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

Tuesday - our last night in Bauru!

Monday night was the first night that we weren't out late with ministry since we got going, so we had a chance to get a bit more rest.......it was very nice; it's easy to forget how emotionally and physically exhausting it is to do back-to-back ministry while in a foreign country that most of us don't speak the language!

On Tuesday morning we had another team meeting and Andrew led worship; he did a great job. Our meetings are a time that the team gets refreshed in worship and ministry to each other; it's a really important time since so much of the rest of our time is all outward focused. We also had a chance to swap more stories about the previous few days and who got to pray for what and who we've met and any new relationships we've made; it's been so wonderful, but also so hectic, that most of us only know who 'we' prayed for and don't get the whole 'team' picture. After worship a couple of the park kids found our new hotel (Daniel and his younger friend Gabriel) and were peeking in to see what we were up to. Our team (Andrew and Joelle) pulled them in and they joined our team meeting at the end!

I did want to give a praise report that Joelle's throat is feeling much better; it had been pretty sore since the start of our trip; this didn't slow her down though!

Tuesday afternoon we were scheduled to go to a convelescent hospital in Bauru, but something came up and they needed to cancel at the last minute. Instead, our gracious Bauru hosts picked us up at ~4pm (in four cars) and took us shopping in downtown Bauru in an open air market and then off to a couple of other stores and then finally to an Acai restaurant for a snack before going to the young-adult bible study (after which we'd get fed). Acai is a Brazilian berry that is used as the basis for lots of things including Soda, anti-oxidants, Mona vie and in Brazil as a rich purple Sorbet that people eat like frozen yogurt or ice cream. It is so rich that it's usually served with fruit and/or granola mixed in, just to thin it out.........it was so good.

The highlight of the day was the youth bible study we attended at Pastor David's parent's house. We arrived a little before 8pm (it's starting time) and there were already many people gathered.......this is a big deal in Brazil where meetings regularly start 15-30 minutes late. By the time we started, the house was packed with young-adults, youth leaders and some parents! The study doesn't normally start out with worship, but after our request (Beau's) and assertion that worship needs to be a part of every meeting, that it sets the tone and opens us up to Jesus, David drove to his house to get a guitar for our dear friend Gabriel to lead us in worship. Gabriel opened our meeting in worship and melted the group's heart! After worship we had several words, most related to hearts. Beau had a word about the Bauru church and specifically the gathered group being ready to give birth to a new season of the church. Beau taught about Vineyard DNA and about roles and responsibilities of the church, that the church is all of us, not just the pastor. During ministry time the team fanned out and we prayed for many of the young people and leaders that God was touching. There were several that were being empowered and emboldened for more service to the King.

One of the most memorable events (for me) of the trip came next; we had Pastor David sit in the middle of the room and have the youth and leaders pray over him and bless him. Several of the youth and leaders prayed passionately for their Pastor, especially one that had just gotten a word from our team and been released from holding back. There were two separate people that had impressions about David being caught up in the fire of God and it spreading out to the church. The Anaheim VCF team prayed next and blessed him with everything we have been given as a people.......it is hard to describe, but our hearts were really joined to David and the Bauru church in a special way.......later after the prayer was over with, David said that during prayer he felt caught up in a whirlwind and was nearly overwhelmed by the presence of God!

After the meeting, a group of us prayed for a single Mom who had suffered with severe depression and suicidal thoughts for nearly 15 years. We prayed for her for quite a while and had a lot of words for her; she had a great deal of abuse from her past; we had some break thru moments, but please pray for Techa for complete deliverance and a new identity in Christ.

After the meeting, we said our goodbye's; this usually takes 20-30 minutes each time, but since this was our last night in Bauru it was much longer :-). We got into 4 cars and headed back to Piratininga. The car Paulo Chavez was driving (Paulo is the son of Silvio and Ana-Silvia and is 18) was late and several folks stayed up waiting for them. Paulo was driving Aaron Hatcher, Andrew, Lauren and Filipe. Paulo decided to take 'the back way'........there was construction on this route and Paulo bypassed some roadblocks attempting to clear the road. As Paulo drove towards the construction, they saw train tracks under with big ditches on either side where the pavement had been removed. Paulo sped up to try and get over the tracks, but only managed to get only the front tires over and then couldn't go forward or backward to get off the tracks! After many unsuccessful attempts, the kids saw two motorcycles coming toward them and Filipe freaked out......he comes from Rio, where road traps with motorcycle bandits are very common. Fortunately, these motorcyclists were good samaritans and with their help the rest of the occupants were able to lift the car off of the tracks! It was none too soon either; while they were lifting and backing the car off the tracks, a train whistle blew and they saw in the distance a train coming......all the kids arrived back safely, but needless to say we appreciate your continued prayers for safety!

