Monday - July 13th - Saying goodbye and coming home!

Well, all good things come to an end and here we are on Monday morning all packed, breakfasted and ready to get in the van for our trip to Sao Paulo!

Before I take you into the van let me tell you what has already happened this morning. Before we were even up for breakfast, the park kids were waiting for us to say good bye; at least the older ones. Our team walked down to the park to see the younger kids and say their goodbye's and all the kids followed them back. Daniela wrote the team a letter about how much we all mean to her and how because of the love of our teams, she is going to heaven and rooted in the church. I forgot to mention that Amanda Rowe had recorded a video message for the park kids and we had been showing it to the kids all week; we also made a DVD of it to leave with Flavia for anyone who wanted to see it again. Andrea Watkins also sent an email message that Gabriel translated to the kids.....before the bus had even arrived, there were already many tears!

Pastor's Milton and David came over this morning to see us off (VCF Piratininga and Bauru), along with our Brazilian team of Flavia, Gabriel, Lucas, Nathan and our dear park kids: Daniela, Willian, Daniel, Priscilla, Mariana, Marianele, Raphael, little Gabriel, Tahlita, Rita, Lua and a host of others whose names escape me.

The hotel staff asked to take pictures of our team and then our team with all the kids to put on their website. We got a chance earlier in the week to pray for one of the staff who had the flu and the Holy Spirit gently fell on her; we really love the staff and are so thankful for all of their help!

Milton and David prayed for us before we left, then we prayed for these two wonderful men who have become our family. We hugged and cried, hugged some more; picked up a lot of little kids, kissed a lot of foreheads, cheeks and eventually all got in the van.......it was very hard to say goodbye.

It is so wonderful to see the batton get passed from VCF team to VCF team to care for, pray for and love on the park kids of Piratininga. I'm so very proud of the work that God has done thru, to and with our teams to the kids of Piratininga.

We traveled for about 5 hours by van to Sao Paulo where we met up with Filipe, Victor and Kelly one last time for goodbye's. Lucas came along with us so we had another goodbye at the airport curb as well. Junior, the pastor of the Sao Paulo Vineyard also caught us just before we went thru security!

As I write this post, the team is all boarded and seated in the plane waiting to take off for LAX. We are looking forward to being home after a mere 13 1/2 hour flight, customs and a van ride to VCF :-)

We're all leaving a piece of our heart in Brazil and are so grateful for all God's blessings during this trip.

Thanks for being along with us,
VCF Brazil Team 2009

Sunday - July 12 - our last ministry day in Brazil

Wow, Sunday our last ministry day in Brazil has come way too fast!

On Sunday we had to be up and going early again, and arrived at VCF Piratininga a little before 9am. Pastor Nilton's health has gone from really bad to worse and Milton (his son-in-law) was with the family and not able to attend the conference on Sunday morning (see earlier post about Nilton who is the retired pastor of VCF Bauru). Beau's "Action of the Kingdom" seminar was now the only one running! Beau spoke about the church, specifically Vineyard and how we are a hospital, a school, an army and a family. Many times we get saved and need to enter the hospital to be healed and the school to be trained for service and then the army to win souls, heal the sick and do battle with the kingdom of darkness, but we are always family! We then had a clinic time, invited the Holy Spirit and released people to share words of knowledge. Folks other than our team had the words, at least one was the first time that person has shared a word! We had five people respond, this was a great faith builder for folks! We circled our chairs into a sanctuary sized circle and had the respondents sit in the middle. God was very sweet as we used this as a training time and invited the Holy Spirit to fall and show us who to pray for first out of the five.....sure enough one gentleman began to shake and cry and we began to pray for him as we walked the room thru the prayer model. We were also able to share that our priority is always the person and their heart, not the manifestations. This started a very sweet prayer time where we released the folks present to pray for the other respond ands and any others as God revealed. One of our Brazilian brothers who has been on our team for two years now, said that he felt God gave him a word for the first gentleman that God was going to empower him to write a book and other theological material for the church......the man began to wail when Gabriel gave him this word......later we found out that he had just asked the Lord that morning for someone he didn't know to give him a word about finishing the book he'd been working on if it was in God's heart for him to finish! We also prayed for one of the teachers and volunteers at Bebeto's church. It was wonderful to watch God fill up a woman so committed to puring herself out for the Kingdom of God!

In the afternoon, the younger folks on our team went over to the park and loved on the kids one last time before our trip came to an end. They played soccer and generally got dirty and sweaty......there seems to be a correlation between getting dirty and sweaty and showing the kids the love of God :-)

Beau was the closing speaker of the conference and the church Sunday evening was quite full. There was a dramtic dance after worship depicting Jesus saving us from sin, sickness and disease.....Daniela, one of the park kids, was on this team and did a great job!

