GK

Hi there, I've got a prayer request for you all. A guy I work with told me yesterday that he was in the process of getting divorced from his wife. What floored me was that he is a strong Christian man and he is the one leaving her. He asked me to pray for him and I told him that I would, but I'm not praying for comfort for him.  I'm praying for conviction and reconciliation with his wife of 27 years and figured I'd ask you guys to do the same!  His initials are GK and if you could pray for him that would be awesome!

By the way, when are we meeting next?

Prayers.

Prayers for a young man named Alvero.
We went out to do the transvestite prostitution ministry again last night, but after having our food table set up for about 20 minutes, we got word that one of the guys had been stabbed twice in the arm and was at the hospital. we packed up, and by the time we got there, he had been discharged so we drove him home. Got to pray with him and he said he was going to come to church on sunday. The Spirit was moving. before we even heard news of him being hurt, we were discussing him and how the Lord is drawing his heart (through various things he had said previously). also, yesterday during the day i was praying for God's presence to move mightily and prevent clients from coming to that place. So it was just overwhelming to see how the Lord spared Alvero from selling himself last night and to allow such a thing to happen to him to provide God such a blank page to show Himself through healing and how He spared his life.
Praying over him, i felt the Spirit of God, how much he  LOVES this kid and wants him to be set free from sin and himself. Pray this. That the power of darkness will not prevail. That godly men will be present in his life, being examples. That he will see his sin, the small and big, and beg for God's mercy once again (he has had a taste of the Gospel before, was involved in church awhile ago).
So thankful we are connected by prayer and that the people i meet here have warriors waging war for them from across the miles.
Be expectant in the Lord!!!!! HE IS GOOD :)
I love you all.

Hi! Brazil is great! I'm great! And the Lord is the greatest of all. :)
I'm writing this on my phone (did you guys know Blogspot has an app?! We can blog on the go ;) ) so it will be short and sweet.
1) I miss ya'll. A lot! I miss praying with you and hearing the neat things God is doing! Please write updates on here so I can keep up with your lives? :)
2) Portuguese is hard....I don't want to say I've given up, but I think I have. I know basic greetings and random words and phrases, but most of the time I'm spending with my family, so they just all speak English. And when we do go out doing various activities, my nieces and nephew gets tired of translating. Whenever I learn something, I get excited, but then realize that it's not going to help on a practical conversation level (for example, I learned to say "do you seek after God every day?" And "I want to have five kids" but that doesn't help when you can't carry on a convoy beyond that. So I'm arguing with myself now, trying to decide if I'm going to be mad when I get home that I didn't learn more, or mad if I spend a bunch of time learning it and then never use it again! Ha.
2) Wisdom for my role here. I'm just loving my family! I help do homeschool, cook, do dishes, play, and swim. Then we do errands and go out to eat, and do random things like cell groups (bible studies), go on boat trips. Is this my role for the next 2 months? Keep loving the fam, doing regular life and learn how to encourage? Or should I start pressing to do ministry in the poor community around us or to go out and do transvestite prostitution ministry more? (I did this one night and will definitely go again. Please pray for these men. A lot of  them are young and confused and need money. We set up a table with food and coffee from 11pm to 2-3 across the road from where they gather. Two of the guy/girls we talked to KNOW the truth, one was even leading a bible study and everything. Satan is just evil. Pray for freedom from bondage, grace to be claimed, and wisdom for the 3 people that try to meet with them throughout the week to build relationship (josh, Amanda and joshs' sister, whose name I forget )).
3) also prayers for Jew-tie-e (the community we live in, I can't spell it but that's how you say it!) Every Saturday, Matt and his Brazilian friend Carlos, and typically three other girls, go out and do evangelism. People are getting saved. Last week there were 7! PRAISE THE LORD! Here, they get saved, join a cell group, get discipled and learn and grow in truth. There's an awesome problem in the community though....not enough people to disciple all these new souls joining our Family! Pray for God to rise up spiritually-ready leaders and for these new souls to be grounded in truth and love!!

I miss and love you all.