We love you all,
VCF Brazil Team 2009

Monday at POC in Bauru

We spent the day on Monday with the POC youth outreach in Bauru; POC is under the spiritual umbrella of the Bauru Vineyard, but is also sponsored monitarily by the Bauru government as before and after school activities for the youth in an under-privileged section of Bauru. The kids of this community go to school in either the morning or evening and rather than be on the street when not in school, POC has two daily sessions, one in the morning for kids that go to school in the afternoon and one in the afternoon for kids that go to school in the morning. POC feeds the kids and evangelizes them by involving them in plays, teaching hip-hop dance (REALLY BIG in BRAZIL), music lessons, games and Bible stories. POC has such a good reputation that the mayor of Bauru is planning a visit this week!

Our team along with Kelly, Filipe, and Victor (see previous post) went over to POC from 10am - 4pm, so we could meet with both morning and afternoon sessions. There are many dedicated workers at POC that serve the kids of the community with their lives. It was wonderful to see them again.

We started with the morning group and Kim presenting the "wordless book" to the kids and Pastor David translated for her. This is the book with only colors that tells the story of salvation, it starts out with Black to symbolize sin and separation from God; then Red to symbolize Jesus's death to reconcile us to God; then White to symbolize the blood of Jesus washing us white as snow; then Green to symbolize growth in Jesus and finally Gold to symbolize living with God in heaven forever! Kim did a great job with the story and held the kids attention throughout. Kim, Katie and the rest of the team passed out materials to make a "wordless" bracelet with a leather strap and colored beads. It was very sweet to see the kids all wearing bracelets representing the salvation story!

The morning 'younger kids' then performed a play for us that was loosely based on the story of the "good Samaritan" meets eco-friendly community clean-up. The kids were very proud to present the play for us; it was fun! After that, the older kids performed a hip-hop dance routine for us that was really good. Aaron Hatcher did a hip-hop step with one of the boys that looked a bit like Michael Jackson meets the funky chicken and Andrew did a Michael Jackson spin with a high kick at the end.....both boys got applause and claps! The morning crew then went off to lunch and during their lunch Kim and the team presented a skit about God's love with ping-pong balls.........Kim was giving ping-pong balls to Katie until she couldn't hold anymore and talked about this is how God's love works; He keeps giving us his love so we can give it away, but we have to give it away to be able to hold anymore. Then Katie passed out the ping pong balls to the other team members who passed them out to the kids, while Kim kept giving away more ping pong balls to Katie and the team (we had a big box of ping pong balls); it was a real hit, especially because the kids got to keep the balls!

POC fed our whole team and then it was on to do everything again with the afternoon crew of kids. We added a skit with the afternoon group from the book "You are Special". Kim was the narrator, Beau was the God figure called Eli, Aaron Scherer was the downcast character called Ponchinello, Aaron Hatcher was the Rock-Star, Andrew was the talented dancer, Lauren was the pretty character, Katie was the character with long pretty hair and Joelle was the character that knew Eli and only his opinion mattered to her. It was a fun play that illustrates God's love for us; the whole cast was great!Before we left POC we prayed for the staff and got several words over them about God's pleasure in their work and beauty in their dance before Jesus. We had a powerful time of prayer that Pastor David later told us impacted the POC team quite a bit.

We came back to Piratininga and our younger folks went back to the park to play with and love on the park kids......we were all very tired from a whirlwind set of days with back-to-back ministry, but the youth of our team has been so faithful to find every available time to go the park and love on the kids there. That night we gathered together for another team worship and ministry time. Aaron Hatcher led worship and did another wonderful job. We prayed for each other and many of our team kids have been getting really touched by God in our worship and ministry times.

Tuesday will be our last day ministering in Bauru and we will all miss our family at POC and the Bauru Vineyard; it has been a life-changing time for many of us and many of them.

