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Chris DuBois

My Brazil Experience

By Chris DuBois

I knew almost instantly that this was my year to go to Brazil because of my life circumstances at the time. I knew it would require a great step of faith on my part and that was why I needed to go. The months leading up to the trip consisted of me praying for the money needed to pay for the trip and praying for my spirit, that it would be just right. Raising the money for the trip wasn't scary for me and I knew in faith that it would all come in (and it did!). Before I knew it, the months of pre-trip prayer and preparation were over and the trip had arrived. My only expectation for the trip was to be used by God. I didn't want to build up any other expectations in my mind, especially man-made expectations…those most often lead to let down.


My expectation was first met at a women's prison we visited. There, I met a woman by the name of Davina. She was a 19 year old black woman from London, England who was arrested for bringing drugs into the country. My heart broke for her as she told me of the events that brought her to the prison. In the midst of what was a bad situation, she was still swelled with joy. That joy stemmed from Jesus Christ! The power of the Gospel has set her free within the first two weeks of her stay in the prison. My heart rejoiced at the power of the Gospel at work in her life. It brought freedom to her while surrounded by prison walls. Since my encounter with Davina, I've prayer for her and her future. I pray she's able to make a difference in the world. I pray she's used to bring people to Jesus.


My expectation was met a second time through a 13 year old boy named Eleison. He was a kid I met on the second day of VBS at the Rio das Pedras community. We seemed to connect instantly in spite of the language barrier that separated us. In Eleison, I saw a child in need of the Savior's touch. It became my mission to show him Christ's love. I let him know he was important, not only to me, but to Jesus Christ. He told me he already knew Jesus; a fact that made my heart dance! He spoke very little English, but managed to say something that will linger with me forever. He called me his "friend of forever". He mistook the word of for for. I think I found the improper word usage even more endearing. On the last day of VBS, he somehow saw me in the car as we were driving up and started to run along side it. Any doubts of me actually having any influence on him quickly vanished in that moment. Knowing that we may never see each other again, I made sure to enjoy my time with him that night. When it did come time to say goodbye, I pulled him aside for a talk. I wanted to make sure he knew that I cared for him and would be praying for him. I wanted him to know that he needed to keep focused on his relationship with God. I pray that he will find ways to overcome the negative circumstances within his community. I pray that he is constantly looking to Jesus for comfort and direction. I also pray that we will meet again someday.

My time in Brazil strengthened my relationship with God. I saw Him act in ways that I never thought possible (there I go again, putting limits on God's abilities). My faith was strengthened and I captured even more admiration for my FIRST LOVE. There is, of course, so much more to say about my time there. I've found it hard to put into words what I actually experienced there. I'm sure over the coming weeks, I will learn even more about what my time in Brazil did to me. I'm looking forward to that. For now, I will leave this as it is now. Feel free to ask questions about the trip, I love answering questions.

Briazil over view video

Carrie.R.Walker

Words can not descibe the amazing time we had in Brazil. There is somthing so unique about going to another country and getting a glimpse of what God sees when He looks down on us and gaining some of His heart for the world. This is was my fifth overseas mission trip and I know that it will not be my last. My favorite part of the trip was the VBS at Rio De Pedras, which is a very poor area, also known as a favella. We spent three afternoons and one Sunday evening there and each time we returned the children were so excited to see us. We were barely off the bus and they were embracing us in hugs. We came there to give them love......but they gave it to us. Most of my time was spent with the younger children and photgraphing our journey. There wasn't a lot of time for me to connect with the children but I made sure to put the camera aside every now and then and pick one up in my arms. The last night, we showed the Jesus Film. This little girl, around 3 years old, came over and crawled on my lap. I put my arms around her and just held her tight. A few minutes later I looked at her and she was fast asleep. That is a moment that I will cherish for a long time. She was so beautiful and she completely trusted me. That is what God desires of us......to crawl up onto His lap and leave everything in His hands and to completely trust Him.

Carrie

We are updating this sunday with more.

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Travel Day:


Sight Seeing Day:


First Day of Ministry:


More to come please stay with us as we will be updating this site for the next two weeks.

Thanks for all your prayers.

