Saturday 4/18/2009 6:35 PM
Russ Ewing
All,
We made it to Florianopolis, Brazil just fine. All of our luggage got here with us. We had a fairly long lay over in Sao Paulo. We are checked into our hotel and had dinner. After traveling for about 30 hours, we are all tired, so everyone is ready to call it a night, but everyone is doing fine.
We will start our ministry tomorrow (Sunday) morning by making door-to-door visits and then in the afternoon, we will conduct a vision clinic and have an evangelistic service. Everyone please continue to pray for us. We have already felt your prayers as we made it through customs with our team bags of glasses and supplies better than we ever have.
Sunday 4/19/2009 9:21 PM
Amy Martin
We had a great Monday. This morning the team and our precious translators visited two homes where neighbors and family members had been invited to meet us. We shared the gospel with these people who are still recovering from floods and mudslides that devestated their community a few months ago. We had two decisions for Christ during those visits.
After lunch we almost lost Courtney as a missionary when she considered bull riding as a new career option. Larry, one of the Brazillion missionaries talked her out of it, but not before Courtney rode the bull for well over the 8 seconds required. (Photos and video coming soon.)
From 1:00-5:00 we held vision clinics. There were lines of people waiting for us in the hot sun when we arrived. We distributed over 200 pairs of reading glasses and 100 prescription glasses. We were visited by a local news team who interviewed patients and actually video taped a woman reading out loud from a gospel tract while wearing her new pair of glasses. What a blessing!
This evening 12 people prayed to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord at the evangelistic service.
Praise God!
Praise God!
Monday 4/20/2009 9:23 PM
Amy Martin
Oi, (Hi)
The Brazil mission team had an another amazing day. This morning we divided into two teams and went to two middle schools where we presented "True Love Waits" to about 150 students. Neither one of the communities where these schools are located have a church. We pray that many seeds have been planted for future harvesting.
One of the (public) schools prepared lunch for us and then allowed us to hold a vision clinic in their school. Details regarding the number of glasses given will be available tomorrow. We presented the school principal and her staff with Bibles.
We want to praise the Lord for the vision clinic equipment all working perfectly today!
Tomorrow we will be moving hotels and cities. Please pray for safe travel and easy transition.
Love and prayers,
Tuesday 4/21/2009 7:21 PM
Amy Martin
Dear Friends,
The team made the move to Florianopolis with no problems.
We spent the day seeing the sights of the area and refreshing for a big day of ministry tomorrow.
We will conduct a vision clinic at Frei Damiao from 9:00-12:00 or 1:00 and from 2:00-5:30. Children's activities at 5:30 and evening worship service at 8:00.
Please pray that the Lord will provide the glasses we need for each person.
The number if glasses distributed at Monday's vision clinic was again around 300.
Thank you for your prayers.
Love,
Wednesday 4/22/2009 7:21 PM
Amy Martin
Dear friends,
We distributed 113 prescription glasses, 98 reading glasses, & we saw over 300 patients today. We've seen a total of about 800 people in the three days we have held eye clinics.
We held children's programs this evening where children heard the story of Zaccheus for the first time! They were thrilled and enthused at the story as it was reenacted by our "drama" team. We finished our evening with a presentation by the Cadi ministry and a worship service.
Please pray for God to meet the eye glsss needs of every patient tomorrow. Our supply is very short, especially children's glasses.
Love and prayers,
Friday 4/24/2009 5:45 AM
Amy Martin
Good Friday morning,
We are getting ready to head back to St. Louis after a wonderful week in Brazil.
Thursday we wrapped up our vision clinics by distributing about 200 tracts, dispensing 120 or more pairs of glasses and joyfully gave a whole family new glasses (see second email for photo). We shared "True Love Waits" with the middle school in the village and presented the principle with a plan of salvation colors soccer ball. Finally, last night, we were blessed by having a worship service in
the church's new building. What a week!
Please pray for safe travel home today and that all the seeds that have been planted will take root and grow.
Love and prayers,
Friday 4/24/2009 1:05 PM
Russ Ewing
All,
The plane the team is on going back to Sao Paulo just left Florianopolis. The team will then fly to Atlanta on their way back to St. Louis. (Some of you probably know that Bruce and I are staying in Brazil for a few more days to do an exploratory trip for possible future mission trips to a different area of Brazil.) Everyone on the team is doing fine, but everyone is tired. We had a wonderful week in Brazil. We had a really good team -- everyone on the team made significant contributions to the overall team effort. Thanks for letting your family member, friend, relative or associate come on this trip with us.