One last thing for today; whenever we come to Brazil I'm reminded of the scripture "Greet one another with a holy kiss"; it's their culture to greet one another with a kiss on the cheek and a hug; it is very special.

We love you all,
VCF Brazil Team 2009

Sunday July 5th....a big day!

Ok, when last we left our team it was Sunday morning at the Bauru Vineyard for their Sunday school service and the entire team was pretty tired. We didn't get to bed until ~1am from our day on Saturday and had to be up, breakfasted and ready to roll at 8am.......needless to say there were more than a few yawns. I forgot to mention that Renato, Mom, Dad and sister came up Saturday morning (see earlier post about Renato who lived with Beau and Jean last year for several months) and followed along with us all day Saturday and we said goodbye on Sunday morning - the whole family seemed to have been touched with the visit!

Anyways, the morning service opened with Edwardo leading worship with his still bandaged hand (see the picture; he's right behind Pastor David), but was pain-free and had full flexibility; Eduardo was the gentleman who had been healed of a burned hand the night before at the youth service!

Beau and Greg spoke about the Kingdom of God and what Jesus declared in Luke 4:16-21; that the kingdom is more that just preaching the good news, its also taking care of the poor, healing the sick, releasing the oppressed and declaring the year of the favor of the Lord. This was to give the foundation for why we do what we do in the Vineyard! After that Beau taught through the prayer model and then we had a clinic. We had a few words about a right leg and back pain and then Beau had a word that put it together with this person having one leg shorter than another. We had an older woman respond to the word and brought her up front to demonstrate the ministry prayer model. Sure enough, the woman who responded had a right leg that was shorter than the left and a curved spine that gave her a great deal of pain. Beau and Greg sat her in a chair, interviewed her, and started praying for her; Beau held her feet together straight out from the chair and verified that her right leg was shorter while Greg prayed for her back......after a little while we asked her if anything was going on in her body and she responded "no, other than pain in my back" (not so encouraging :-) ), but we we kept praying and later she said that there was a lot of heat and tingling in her back and right arm; at that moment Jean jumped up and told Beau to command the leg to lengthen, as she came up to the front and they commanded the leg to grow, the right leg literally popped out right in front of us! Beau, Jean, Greg and our interpreter Lucas, all saw her leg grow right before our eyes; it was awesome! We continued to pray for her back a while longer and she testified that her back was hot, tingley and pain free! Several other folks responded to back problems, leg problems, a pancreas problem and some emotional issues. We had local folks and our team members gather around the respondents and had the locals lay their hands on them and practice what we preached; it was a wonderful time and many were touched and many started praying for others!

After church, we went out to lunch with the Bauru church who took us to a really good Brazilian BBQ (Charascharia) in town and had mass-quantities of chicken, pork, lamb, beef, salad, fried bananas and roasted white pineapple with cinnamon sugar; it was enough food to last a week (but it didn't :-) ). We had a wonderful time sharing with our Brazilian hosts and especially the Pastor of the Bauru church, David; we admire and fall more in love with him as time goes by!

After lunch most of the team went back to Piratininga and played with and loved on the park kids. Even though none of our group speaks fluent Portuguese, communication hasn't been a problem with the kids; Andrew and Joelle have been doing great with their Portuguuese and filling in with spansih and creative signing. Joelle, Aaron, Aaron, Lauren, Kim and Andrew have been doing great with the kids of Piratininga; they have risen to the occasion and are taking ministry with the kids very seriously. After lunch, Marrissa took Beau and Greg to ICU to pray for her Father, retired Bauru Pastor Nilton. He is not doing very well at all; Nilton retired from VCF Bauru about 6 months ago due to failing health. He is now in a medically induced coma on a breathing machine and has multiple complications, many tied to his long-term diabetes. Nilton is only 59 years old, so please pray with us and the Bauru church that he is raised up from his hospital bed.

We also had friends from the RIO Vineyard come up for a visit (Filipe and his cousin Victor) and also a new friend, Kelly, from the Laguna Nigel Vineyard. Filipe's sister Leticia was going to come, but couldn't at the last minute, but it has been wonderful to see old friends and new friends.

