It was January 2
Sunday morning, a visitor, one of the many tourists who come to Madeira every year and visit us during their holidays, told me she checked the website/blog on a regular basis, and she had noticed I hadn't blogged in a while: "Your last blog was January 2," she said. I wouldn't have been able to say when my last blog was, but she was right.
[Note regarding visitors to the blog: I did a search on Google to see how we're doing. madeira baptist (no quotation marks) gets us in the top 10 hits, the first page of search results. baptist church madeira (no quotation marks) puts us in #3 spot. Include the word funchal with baptist church, in any order, and we're in the top spots, of course.]
Moiséis and family
One piece of good news in the last month was Pastor Moiséis getting his residence authorization. At a time when the immigration services are cracking down on illegal immigrants, and we've heard about several people who came from Brazil to do mission work having great difficulty getting authorization to stay in Portugal, this is evidence to us of God's leading.
The Work Grows
The increasing number of opportunities to minister was one of the reasons we prayed for God to send someone to help us. We could not follow up on all the leads. The Monday night meeting we have had for the past year on the other side of the city continues to grow. This week there were 37 at the meeting, and most of them do not come to the church services on Sunday.
Pastor Moiséis has also started a Thursday night meeting for couples in the same location, and the attendance is about the same as on Monday night. Meanwhile, Abbie and I are going out to Roy and Dawn's house about 30 min. west of Funchal to hold English-language Bible studies on Thursday afternoons. In recent years there has been a great migration of English-speaking families, most but not all of whom British, who have moved into that area. Most of these people do not speak Portuguese, so the gospel must be taken to them in English. There is a nucleus of three or four families from our church in that area, who are burdened to reach their neighbors. We look forward to greater things ahead.
[Note regarding visitors to the blog: I did a search on Google to see how we're doing. madeira baptist (no quotation marks) gets us in the top 10 hits, the first page of search results. baptist church madeira (no quotation marks) puts us in #3 spot. Include the word funchal with baptist church, in any order, and we're in the top spots, of course.]
Moiséis and family
One piece of good news in the last month was Pastor Moiséis getting his residence authorization. At a time when the immigration services are cracking down on illegal immigrants, and we've heard about several people who came from Brazil to do mission work having great difficulty getting authorization to stay in Portugal, this is evidence to us of God's leading.
The Work Grows
The increasing number of opportunities to minister was one of the reasons we prayed for God to send someone to help us. We could not follow up on all the leads. The Monday night meeting we have had for the past year on the other side of the city continues to grow. This week there were 37 at the meeting, and most of them do not come to the church services on Sunday.
Pastor Moiséis has also started a Thursday night meeting for couples in the same location, and the attendance is about the same as on Monday night. Meanwhile, Abbie and I are going out to Roy and Dawn's house about 30 min. west of Funchal to hold English-language Bible studies on Thursday afternoons. In recent years there has been a great migration of English-speaking families, most but not all of whom British, who have moved into that area. Most of these people do not speak Portuguese, so the gospel must be taken to them in English. There is a nucleus of three or four families from our church in that area, who are burdened to reach their neighbors. We look forward to greater things ahead.
posted by EP | 6:06 PM | Permalink
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