Seek Him and you WILL find Him

"As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve him with your whole heart and a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts.  If you seek him, He will let you find him; but if you forsake him, He will reject you forever." 2 Chronicles 28:9

Earlier today I was meditating on this verse and was thinking about how when we seek the Lord, we WILL find him.  And that he will speak to us in a way that we can understand.  He loves us and wants to bring us to Him and lead us in the truth.  Hallelujah!  Praise be to our Lord!

Then I was listening to/reading some testimonies of Muslims who converted to Christianity, and I wanted to share them with you guys... if you can find some time to listen, I strongly recommend it!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-L1KIU7lao - this one's like 15 min

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3lHueRXvh0  - this is a testimony of another guy. this one's 28 min.  And I love it because while there is still some similarities to the testimony, it is so different.  He also talks more about his Muslim background and gives insight into the Islamic religion.  So I found it really interesting.  God speaks to His people and works in each person's life so uniquely because each person is so different!  And this one really spoke to me because his testimony reminded me so much of my sister's Muslim friend from northern.  His doubts, his questions, his thought processes... Except for he hasn't reached the point of conversion yet.  But he is more broken now than ever before, and seems to be hungry for God's word and God's direction in his life than he ever has been.  So may the Lord continue to work and save his soul!

http://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Qureshi/testimony.htm - the written testimony of the guy above.  It includes some more detail about the vision/dreams that he had before turning to follow Jesus.  I was really struck here by how the Lord really spoke to him in his dreams in ways that he, as a muslim, would understand.  The Lord used symbolism in the dream that only he, as a muslim would interpret and understand.  How AWESOME is our God!  He loves us so much and wants us to know truth that he speaks to us in ways that we can hear Him and understand him!  So when we ask God to speak to us and direct us... Let's NEVER DOUBT that he will do that and do it in a way that we understand!

Just wanted to share that with you all!  I was blessed by it.  I love you all and am praying for you guys!  Especially you Faith!!! :)

Test

This is a test to see if the email thing worked. Shoot me a text if you got an email!

Jodi

October 11, 2014

Can you all pray for clarity for me? I feel like I need to open up a way of communication with my students about Christ, but I'm not sure what that form that needs to take!

Jodi

October 4, 2014

PRAYER REQUESTS

- Sarah's brother

 - AC Church (specifically unity)

 - Our elders as they lead and make decisions with upcoming changes

 - Teresa's friends Caleb and Sam

 - The 2 Brazilian guys Matt Steidinger is discipline

 - Tori's (Teresa's roommate) relationship with Jesus

 - The Kupferschmid family at CVE

 - Your Jr. high students and prayer meetings with fellow teachers

 - Strength in spiritual battles

 - Sharla as she waits to hear about nursing school

 - Faith as she learns Portuguese and prepares to go to Brazil

 - Me as I apply to go to Magdalena, and that my old car will work for a few more months - 

Perseverance in prayer!

June 11, 2014

Just like our first meeting, the Holy Spirit was present today convicting, teaching, assuring, directing, and filling us with joy.  The spirit laid on our hearts today to pray for the spiritual battle going on within our denomination and with Christians in general. We prayed for an increase in knowledge and urgency in our prayer life about this spiritual war, and also for discernment and wisdom in finding truth.  Below are more prayer requests:

General prayers for the AC church, the leadership, pruning, and wisdom.
Prayers to fight in the spiritual war we are in- that God would be victorious and that Satan would be kept down.
For God to give our prayer group a clarity of mission for right now so we can be focused warriors of prayer for Him.
For prayer requests to be made known to us.
For Teresa (wisdom, grace, joy, peace) and her friend who has given up the Christian faith (that she may return)
For vulnerability and also for courage to be vulnerable with each other.