Beau preached on Sunday night to a Bauru church that was fuller than any of us had ever seen. Although he had many notes and outlines as to what he was going to teach on, Beau felt led to set them aside and preach from his heart on the Kingdom of God, illustrated with the feeding of the 5000 and how our hands are always empty, but Jesus fills them with more than enough. This was a training message to empower the body and move from 'professional minstry' to 'everybody gets to do the stuff' ministry. The Bauru church is so receptive and hungry for more of God that it was contageous! We prayed for anyone who was stirred during the message to join the army and for any physical or emotional needs. The Holy spirit showed up in power! We prayed for a construction worker named Domingo that was complaining of a hurt shoulder; God healed his shoulder, he fell to the ground crying and then the folks that brought him let us know that he wasn't yet a believer; it was easy after that, and he accepted Jesus as his savior! Kim prayed for man with severe back-pain where she could feel a big muscle-knot in his lower back and after praying and commanding the back to be made whole, she felt the knot just evaporate! We also saw many more Brazilians praying for their own members; some for the first time and at least one young man got his first word in praying for someone, nailed it and spoke truth and comfort to a man in a lot of emotional pain.....this is really our aim; to see the church released to spread the Kingdom of God! There was so much going on that I was reminded of John the gospel writer's words...paraphrased of course: "Jesus and the team did many other things that if recorded would keep me from sleeping the rest of the trip :-)".

After church, the Bauru Vineyard took us to another terrific resturant....an all you can eat Pizzaria. This was of course exactly what the doctor ordered after our very meager lunch :-) One thing is for certain is that we are all being extremely well fed here in Brazil! Just as background, an all you can eat pizzaria in Brazil is very different than anything we have in the US; they have MANY unusual kinds of cheese's and toppings including dessert pizza's with banana, chocolate and pineapple, as well as brocholi, chicken and lettuce pizza's. Andrew and Aaron hatcher led the way with something like 30 slices eaten between them, but the girls were no slouches either :-)

We have already had a miraculous trip and have much more to go. Joelle's throat is still sore, we have been very busy and are tired but excited about all that God is doing. Pray for refreshment and that ALL of God's purposes in us and through us would be accomplished!

We love you all,
VCF Brazil Team 2009

Saturday, July 4th - our first day of ministry in Brazil!

We got it pretty late on Friday night as we ran into quite a bit of traffic through Sao Paulo. We didn't arrive in Piratininga until 10pm and were all pretty fatigued with us now having been in transit for 24 hours. We are staying at a new hotel that just opened up last October called the Chalet Brasil; it is very close to the "Green Hotel" which is where we have always stayed in the past, so we are still close to the park with the kids of Piratininga. Even though it was late on Friday night when we go it, most of us went into town and had a little dinner.....the teens at least had huge X-Tudu's, that look like a hamburger on steroids, but they can afford the calories :-)

We did stop by the park on the way home and bumped into two of the park kids, Daniella and Daniel....it was so good to see them. These are kids that VCF Anaheim teams have been ministering to for 5 years now....Daniel is now much taller and is almost a teenager!

On Saturday morning we had a team worship and ministry time; the hotel has a separate room off of the lobby that they are allowing us to use for team meetings. Aaron Hatcher led worship for the team and did a great job; we prayed for each other and had some words for our trip that were very encouraging. We prayed for Joelle, who came down with a sore throat, please keep her in your prayers, her throat is still tender, but she is a trouper and hasn't let it stop her at all. The team also prayed for Katie who was talking to gathering of girls and parents that afternoon and then for Beau and Andrew who would be speaking at the Vineyard Bauru 'Jovens' (youth) Service on Saturday evening.

The Bauru Vineyard worked out a schedule to send team of people with cars to provide transportation for us to/from Bauru. The teams got here to take over for the parenting seminar that Katie would be speaking at "Gods-girls", but we were still eating in town and arrived 1/2 hour late....but in Brazil, this was not yet 'late' :-) We also met the new pastor of the Bauru Vineyard, David Asckar; David is a wonderful pastor with a soft heart and teachable spirit; it feels that we've known him for a long time already.

The time with the kids was very sweet, Katie spoke to both the kids and parents about reconciliation and then afterwards had a ministry time for the families and kids that came without a parent present. We had a little 8 year old girl named Stephanie who came with her grandmother that prayed the sinners prayer.....Stephanie was abandoned by her Mom who has multiple children, all by different fathers, so it was especially sweet that gained an eternal Daddy yesterday!

