Begun in Faith

Just like churches in the States, Anápolis had to quickly adapt to online ministry, and online ministry without the team of missionaries that had been there for two years. Pr Marcos, Pra Ericléia, and the church leaders didn’t hesitate to continue to move forward trusting God isn’t done with them yet.  Here's a quick overview of what quarantine ministry has looked like in Anápolis! Post-Encounter Classes After attending an Encounter with God retreat, the participants (new Christians and new church members) attend four sessions of what's called Spiritual Warfare training (prayer, Bible reading, obedience, holiness), six sessions of Bible basics and the Nazarene articles of faith, and six sessions of leadership training.  Church Services The church was able to continue both its Sunday and midweek services, which for a long time consisted of Pr Marcos, Pra Ericléia, and Alexsandra singing and preaching in an empty room and broadcasting live on Instagram (@nazareno_anapolis) and Fa

It’s been a few months now, since we left Anápolis, but I’ve told this story to enough people it seemed right to write it down with the appropriate pictures. If you’ve heard the story, you can skip to the pictures, no judgment. In my blog post “Daughter of God,” I talked about our last Encounter retreat in Anápolis. That same week, the week of March 15 th , we were expecting a visitor from Ardeo to come meet with the team for four days to emotionally prepare them for the transition from the mission field to back home that we thought would be happening in late April. We canceled her trip last minute and did sessions with her on Skype so that she wouldn’t have to travel during the very beginnings of Covid. We alternated meeting with her and doing activities and sessions on our own. While we were laboring emotionally, Pr Marcos was continuing the remodel at the new church building that he, TJ, Bernard, and Dave had begun the week before. Tuesday evening, Alexsandra began showing flu-lik

God called me to be a missionary when I was 14 years old. Since then, He has called me to Extreme Nazarene, Argentina, and Brazil. In all those changes, He always called me to be a missionary, not a pastor. I never had any desire to be a pastor, and I love being a missionary. People often ask me if I am a pastor, and it just feels good to be able to say “nope!” I love showing them that all Christians can know the Bible and boldly tell others about Jesus. It’s not just for pastors. I'm including some of my favorite preaching pictures, just because After finishing my time planting a church in Cordoba, Argentina, I moved to Brasilia, Brazil to open a missionary training center to plant more churches. Shortly after arriving in Brazil, I returned to Cordoba for a two week visit. This was in October 2017. One afternoon, I was sitting in the church with Pastora Jaci, with whom I had worked for two years while I was in Argentina, and an Argentine woman. Pra Jaci was counseling

Discipleship is beautiful and so so strange. Especially our breed of discipleship on the mission field that always starts with building a friendship with a complete stranger. Our victory cries are “I got her number!!” “She texted me back!!” “She’s actually talking to me!!” Satan loves isolating us. Whether it’s with prideful lies of I don’t need help or depressing lies of I don’t deserve help, he will tell us whatever we need to hear in order to keep us from connecting with each other or God. So it’s hard. We aren’t used to opening up to or trusting each other. Especially some weirdo from a different country who wants to pray with me and talk to me about God all the time. But discipleship is beautiful because God uses it to transform more people into weirdos who love Him and listen to Him and talk about Him and love others. Discipleship breakfast with Pra Ericléia, missionaries, and church leaders complete with secret sister gifts (I got a super cute shirt and earrings from