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