When we got back to Piratininga in time for Joelle, Andrew, Aaron, Aaron, Lauren and Kim to go to the Park and play with the gang of kids that are there on most days. They rushed back in time for us to dash off for the Vineyard Youth Service in Bauru. Beau and Andrew spoke on worship after a great time of Brazilian worship; they both did great and focused on worship being the heart of the Vineyard movement and where we get in touch with the Father and learn of his mercy. That led into a very intimate ministry time, where we saw many people touched, including one of the worship leaders who had severely burned his right hand in an accident at work; Andrew and Aaron Hatcher prayed for him and the pain left and he could completely move his thumb and fingers, even though all the scaring from the burn reamined! David (the Bauru VCF Pastor) found a recording of the star-spangled banner and played it for us as our 4th of July celebration :-) The ministry time lasted until after 11pm and then we went out for dinner and didn't make it back to our Hotel until 1am....it was a long but wonderful day.

This morning (Sunday) started early, we had to up and ready to go by 8am.....the kids on the trip (that's anyone under the age of 30 to me :-) ) were all exhausted, but made it up and out....we are so proud of all of them! When we arrived for the Service this morning, the worship leader was none-other than the man who was healed last night! He played guitar with his burned had and gave testimony to the power of God! I need to go now, we are leaving for the Bauru Sunday night service....I'll post again tonight about our services and activities today.

We appreciate your prayers more than you know; ministry is a wonderful thing, but also exhausting so pray for stamina for all of us; also pray for Pastor Nilton (former Bauru Pastor) who is in the hospital and not doing very well....I'll fill in the details later.

God bless you all, you are our prayer warriors and fellow ministers in-Christ!
-VCF Brazil Team 2009

Arriving in Sao Paulo

Well, we're here! We arrived in Sao Paulo on time at 1:20pm local time; Sao Paulo is 4 hours ahead of Pacific Daylight time, so it felt like morning to us. The flight was good overall, but we did hit some fairly strong turbulence as we entered South America and were going over the costal mountain range in Columbia. This was Aaron Hatcher's first flight and Lauren Bowen's longest flight....they both did great!

All of our luggage arrived and we made it thru customs without a hitchb. Gabriel from the Bauru Vineyard was waiting for us with our bus driver and then Renato and his Dad and sister were also there (we met Renato at Thanksgiving last year when a friend (hristina Malkhassian) brought him over; he was working at Disneyland on an exchange program. He then moved in with Beau and Jean for a few months and has become family to us! We had a huge lunch with everyone and know we're on our way to Piratininga.

We are all safe, well fed and have been loved on by our Brazilian family, but all very tired. Pray for our health and stamina as we get ready for ministry tomorrow afternoon and evening in Bauru.

Blessings to all of you!

we're on our way!

Well, we all made it to the airport, thru traffic (thanks to our wonderful van driver, Dave Paolozzi), thru airport checkin and security! We're all waiting on the plane right now and excited for the trip set before us!

Thanks for all your prayers leading up to our trip and please continue to pray that God expands his kingdom thru our trip! We now have a 12 1/2 hour flight ahead of us and then it's off to Piratininga via bus. We're on our way....stay tuned for more updates!

Bless you,
VCF Anaheim Brazil2009 team

Initial Post

Welcome to the VCF Anaheim Brazil 2009 Ministry trip blog! Our team will post progress, prayer requests and praise reports here.


Team Members:

Beau and Jean Watkins (our fearless leaders!)
Greg & Katie Scherer
Andrew Scherer
Aaron Scherer
Joelle Houston
Kim Johnston
Aaron Hatcher
Lauren Bowen

Itinerary:

We leave for Brazil on Thursday July 2nd at 9pm from LAX (Delta flt #233) and arrive in Sao Paulo (GRU) at 1:20pm (local time) on July 3rd. We then travel by bus to a small village called Piratininga that is about 5 hrs inland and north of Sao Paulo. Piratininga is where we will be staying for the duration of our trip and is the home of Vineyard Christian Music Brazil, VCF Piratininga and a wonderful WYAM base. We will be ministering in a nearby city, called Bauru from July-3 to July-7 and Piratininga from 7-8 thru 7-13. We leave for home on July 13th at 10:25pm from Sao Paulo (GRU, Delta flt#234) and arrive at LAX at 7:30am on July 14th.

Please pray that God will advance His Kingdom thru our visit to Brazil and that lives would be changed (including our team's lives)!

We love you all,
Brazil team 2009