Dear Friends,
It has been a very busy couple of months here in Brazil. Lily is almost done with her first semester of language school. She has gotten to the point where she can hold conversations with people and is even starting to understand the sermons, as well as some of the faster speakers here in the church. She is also doing excellent with her pronunciation. I am beginning to think that if I don’t polish up my Portuguese more, then Lily will end up speaking better than I do.
As for the church building, we have just about moved everything over to the new location and have been holding services in the new building’s fellowship hall while we prepare the auditorium for use. We are almost ready to return the keys for the old building, which will allow the church to utilize those rent funds for the renovation. We have been focusing our efforts on renovating the auditorium and my parents’ living space. Both required a lot of work and both are almost ready to be used.
During the first last 2 weeks of October we had a team of volunteers with CLAIM come help with the renovation. It was a blessing to have the 8 extra men helping on the project. In the auditorium we were able to tile, remodel/add two bathrooms, and correct some water infiltration issues. In my parents’ living space we tiled, remodeled two bathrooms, put up drywall, new outlets, lighting, and a drop ceiling. It was not only an encouragement to get so much done, but also to have such good fellowship. As you can imagine, there was a lot of cooking and laundry for Lily, my mom, and several ladies in the church to do. It was great to see our church family jump in and help take care of the group.
Now that we have moved into the new building, we have been able to start canvasing and inviting people to the new location. We are giving out invitations for our inaugural service, which will also be our Christmas cantata. The church had 8,000 invitations printed and would like to have them all out before our special service. The choir has been working on their music and we will have 2 different kinds of bell specials. We actors have started practicing our lines and everything is starting to fall into place for the cantata. Please pray with us, as we are asking God to bring 75 visitors for this special service.
We are still working on paperwork for Lily’s visa. I had scheduled an appointment at the Federal Police, but when we got there we found out that I had scheduled for the wrong kind of appointment. I had them show me how to get to what I actually needed so that I could schedule the right thing. We have our appointment scheduled for the day before Thanksgiving, so pray that we have everything in order and that the paperwork can go through with no problems. This would give Lily a permanent visa so we would not have to renew every couple of years. There were also problems with getting my driving school started, so pray that we can resolve that quickly.
I would like you all to pray for Diego, the salesman that sold me our car, to get saved. Just after I bought the car, I found out there was a problem with the accelerator. I told them about it and they said they would fix the issue, so I took the car back in. I really felt like the Lord was giving me an opportunity to witness to Diego, so I took my Bible with me. I was able to quickly walk him through the entire plan of salvation, but he had to deliver a car and put off making a decision. Pray that he would accept Christ as his Savior. Thank you so much for your continued prayers. They are a huge help and encouragement to us.
God bless.
David and Lily Johnson
Missionaries to Brazil
São Caetano do Sul – SP
Psalm 139:14