Our next meeting will be on Monday, June 23rd at 5 pm at Tompkins.  Feel free to post prayer requests as they come up or as God reveals them to you!Choose a sticker or emoticon

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• It all started the day my dad got here and we bought a horse. The son of the guy we bought it from came to show Luke how to saddle it, etc. the next day dad and I and luke walked to the store to buy bread. Luke saw the kid and said, “hey, come this afternoon and ride the horse”. That afternoon the boy showed up.. with about 8 friends and they wanted to swim. We let them. The next day (Monday) more kids came wanting to swim. We said, “no, only on the weekends”. That Friday afternoon there was about 15 kids (at different times) milling around our driveway. I told them to come back on Sunday. On Saturday we had a mission team come out to relax. At least 2 different groups of about 10 kids came asking if it was time. The next day, we had a couple come for lunch so dad could talk to them (I had told the kids 4pm—they came about 2). I had to go get my Brazilian friend and his family to help us with our “program”. When I drove out the lane about 3:30 to get him there was 20 kids/young adults waiting to come in. I picked up Carlos and his family and when we turned into the lane and they saw all the kids and their eyes got really big. We set up chairs and benches on the tennis court (ok, ok, we have a tennis court, but it is not indoors and we are using it for ministry). I prayed, then carlos shared various evangelical stories. Then we split up into 2 groups (under 12 and over 12yrs). Carlos took the older ones and Jaelah and I worked with the younger ones. After we were done I explained to the kids that since there were 25 of them we needed to take turns swimming. I must have used the wrong verbs, because they ran for the pool. It was a little crazy for about an hour. Kids jumping, etc. Janelle had made popcorn and then Carlos, Sierra and I walked some of them home to meet their parents. Almost all of them asking “when are we going to do this again?” I told them not next Sunday but maybe the next The next Sunday we got home about 3pm and there were kids up and down the lane again—also there were 4 kids swimming already. I was not happy. I drove the car into the back yard. The kids (that were swimming) took off for the jungle, but I yelled and called them back. Asked them if they wanted me to come to their house when they weren’t there. After everyone left we prayed. A few days ago was the 2nd meeting. We only had about 5 kids show up at 4pm (I think they were still scared from last Sunday). Mariah and Jaelah went and invited some more kids and we ended up with about 20. Janelle told the story of creation and the first Sin and then we split up into 3 smaller groups again. Carlos has a 23 year old daughter who has been going out into the river communities working with the dentists and evangelizing. She asked me before we started “if someone gets saved, who is going to disciple them”. Discipling is a huge thing with ProjectAmazon. I didn’t know and hadn’t thought much about it. Well she took the oldest group of about 5 kids. Janelle took the younger girls and I had the younger boys. Carlos went to help his daughter, but after a few minutes she said, “dad, I got this. Its just God, me and them”. After we got back together we talked a bit more and then had popcorn (no swimming this time). Carlos came over and said, “4 people accepted Christ in my daughter’s group. What are you going to do?”. I said, “I don’t know? Never done this before”. We walked them home again and figured out where they lived. You are supposed to follow up 24 hours and then 72 hours later. We did not. Finally today we made it back. The first 15 year old was not home so we talked to his dad until the son arrived. After his son came home, we talked with him alone for a few minutes. Carlos explained again the decision he made Sunday and then asked about coming back once a week to disciple him—to talk and learn about the things of God. Carlos asked, “do you want to do that”. He looked up and said “I want to”. His dad came over and Carlos asked him to join us. Explained that since he was a minor, it would be good for his dad and mom to understand what we were doing. He explained about our plan to meet once a week and discuss the Bible and then asked if he (the dad) would like to join. His dad replied, “Yes, I do. And my wife, my son and my daughter will be here”. Wow. We set it for Saturday at 6pm. We then visited another 15 year and his mom and family. He also agree to meet on Saturday—around 4pm. Luke and I ran into an older guy (20+) walking in the jungle one day (Rodrigo). I wanted to get to know him better (the first day I asked him if he was a believer and he said “no”. But I haven’t had a chance to talk to him much since). Carlos and I found out where he lived and talked to him tonight also and he agreed to meet on Saturday around 2pm. Asking for prayer as we start this process. Many people we talk to say this community that we live close to is not a very good one. Lots of drugs, etc so we are praying for transformed lives—for people to one day say, “Juntaí? That used to be a dangerous neighborhood, but not anymore!”.
• 

  6/11, 11:19pm

  Faith Steidinger

  Sorry this is a long one. Got this from my brother in Brazil tonight. I told him our group will start standing in prayer for community of Juntai. Praise the Lord. I would've posted it on the blog, but i wasn't sure how to... have a blessed few weeks.

Seen by Sarah, Sharla

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