Beau spoke about the Kingdom of God and being filled with all that God has for us; that in Christ we all have gifting, but that we need to use that gifting for the benefit of others; sometimes in the church and sometimes out of the church. Beau shared that the church is like In-and-Out Burger; we need to come In to be filled and we need to go out to share what we're received! We all have something to share and we all need to be filled so we have something to give away. After the message, Beau called everyone forward who felt touched and wanted to go "Out" to share the Kingdom. The team came up along with many Brazilians and prayed up front for all comers; it was a wonderful way to end a wonderful week!

We went out for Pizza after church and had a group from the Bauru Vineyard that went with us. It is wonderful to be family with our Brazilian brothers and sisters in Christ! Some of our numbers stayed after dinner (already midnight) to order dessert chocolate pizza....the old folks couldn't do it :-)

It was then time to get back to the hotel, start packing and try and get some sleep!

Pray for Pastor Nilton that God would raise him up and completely heal him; he is now on dialysis as his kidneys are shutting down due to the antibiotics needed to treat an infection he contracted in ICU.

We miss and love you all,
VCF Brazil Team 2009

Saturday - July 11 - 2nd day of Conference

We had an early morning on Saturday; the conference started at 9am on both Saturday and Sunday for worship and then seminars after that. Our Hotel is at one end of town and VCF Piratininga is on the opposite end of town; its about a 3/4 mile walk to the church from the Hotel.......normally getting a bit more exercise would help melt the pounds away, but not this trip, we ate our way from one side of town to the other :-)

Our dear friend Paulo Vieira arrived from Brazilia on Saturday morning; he had a 13 hour bus ride to join us and had to leave on Sunday evening at 6pm to get back to Brazilia in time for work on Monday morning......it was wonderful to see him again, even if it was a short visit!

The plan had been to have three separate seminars or tracks at the conference; the same ones on both Saturday and Sunday mornings so people could choose one on Saturday and another on Sunday. One was led by Milton (on passion), one was led by Bebeto (on compassion) and the last led by Beau (on action). We ended up switching things around a bit and had Milton and Bebeto's seminars on Saturday morning and only Beau's seminar on Sunday. The conference attendance was not as large as hoped, so it made more sense to have two bigger sessions than three smaller ones.

Our whole Anaheim team attended Bebeto's seminar on compassion and fighting social injustice. Bebeto's church is located in the south of Brazil in a very poor, crime ridden city called Itaparasu on the outskirts of the wealthy city of Coritiba. The Vineyard has a day care / school for the kids, food program and job training for adults. As a part of church growth and caring for the poor, a lot of local government corruption was exposed. This has made Bebeto and the church a target over the years; Bebeto has had death threats and been arrested twice: the church buildings were taken away in the mid 90's, when officials stated that they had been sold to the Vineyard 'illegally', and when Bebeto and others peacefully refused to leave, they were arrested. The community rose up (non churched folks!) and demanded justice and when none was served up, local businessmen found a temporary home for the Vineyard in an abandoned cement factory. Later, choice land was donated to the Vineyard and they were able to build a better school/church in an even nicer section of town. Local businesses moved to be closer to the school/church, as it has become the town center with all of its programs for the community.

Bebeto's seminar was very challenging and focused on outreach to the poor and outcast.

It rained very heavily most of the day on Saturday, so the outreaches that were planned for the afternoon had to be cancelled. We did go out to lunch at the only restaurant in Piratininga that serves Feduada - a Brazilian favorite made with beef and pork in a black bean stew. The braver folks on our team ate feduada and the not-so-brave ate chicken (frango).

When we got back to church for the Saturday evening service, Daniela from the park was there; she is the precious 14 year old that I wrote about in a previous post. We hadn't seen much of her yet; it turned out that she had been at kings-kids camp in Bauru most of the week and was back! She and her older sister Priscilla were both there and on a dance team! Daniela, Priscilla and ~10 others performed a hip hop worship dance for us. Right after that, Flavina and two others performed a lyrical worship dance; it was wonderful to see the living work of our King dancing for us......Flavina, because her heart was healed and able to dance; Daniela, because she is now rooted in church-life and could have been a discarded 'park kid'.

Before the main message, diploma's were handed out for everyone in the church that had attended and completed the 'Maos a Obras' (Doing the Stuff) class at VCF Piratininga. Daniela was the youngest member that completed the course and was beaming on stage when she received her certificate........she read every word of it before she looked up and saw the team and church looking at her thru teary eyes.....I can't tell you how proud I am of Daniela!

Bebeto spoke on Saturday night on Compassion with an even more pointed message on the necessity for Christians to serve the community they are rooted in.