The Commissioning

For the past two days we have been running around a lot. One of the places we visited was Pastor Michelle’s church, Freguesia. This is where God really laid it on my heart to change many things and thoughts that are in my life. The worship is incredible and then Jay taught the Word. I am not sure if it is us being here on a mission trip, but I have felt very connected with God and felt so much. To come so far around the world to experience this was so well worth it. You can try to explain the joy and overwhelming peace, but it is really indescribable. I have also connected with the women on our trip. I have not had very many girlfriends in my life, because I didn’t communicate very well. I guess this is the result of growing up with boys. I was so blessed to lay some of my heart out on the table and the women pick it up and love me anyway. WOW.

On Sunday we attended service at Barra Church. Again, you can’t describe it. As we worshipped, I caught myself listening to the congregation sing in the different languages.
Just imagine the wonderful heart that God had at this moment as we sung the song “How Great is our God”. My heart just melts when I think about it. Again, WOW.

The activities at night were with the Rio Das Pedras. The children were so warm and loving as usual. The children were all together tonight, the adult service downstairs. We had them watch the Jesus film and then made the salvation bracelets. The children seemed really entranced by the film and paid very close attention. At the end of the film, their pastor explained the bracelet and prayed with the group. This night was bittersweet. As they look at you and ask you to stay. All along knowing you really can’t. I was brought small gifts from a few of the children. These gifts that to them are treasures would seem to so many of us as trivial, soap, Barbie school accessories, jewelry… Incredible that they would give when they have really nothing to give, these small children gave all they had. That did think it was neat that my name was Barbie. They also liked my hair and wanted to touch it. The experience was has touched my life and I already am excited about the thought of seeing them next year.




Last night at Rio Das Pedras was a blessing. We started off worshiping and after that pastor Jay ministered to the women and men of the church. It was amazing in that after the word, we were able to pray for the children and men in particular, but also the women of the church. Pastor Sergio, the pastor of Rio Das Pedras was excited in that more men are starting to go to church, and last night to men accepted Jesus Christ in their lives and got saved. It was fantastic. Following some more worshiping music, we gathered all the children and started handing out their gifts. The faces of the children were indescribable. The emotion and the spirit that was floating in the church was outstanding. A guitar was also gifted to the Pastor Sergio. After that, we parted to a host’s house for a celebration of the birthdays of several people whose birthday was during last week and this week. It was a great time to share with our hosts and other members of Barra Presbyterian Church.

-Barbie Reed

Stay with us we will be doing more.

True life stories from the favelas.

The little boy in this picture is Bernardo and he is eight months old. His story is sad but true and not at all uncommon within the favelas (slums) of Brazil. After his mother gave birth to him she left him on a doorstep within their community. On this particular day he was being taken care of by the mother of the woman where he had been left as a baby. My heart was broken as I listened to this story and I felt a strong need to hold him. As I held this gift from God in my hands I was both saddened and angered by the thought of someone just throwing away this beautiful child. I held him for what seemed like just a few minutes because others on my team wanted to hold him also, trying to express to him that he had a Father in heaven who loved him more than any earthly parent ever could. I prayed that God would protect him, meet his needs and bless the family that has taken him in.

Another story I was told was about a boy named Golden (his hair was blonde which is not very common in Brazil) and the vigilante justice within the favelas. His father had twice broken the rules and the favelas have a 3 times and you are out system. He inevitably broke the rules again and justice had to be served. He was at home with his 5 children, Golden and his 4 sisters, when the vigilantes broke down the door and killed him in front of his children.

These are the horrible conditions that many children of Brazil live with on a day to day basis. If you are a parent or have any relationship with a child, it would be hard to imagine this ever happening to your child or for that matter any child in this world we live in. But, this world is filled with sin and sinful natured human beings so these stories are just a glimpse into the pain and suffering of God’s children. Please join me in praying for these children and the many others who need to know the love of our God in a tangible way.


- Chris Neal

More is coming monday.

Freguesia Church

Tonight we headed over to Freguesia Church to play a part of their church service. Once again we were able to worship in Portuguese with the Brazilians. It was such a blessing to worship God with them in a different language than what we are used to.

