I hope you have had a great start to the year so far! We are thankful for your continued support, care, and interest in our family and what God has called us to do. Our family regularly prays for each of you; every mealtime, we rotate through praying for each of you.
We just finished up a great summer camp! There were a good number of campers and a great spirit the whole week! One teenage girl received Christ as her savior! We are already excited about next year. Bro. Brewer and I spent a lot of time going over shopping lists and organizing things since they will be out of the country the next time we have camp and we will be running it.
Our Portuguese has been coming along well as we continue in our studies and get a lot of practice in the day-to-day activities and life of the church. We have recently made Thursdays a time when we invite people over to have dinner and get to know more.
I want to update you on something else that is in the works and for which I am excited. Certainly, my main desire is to see more churches started. To this end, we preach, teach, evangelize, disciple, etc., each week. This is fundamental. Then as people answer the call to ministry, we train and send. This process has been in place as Bro Brewer has trained and sent out pastors. We have a great facility here to accomplish this, and which has accomplished this in the past. I want to ask for prayer for what I believe would be another step in that direction. The Lord has put in my heart a desire to reach beyond human and geographic restraints and allow this training process to take place in a more significant and extensive way. In the back of my mind, that could only be possible by taking a physical institute and making it digital and online. I have tossed this idea around in my mind a lot. Recently the Lord allowed me to have some conversations with another missionary desiring the same thing that was nothing short of being orchestrated by Him.
I did not know that he was already trying to get something like this functioning. He had been talking with others as well about teaching institute-level classes. As we talked, it became apparent that this was of the Lord. That all being said, I am now building an online learning center that models the look and flow of the standard learning platforms (udemy, teachable, etc.). I have the framework already built. I have access to hours of recorded institute material (church history, hermeneutics, etc.) that needs to be formatted and uploaded.
Three options for students will be 1. Audit (free; unstructured) 2. Certificate (free/structured) 3. Diploma (paid/supervised learning). Students can log in, enroll in courses, take quizzes, track their progress, etc. There are a number of students already going through these courses (through a different avenue since this online center isn't finished). It is my desire that this will be available in the next three to five months. I would ask for prayer for wisdom as this is being sorted.
It is hard to believe, but our container will sail in two days and arrive in early April! This will be a huge blessing as it not only has a number of our personal things but essential pieces for the ministry and property here. Please pray that the process goes smoothly as it arrives in the port here, so costs stay down. There are three different stages of payment and a lot of "red-tape" to navigate.
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