July 26, 2004

More From the Leonards

We have often featured Jim and Julie Leonard in this space. They are serving at the Cariri Baptist Seminary, in Crato, Ceará (northeast Brazil). Below are portions of their most recent prayer letter, with pictures!

Dear Prayer Partners

Greetings! Among the final words spoken by our Lord Jesus during His earthly ministry we find Mark 16:15, “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” We all fall so far short of God’s ideal in preaching the gospel to every creature; but we should at least be working at sharing the gospel with those in our world.

This week has been Vacation Bible School at our church in Crato. Some 150 children from the neighborhood, over 90% of them unsaved, have been presented daily with the gospel message through song, Bible story, crafts, and the loving attention from the church folk. Joy Anna and Jennifer have worked with the church VBS team. Sunday night we will be having the closing program, and have asked the children to invite their families to come. Please pray that many of these families may be saved.

Children at VBS at the Igreja Batista da Graça in Crato

Every year in July our city hosts a week long State Agricultural Fair. Thousands of visitors come from all around Northeast Brazil to this event. This year a co-worker, John Peterson, arranged for a Gospel stand to be set up at the Fair, which has been going this week. Members from our churches in the Cariri region are manning this booth, sharing the Gospel and counseling those who show a desire to be born again. The final count is not in yet, but we already have a list with over 250 names of persons who have made decisions for Jesus Christ. We are following up on these with correspondence Bible lessons, and will try to put a local church in contact with each one of these precious persons. Please pray for these who have been presented with the gospel at the fair.

Gospel stand at the Crato State Fair

This week we have also had our annual three day conference for our State of Ceará Association of Baptist Churches. Most of the 60 organized churches in this state are being pastured by former students from the Cariri Baptist Seminary. This is a special time of fellowship, testimonies, and planning. Over the past year the churches in our state have recorded an overall increase in membership of 22%. We are, however, still concerned that our churches are only preaching the gospel in ¼ of the counties in this state. Many towns and villages still have nobody to preach the gospel. Please pray for our churches to effectively preach the gospel in the entire state of Ceará and beyond.

Posted by Andrew on July 26, 2004 10:28 AM.