Afterwards, Ashley, Derek, and I had an opportunity to share our testimonies. It was great to be able to share what God has done in each of our lives and I enjoyed listening to how God has restored all three of us from so much. This was the first time I was able to share my testimony in front of a group of people and I must say I was quite nervous. As I got up and started talking, I felt the peace of God wash over me and He gave me all the words He wanted me to share with the group. It was great to be able to show God’s glory in my life. Afterwards, people from the church came up and hugged me and cried with me. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I know that God used my testimony to help minister to them. I praise God that He is using my story to help others!

A thought from this week…It is amazing to me the amount of young adults that have helped us out this week from Barra Church. I look at all the young adults, especially men that have helped us out this week. So many have sacrificed time, money, and sleep to help us out with transportation, translating, making food for us, serving along side us, and much more. It blows me away at how giving they are and how happy they are to help us. It makes me wonder if you and I would be the same way back home. If we were to have a group of people from another country come into our church for a week, would we be willing to stay up until 1:30 in the morning to feed the homeless? Would you give up your whole week to serve the people in our community? Would you be happy to use up your gas to drive someone all over Orlando for the week? The Brazilians hearts blow me away at how much they give and sacrifice to us. It has been a great testimony to me this week. Just something that God has laid on my heart and I wanted to share with you all!

More to come tonight.

Fourth Day of Ministry

Today we were able to have some down time for the leaders to meet and discuss the rest of the mission trip. This was much needed as there is still so much to do. Then in the afternoon, we went to Rio de Pedras for our third day of vacation Bible school. Peggy did the story of Peter and the waves with the children and incorporated the children in the story by having them act out. Then we did the games and craft time (with fishing poles and the boat/waves etc). Today was the “most smooth” day of vacation Bible school so that was a blessing. The last two days were pretty hectic b/c there was about 200 children and they were quite talkative. Some of us who have done Bible school at Crosspointe were accustomed to a little more “order” and not used to this type of organization. We took a bunch of pictures of the children and can’t wait to show them to you all. The children were so sad to see us leave and were hugging us for such a long time. But we will see them on Sunday for the last day. Now we are at a café with crepes and sandwiches and then we will travel to Arraial de Cabo for a day of rest. God has given us so many blessings on this mission trip so far.

There was a little girl named Jasmine that was so precious. I could tell that she had a difficult family background. Whenever I saw her I would say to her “tao linda”, which means that “you are beautiful.” I wonder if she has ever heard these words. Her father does not appear to be around. She was always smiling and had joy despite difficult circumstances. She gave me a card for Luciane saying that she missed her since she moved to America. The little impact that we could make on her and her family makes the whole trip worth it! The whole team is functioning in an Acts 2 capacity, and we are seeing the fruit of this labor, praise God!

Continue to pray for us.

Homeless Minstery

Setting out to the city to bring the homeless closer to God, I had my expectations. When we got there most of them were proven true until I saw the amount of down and out people were in need of the touch of Jesus. The people that could pray with the homeless did, so that was awesome to see. I saw my brothers and sisters in Christ give anything they could away so that simple lives were greatly touched. They ate, they drank and most of them seemed to appreciate all they were offered. It was awesome to see God work through His people on such a level.

Stay with us more to come.

Day Three

Our day was greeted with yet another great Brazilian breakfast. It feels like we are always eating here. After breakfast, we broke off for guy/girl devotionals. Our work for the day started after devotions with a service at Barra Presbyterian that was for the women of the Rio das Pedras community. The service was laid out similar to the services at CrossPointe with worship music, a message, and two testimonies provided by Peggi & Barbie. As the service ended, some of our team passed out supply packs to the women while others prepared lunch for them. Our day progressed from there as we had lunch ourselves. After a short break following lunch, we moved onto VBS at Rio das Pedras. Today’s lesson focused on Rahab and the walls of Jericho (Joshua 2). We used puppets to help present the story to the kids as well as a craft. They responded with joy and excitement. The highlight for me was hearing Wilson, a boy in the community, sing popular songs from the US. I don’t think he knew the meaning to the songs, but it was quite funny hearing him sing them!

Tonight we’re off to do some late night homeless feeding. We’ll fill you in on that soon!