On the walk back to the hotel, we stopped by a Churro cart and the owner insisted on giving us several free churro's, one chicken churro and two dessert churro's filled with cream cheese and topped with chocolate, banana, caramel and sprinkles.......we of course had to add some meat and cheese pastels (pastie's) so we didn't have to feel guilty about eating dessert :-). The churro cart owner serves something like 39 different flavors of churros and he was proud for us to share in his accomplishments!

Lauren and Joelle spent the night with Flavina at her new house in town; it was only a few blocks from our hotel and Flavina was so happy to host some of the team!

It just doesn't seem possible that we are down to one last day of ministry in Brazil; we have made so many new friends and family on this trip, it's going to be hard to leave!

Bless you all for your prayers,
VCF Brazil Team 2009

Pictures!

Hey, last night the internet stayed up long enough to add some pictures to our Blog...scroll down thru previous posts and you can see them!

Bye for now!

Friday July 10 - Start of VCF Piratininga Conference

On Friday July 10th our plans were to go to the local hot springs (Aguas Quench) right after breakfast and then attend the start of the conference in Piratininga in the evening. Every day here in Piratininga and Bauru so far had been sunny and warm, but Friday was rainy and cold.......most of the team still decided to go over to the hot springs anyway! The hot springs were discovered many years ago while drilling for oil; what they found was a natural geo-thermal mineral hot springs, with no sulfur! Over the years it has been developed into a resort that people come from all over to visit.

At 8pm the conference at VCF Piratininga started. The conference in Portuguese is called:

"Paixon Compaixao Acao
Conferencia Maos a Obra 2009"

The English translation is:

"Passion Compassion Action
Doing the stuff Conference 2009"

There are three main conference speakers, each taking a different part of the conference message:

- Milton Lucas: Passion (Friday night)
- Bebeto: Compassion (Saturday night)
- Beau Watkins: Action (Sunday night)

There are also workshops planned for Saturday and Sunday mornings and out-reaches in the afternoons.

Just as background, Bebeto is a Vineyard pastor from one of the poorest cities in all of Brazil; his church and ministry is focused toward social justice and the poor. Bebeto was a successful engineer that gave up his career to pursue God and making a real impact on the world. Their church is impacting the community in a very large way and has been in the national news several times; the church has significantly raised the standard of living and provides job training and employment for many.

The Pastor of VCF Piratininga, Milton Lucas, spoke on Friday night on Passion after a sweet time of worship. His message was walking thru 5 pillars of Vineyard Brazil Values. During Milton's talk, he showed a video of the Piratininga church working in the community, cleaning up the park and serving the people of Piratininga. One of the people in the video (with a huge smile) working with the Vineyard was Daniela, a precious 14 year old from the park that our teams have been praying for and loving on for over 4 years....Daniela's little brother Daniel was baptised this year and her older sister is now coming to church too; it makes me cry to think about!

Please pray with us that the conference accomplishes all of God's purposes!

Thanks for your prayers,
VCF Brazil Team 2009

Thursday - our day off and BBQ!

Thursday was a team day off in Brazil; it was also a holiday in the state of Sao Paulo, so everyone was off!

We didn't have a team meeting in the morning so anyone who wanted to could sleep in.

Beau, Jean, Katie and Greg had lunch with Altamere, a dear friend and talented Bass player from YWAM and VCF Piratininga. He has moved to Minneapolis, MN with a new music outreach and just got back into Piratininga Wednesday for a short visit and we bumped into him as he got off the bus! Altamere is getting married in October in the U.S. and Wes Watkins will be in the wedding! Anyway's, we had a nice visit with Altamere and then he took us to see the leaders of the Praise Village YWAM base here in Piratininga: Beto and his wife Raquel. They are moving to Italy on Sunday to refresh YWAM in Italy. We love Beto and Raquel; please pray for their move that God will open many doors, refresh them (and Nicki, their 9yr old daughter) and bless their transition. Beto also asked us to pray about the possibility of bringing VCF Anaheim teams to Italy when they get settled!

The team was invited over to Silvio and Ana-Silvia Chavez's house for Chorasca (BBQ). They are a very wonderful family in the Bauru church with two kids; Paulo (18) and Dyanne (13). We arrived at the Chavez's house ~3:30pm and the food was ready for us! They served us BBQ tri-tip, chicken and sausage along with rice, beans, rolls, vinagretch, polenta and three different kinds of desserts......it was incredible! The whole team has eaten so well, we may be bringing back a few extra pounds :-)

Many of the leaders from the Bauru Vineyard as well as Silvio's Dad and Ana-Silvia's mother, Pastor David and his parents all came. It was very significant that Ana-Silvia's mom was able to come; she had been so sick over the weekend that Paulo took Beau, Jean and Kim over to pray for her on the way to church on Sunday and here she was, looking pretty darn good! After a huge lunner (late lunch, early dinner :-) ), the young people went inside and played nintendo, piano, guitar and sang songs, while the old folks (Greg, Katie, Beau and Jean) stayed outside on the patio and talked with David and other guests.

