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Report from the Mission Field
24 July, 2003 Recife, Brazil
Dearest Friends and Supporters:
We have been back in Brazil only 10 days but already have felt the impact of your prayers and support as we’ve seen the Lord working in awesome ways. Let us back up just a few days and tell you about our trip to Brazil because it was very special for us.
We left Dallas on Thursday and headed to Honduras to celebrate Maduka Donas’ wedding to Cindy Caudill. As you may recall, he was one of the prisoners from Nigeria who became a Born-Again while here in Recife. He was instrumental in the building of the church in the prison where he was the “leader/pastor” until his release. He is now very active in the Baptist church in Italy where he now lives and is beginning a cell church among his Nigerian and Italian friends in that area. Houston helped perform the ceremony, and Charla, after entering the church with Maduka as his “mother” played (the piano) for the rest of the service. It was fun for us participating in his wedding as well as in the wedding of Rafal, in Poland, on our way to the U.S. Raf is another one of our ex-prisoners who became a Christian while here and after finishing Seminary he has been asked to be the assistant pastor in his church in Poland.
We arrived in Recife after a 28 hour trip at noon on Monday and two hours later we were back at the airport to meet a 2-man medical team who came to work with us at the prisons. Dr. John Holder and Wade Burchman were a tremendous blessing to many during the week as they did eye exams for 715 men and women — both prisoners and officials. We had the help of two other Seminary students plus some of our Christian prisoners, and we had such a good time that exhaustion didn’t hit us until after they left on Saturday evening!
Among some of the people who accepted the Lord during the week was one of the top agents at our “maximum security” prison, and the nurse at another prison. We have already felt the impact of the work as we’ve gone for our regular Bible study and visits with prisoners this week. We are expecting another medical team (this time with around 20 people) in October, and if you want to participate you may wirte to Dr. Dunn at the address below.
Medical teams may not seem like much to many in the U.S. but in a place where men and women prisoners hardly have any access to treatment this visit last week made a tremendous impact — on all who were involved. They are still amazed that anyone would give up his work for a week or two and pay his own ticket and expenses to come help people who are marginalized by society!
Tuesday evening we resumed our Bible study group with three couples — two dentists, one doctor, one architect, and one couple who owns two radio stations and one TV station — people we began witnessing to about four months before we left Brazil. It was so exciting to see God at work in their lives as they asked pertinent questions about Him and then as they suggested that having dinner (they always wanted to begin with a meal) was ‘wasting too much of our study time!” One of them said it was more important to “eat the Bible that it was to eat food.” We were delighted because we see their hunger for God.
Pray for this group — Claudia, Guaracy, Christina, Guilherme, Cris and Ricardo — as they are beginning to understand that Jesus loved them enough to die for them and that they need to respond to his love.
Today Charla is speaking at a Church Music Clinic for the Northeast of Brazil on the impact of music in missions. Tonight we meet with some folk from our church to think and pray about how best to reach this area for Christ. The Lord has given us the vision to reach out, love, encourage, bring to Him and disciple the thousands of professionals that live near us in the neighborhood where you have rented us an apartment. It is a new building and families are beginning to move in, so Charla baked chocolate chip cookies for us to deliver to each family with a ‘welcome’ message. We are praying that this contact will lead to relationships and opportunities to witness to them.
We want to thank each of you so much for your participation in our ministry — both through your giving and your prayers. We would love to have personal contact with all of you and will promise to answer any letter/e-mails you write to us.
Our e-mail address is:
and our street address is:
Rua Prof. Osias Ribeiro 61, Apt. 602 Boa Viagem 51111-110 Recife, PE Brazil
We would love to have you visit us and participate in our ministry in person. Think and pray about this invitation too, OK !!!
In His service,
Houston and Charlotte Greenhaw
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Online since April 7, 1999
E- mail questions or comments about this web site to bprescott@mainstreambaptists.orgCopyright © 1999-2003 MAINSTREAM OKLAHOMA BAPTISTS P.O. Box 6371 Norman, OK 73070-6371 (405) 329-2266.
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