Barbie Reed:

Today is our third day in Brazil. It has been a wonderful trip so far. This morning we participated in the service Barra church does for the community. During the service I gave my testimony on what Jesus Christ has done in my life and is continuing to do. Although I gave my testimony, I really felt led to voice how Jesus Christ is there for you during all times of your life, good or bad. I pulled scripture from Ephesians 5:2-5. This passage tells us to rejoice in our sufferings, because suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character; character, hope. Don’t ever lose hope.

Second day

We started the day by having an excellent breakfast at 7:30am. After that our groups were divided in two; one group went to the orphanage and the other group went to the women’s prison. At the prison, we met a group of about twenty women, most who at first were not as receptive, but we were expecting that. Jay started out by saluting them and speaking a passage of Matthew chapter 5. Following Jay’s words, we played a couple of songs with the women, and after that we played out a sketch about the love of Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross and many of the women connected with that small play. We could see the look on their faces of being betrayed or being left out by someone, so the team went ahead and prayed one to one with the women about Jesus, God, hope, courage, family, and health to name a few. We prayed for people that are from Angola, Austria, England, Italy, Switzerland, South Africa, the Philippines, and Brazil. Thank God people in the team spoke their language so we could reach them in their language. At the end, we spoke with every woman to let them speak what they had in mind and all of them became so receptive to us. Some laughed, some cried, and all were thankful for us being there. At the end, they sang a beautiful song to us. They were so cheerful. It was an amazing experience that will stick with us for a lifetime.

For those of us that went to a Christian orphanage, it was a delight to be with the kids and to play with them. There are over 20 kids that live there, the youngest at nine months going all the way up to 13. These kids were a delight to be around! They were so full of joy and smiles and they LOVED to play. It was so refreshing to be around kids that laughed and smiled as they crawled all over us. Even though we couldn’t understand them most of the time, we bonded with them through the Holy Spirit. I thank God for how the children lifted my heart and put a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

Later on we headed over to Rio das Pedras to do VBS for the kids. There were close to 150 kids in a very small building. This was the first time here for myself and several others and I must say it was quite overwhelming at first. It was very loud and kids were screaming the whole time. I had to say a quick prayer to God as I asked him to focus my heart so I could be available to love on the kids. It was a joy to work with the kids as we did the craft and it is well worth it when you see them smile. It was so rewarding as we closed the service and the kids came up to you and gave you hugs. We can’t wait to go back tomorrow and love on the kids!

We arrived in Brazil at 7:30am this morning after leaving Atlanta last night at 9pm. I took some Tylenol PM and was out for the night. We left the Rio airport got a shower, had lunch and we were off to a day of checking out the city.

Sugar Loaf mountain was the first stop, I couldn’t help but to ponder Psalm 8 and pastor Chan’s message last week as I sat down just taking in the beauty of God’s creation “Majestic is His name in all the earth!”

After leaving Sugar Loaf it was off to “Cristo Rendentor” Christ the Redeemer, the sun was going down, and we were on the train up to the top of the mountain, the wind was cool, it was incredible. From the vantage point of the monument you could see the whole city of Rio de Janeiro lit up in the nights sky, but the true vantage point is Christ’s from the heavens he knows every man, woman, boy, girl, and child in the city. That is why we stopped for a moment to pray to the God of this city and ask for his help as tomorrow we begin a day of service to the people here.

Then we were off to the church and exhausted from a tiring day.We were going to a reception with our hosts. Upon arriving you could hear people cheering as we entered the gates, a whole crew from the church was here to welcome us, and they did just that. We all felt like VIP’s as they were so happy to see us. The hospitality of this church is incredible, our belly’s are full, we feel loved, and overwhelmed by their generosity. What a great beginning to what I pray is going to be an amazing week as we seek to live for and proclaim the fame of our great God!

-Ryan

Airport check in

Here is the team checking in at the airport. Please Pray for us.

The Team being prayed over during the service.

Pre Trip

The Group is ready to go everything is packed and ready to fly to the mission field. Please Pray that God will be with us.


This site will be a link from the Brazil Missionary to the people that have supported and that are praying for the trip.