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