August 14, 2007

Dear Praying Friends,

PEOPLE
Praise the Lord for His goodness!! Thank you for your prayers for the outreach ministry we had on Saturday, August 11th. Sixty people from a church in a neighboring town came for the day to help us canvass the entire area here with tracts and invitations to the film night that we had. The film "Left Behind" was shown, and although there were not as many results as we would have liked, we know that many tracts were left in the hands of those around us and we are just letting the Lord work. Many of you prayed for "Cristiane" who came to our Corn night. Actually, we need to correct the name, since we had mixed her up with another lady. Her actual name is JUVANA, and even though she has not visited the church, her mother, Dottie, was at the meeting on Sunday night!! We were so thrilled to see her! Continue to remember Juvana and Dottie and family in prayer. Pray also for Claudio. We also asked recently that you pray for Odair, who is participating in one of our Bible studies. He is growing by leaps and bounds in the Lord and actually brought his friend, Claudio, out here to the church to be saved during the week! It was neat! He was so ready to accept Christ, and he was also in the service on Sunday night, along with his wife, Isabel. Bev talked quite awhile with Isabel, and she is not a Christian--has a Catholic background, but we feel that she is close to making a decision. She is happy with Claudio's decision to become a Christian. Also, we were able to begin a brand new Bible study at Adriano and Renata's place of business this past Thursday evening. It was a real blessing, as there were six who were not saved and of those six, three of them had never participated in a Bible study of any kind. We are going through a study in John and they seemed to really enjoy it. Continue to pray that the Lord would use this as a tool to reach them with the Gospel.

CONSTRUCTION
The church roof is covered!! We are very excited! The plastering of the outside has been completed, and there is a large group of workers that is coming on Saturday to do the inside. Bev will be helping to make the "bean soup" with rice that they like to make to feed large groups. It is called "feijoada" and is made with black beans. Even though it is quite tasty, the "meat" that they throw in the pot to make it flavorful can be quite "unappetizing," to say the least. How can we say this nicely? Let's see...do you know what normally goes into a good old American hotdog? That is what they put into the beans without grinding it up!! John really gets into this kind of thing and can't wait to go buy the "meat" sometime this week. Bev is not quite so anxious. Enough of that subject!! Continue to pray for the construction of the church. It has been a true blessing to see it all come together and the best part has been to see the participation of the Brazilians!!

FAMILY
As far as we know, the boys are doing fine. Never in our lives have we been so excited to receive these occasional one to two line e-mails!! Perhaps it is just because they are boys and don't like to put anything "extra" in their letters--only the very basics. But we love them, just the same! Please continue to pray for Josh and Jerrod. It seems that Josh has healed up nicely from his surgery and that he will be able to begin classes at FBBC soon. We are so grateful for the Rotz family in Chariton, IA who have graciously taken Josh into their home at this time. Jerrod is at Bev's brother, Curt's house in Ankeny, IA and is doing fine. He told us he is ready and seems pretty excited about going to college. They both desire to be used of the Lord in His service, and please pray with us that this dream of theirs would someday become a reality!! Jonna and Jeanne are doing well. Jeanne had a good 14th birthday. We invited the youth group over (12 youth besides Jonna and Jeanne) and they were all so quiet at first! We were wondering how the whole thing was going to go. Since they were eating homemade pizza, though, we think they were all just hungry. After that, the Coke really "kicked in" and it was hard to get them to settle down! To top everything off, when it was time for them to leave, John asked who wanted to come in the bedroom and "watch the show" of us getting him from the chair into bed. There was a rather wild RUSH to the door, and they all lined up at the end of the bed to "see it happen!!" Kind of crazy, but it was lots of fun, and something they will always remember!! Not sure who is crazier, John or the youth! Your prayers for our family are always appreciated.

Thank you, dear ones, for praying for us! We will stay in touch! In His service, John and Bev Leonard