beliefs that underpin this effort.  “Cristo Invicto” refers to “Christ Undefeated” or “Christ Victorious.”  There is atonement theology at work here which tenaciously declares the powers and authorities exposed and defeated through the cross of Christ.

Rather than reserve a domain with “Cristo Invicto” in it, I opted for consistency with other sites I’m operating.  This certainly wouldn’t be the first non-profit to do so, given that the Central Asia Institute uses https://www.ikat.org/ .

Whether you agree with my reasoning here or not, I thank you for taking the time to read.  Once this work is truly underway I’ll be counting on people, perhaps like you, who share a vision for helping Brazil’s youth to acquire skills that will help lift themselves out of poverty.  It is nothing less than hope for a nation.