BZeal for July 2002

by Randal Matheny, in Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil 31 July 2002

Note: SJC is an abbreviation for the city where we live and work, Sao Jose dos Campos.

Congregation plans national event

During July the men of the SJC congregation met twice to plan for the National Christian Workers Encounter for next year. A good group of men met July 16 and 30 at my office and defined the theme and speeches for the event.

This preaching event is held on Friday and Saturday of Easter weekend each year at the Mt. of Olives Christian Camp. It is the major event for Christian workers in the Brazilian brotherhood.

Each year a different congregation is responsible for the program. We have the privilege of planning it for 2003.

We'll meet again August 17 to consider speakers.

An hour with God

The adult Bible school class began studying "An Hour with God" in the third quarter. My study is designed to help people know what to do in their devotional time with the Lord. Otavio Carvalho is using the same material to teach the young people's class.

Once again, I'm working up the material pretty much from scratch, since so little material is available in Portuguese for the churches.

Sickness

A young Christian wife and mother in the congregation was diagnosed with breast cancer. Valeria da Silva lives in Taubate, about 40 minutes from SJC. She and her husband Clayton have two small children. Please pray for her and the family as she undergoes further tests and schedules surgery.

Transformation course in Sao Paulo

Thirty people met early Saturday morning, July 13, at the Hotel Estan Plaza on Funchal St., in Sao Paulo, for an all-day marathon of the Total Transformation course. The course began at 8 a.m. and ended at 8 p.m.

Because of the city-wide nature of the course, it was not deemed feasible to hold the usual period on Friday evening.

Christians attended from several congregations in the city: Butantã, Itaquera, Jardim das Flores, Nove de Julho, Vila Maria. The coastal city of Sao Vicente was represented, others came from the city of Sorocaba, and one couple, Carlos and Emmanuelle Prazeres travelled six hours by bus from the city of Curitiba especially for the course.

The course materials and lunch, held at a nearby restaurant, were included in the registration fee, which costed just over $5.00.

In this course, I invited Francisco to share the teaching load. He developed well three of the thirteen course modules. Francisco is Events and Promotions Manager for the Rio-Sul Airlines and editor of Edification Magazine, published by BZeal. He arranged the hotel conference room and negotiated the restaurant meal.

Five more courses have been scheduled for 2002 and one for 2003.

Vicki and I stayed in Sao Paulo Friday and Saturday night at the hotel, thanks again to Francisco's contacts. Sunday morning I preached at the Jardim das Flores congregation on our unity, basing the sermon on Peter's exclusive use of the word "brotherhood" in 1 Peter 2.17 and 5.8-9.

A group of three families from that congregation and the couple from Curitiba lunched with us, and we headed home for our meeting with the church in SJC. There, I taught the Bible class and lead singing. A great day, in all.

Magazine on course

I traveled to Sao Paulo the 30th to meet with Edification magazine editor Francisco Bezerra. We lunched together and talked about the magazine. Francisco has worked hard to get new writers and has recruited people to help with news, ads, and promotion.

Since I'm online and he is also in his business, we've both hooked up to the praize.com messenger and exchange messages as needed. This has greatly facilited our joint work with the magazine.

If you'd like to contact me during the day by messenger, here are my IDs to various services:

Praize.com - randal Yahoo - randalmatheny ICQ - 162797959 AOL - randal32916 MSN - randal32916

Ripples of usefulness

Many of our published materials are reprinted in bulletins and media all over Brazil by the brotherhood. Not only Edification Magazine, but even our church bulletin articles, which we often post on the web.

On the 29th, missionary Larry Zinck from Rio de Janeiro wrote, "Thanks for that info. I went to your site and read what you wrote. I hope you won't mind if I use your article as the basis for a radio message. I do some three-minute spots for a community radio station here in Jacarepagua."

The article he referred to is a brief response to a report in a national magazine that purports to separate truth from legend in the Bible.

New site coming

To be less dependent on freebie services and the goodness of people who have granted us free space, we've started the move to paid web hosting and a first- level domain name for our sites in Portuguese. Except that the name we chose had been taken by the time we got our payment in. Now to think of a new name!

Visit

On the 21st, we met and lunched with Don Ward, a Christian from Sidney, Texas, who came to SJC for the week to teach an course to engineers at Brazil's aviation company, Embraer. The company is based in SJC. We spent a pleasant afternoon together and took him with us to church that evening.

Don had contacted us by email about the church's meeting address and time.

Before retirement in 2000, Don was an elder at the College Station church.

Family

Daughter Leila went to the first week of Christian camp, for her age group (7-10), and Joel went the third week (ages 14-17). At 19, Micah can't attend the regular sessions.

Joel has been invited to play basketball at SJC's Tennis Sports Club, which represents a move forward for him, as does Micah's move to train with the Trianon Sports Club in the neighboring city of Jacarei.

Wrap-up

Please pray for these tidbits of news, that in each moment and situation, the Lord may be glorified by our work and lives.

Thanks for your prayers, support, and encouragement. May our Lord bless your efforts.

Randal & family You can read this newsletter and more on our website at bzeal.cjb.net E-mail: randalm@uol.com.br

Mailing Address: Caixa Postal 11 Sao Jose dos Campos, SP 1220-970 - Brazil

Tel.: (11-55-12) 3942-7753