Silvios's Dad asked for prayer as he was recovering from hip replacement surgery; he attends a local Baptist church. We prayed for him and it was very apparent that God was touching him both phyically and emotionally. Pastor David was our interpreter again and then we went on to pray for Vanessa, a woman who had had some health issues in the past and had signs of a reoccurance; God not only wanted to heal her, but also was promoting her to more leadership. We then prayed for our host couple Silvio and his wife Ana-Silvia; God was freeing them both from life-long emotional issues.....Ana-Silvia let us know that Katie had prayed for her on Sunday and something had been broken over her; that she was now able to think of people who had devistated her in the past with pity and love where before there was only great pain. We prayed for Pastor David's father too, for physical and emotional issues. It was a wonderful time of team prayer where the four of us had many words and pictures that integrated together into a whole tapestry of blessing. We used this as a living classroom and tried to illustrate how impressions, pictures and thoughts come from God to bless his people.

All the time we were praying outside, the young people continued to build more relationship with their Brazilian brothers and sisters inside!

Pastor David shared with us a wonderful Kingdom story.......
On Wednesday after we prayed for David Tuesday evening to receive all that Vineyard has to bless with; he was in a service and called anyone forward who needed physical healing. A woman came forward and said she was feeling very dizzy; David went to get some annoiting oil and when he annointed her she fell to the ground and started foaming at the mouth and manifesting a demonic presence. David told us that he felt such authority and unction, that he just spoke to the spirit and commanded it to leave and the woman stopped shaking, stopped foaming and was back in her right mind saying she felt fine. David said that he didn't know this was included in the Vineyard blessing, but he'll take it!

This is how the Kingdom of God grows, by taking back territory from the enemy, and empowering the church to be Kingdom agents!

Love you all,
VCF Anaheim Brazil Team 2009

Wednesday - our first ministry day in Piratininga!

I forgot to mention something fun from our Tuesday night dinner after the youth bible study: we had hot dogs, but Brazilian-style. The rolls were large sliced french rolls (we eat these with breakfast every day) that hold 2 hot dogs and then in addition to mustard and ketchup for condiments, they had marinara sauce, cooked corn, cooked peas and shoe-string crunchy potatoes.......how's that for a hot dog :-)

Wednesday during breakfast Flavia (Flavina) came by the hotel at breakfast; Flavina is a special gal from the Piratininga Vineyard who VCF Anaheim teams prayed for 3 years ago when she was ~15yrs old. She had a serious heart condition that prevented her from any strenuous physical activity. After the team prayed for her, she was totally healed and even went for a run the very next day; she has been working with the kids of the church ever since......she is even dancing during the conference on Saturday :-). Flavina's family just recently moved from Bauru to Piratininga and she invited all the young people on our team to dinner, movies and fun at her house Wednesday evening.

After breakfast we had a team meeting and had a great time of worship and adoration.......that's the word for worship in Portuguese "Adoracion", I really love it! We prayed for each other and especially for the Brazilians on our team, Filipe and Victor (from Rio) and Gabriel (from Bauru); we continue to pray that we leave a blessing for our Brazilian brothers and sisters!

The younger members of our team spent more time with the park kids on Wednesday afternoon, playing soccer, face painting and coloring with chalk all over the park. The old-folks (Beau, Jean, Katie, Greg) walked by and took some pictures.

Katie, Greg, Beau, Jean and Kim went to the Vineyard cafe at 8pm; the rest of the team went over to Flavia's house for dinner and a fun night (they rented a Brazilian action movie).

At the Vineyard Cafe, we had a sweet time of worship, with the little daughter of one of the worship leaders being on stage. It was so sweet, she had her own stool, with her own mike stand and spent the worship set putting her stuffed animal (chicken) on the stool and adjusting her mike stand.
We divided into Men and Woman's groups for the evening; Beau taught the men on 'the heart of a man' and Jean taught the women on 'the heart of a woman'. It was an intimate mid-week gathering with ~10 women and ~8 men. Kim, Katie and Jean prayed for the women after Jean's talk; one of the Mom's brought her 4 week old, so they got to hold a new little one; I think that's one of our purposes in Brazil, to call forth new life and nurture it!

Beau and Greg had a great time with the men as well; it seems that this is a bit of a dry time for the men and many did not have friendships or relationships to be a mentor or mentee. We encouraged the men to be intentional and if you need a friend, be a friend. We also prayed with the men and encouraged them that Jesus is for themn but to be strong we all need each other!

The younger folks had a great time at Flavia's as well......we mostly found that out as they didn't get back to our hotel until late :-)

Pray for us for continued stamina, health and courage!

We love you all,
VCF Brazil Team 2009