60% - The Good and The Ugly

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Sixty percent (60%) is more than half, but not quite full. Sometimes 60% is really good. Sometimes it's just plain ugly.

Let's get to the ugly first:

• 60% is about how normal our return to Brazil has been since January 23rd. When we expected schools to start-up in February, COVID-19 got in the way. In Belo Horizonte, elementary schools have been delayed from starting in-person classes for the new school year until Feb 14th. Our kids, and Tathiana, thought that was really ugly. 

• Our COBH team was planning our first team-building retreat since September of 2019. However, COVID-19 got in the way and we decided to cancel for now as we had several positive COVID tests pop-up on the team and in our church.

• Our car needed some service, nothing major, but because of a lack of mechanics and parts caught in the supply chain issue, we are on day 4 of being "car-less". That limits what we can get out and do by about 60%.

• Overall, life and ministry feel about 60%. That's not a complaint, it's still just the overall reality of a late-stage pandemic in a tropical metropolis.

The good 60%:

• Our trip to the US for connection with family and supporters was really great. COVID-19 did limit us some, as during the end of the year the Omnicron variant was in full swing in Chattanooga, TN and Birmingham, AL. We had several meetings canceled and overall decided to not expose ourselves close to our return trip as not to test positive and risk not making our flight back to Brazil. So, the trip was a great 60%. It's better to have a 60% visit than not come at all!

• Lastly, our 20/20 1-Time campaign celebrating 20 years on the field has closed its first 2 months, and we are happy to report that we are already at 60% of the goal, with over $12,000 in donations so far. Thank you to all who have donated, encouraged and prayed for this important campaign. 

Please continue to pray for us as we try to live-out 2 Timothy 4:2, "preach the word; be ready in season and out of season."

"Uh oh, PEOPLE!" - Getting ready for 2022

The past two pandemic years have challenged us and our relational ministry strategy. We are looking toward 2022, but not looking to "start back" where we left off in 2019. We are truly asking God to help us "start over", and there are some specific ways that will play out in 2022. 

Campus: The university in BH, UFMG, has altered their calendar due to COVID, so the current semester will continue until the end of February 2022. Then, the first semester of 2022 will officially begin in April. We expect UFMG to resume in-person classes, and also for our team to have at least limited access to the campus and to students! We may not be able to enter buildings, but we can take advantage of common spaces and the general buzz of people being back on campus for classes. One of our challenges and a reason to "start over" is that there has been a 50% turnover since we were last engaged in-person at UFMG. Half of the campus population has graduated and incoming students have come to replace them. There are students who are half-way through their college career and have never had a class on campus. We have never had a chance to meet 50% of the current student population. While this is intimidating, it is also a new opportunity to see where God will open doors at UFMG.

English Initiative: GringoEnglish, our English-instruction project, will start 2022 with in-person classes. Very exciting! We have revamped physical spaces, refined our strategy, tweaked teaching hours and clarified how we will use this front in our overall ministry efforts to "build laborers through the campus for the lost world". I have spent the second half of 2021 focusing on this portion of our team and efforts, and am really excited to see how 2022 will provide a new means for us to impact UFMG and Belo Horizonte. 

Church: Our church has been executing a "preparation strategy" during the second semester of 2021 in order to transition well into 2022. It is not enough to be desirous to re-engage in life as a community and in ministry in our city, but to be prepared, active and have momentum toward re-engagement. Our leadership has had many conversations, strategy sessions and the beginnings of corporate events to get us ready for 2022. It won't be perfect, but we are excited to think about 2022 and what God is going to do in us and through us in Belo Horizonte.

The Lost Art

The Lost Art of Disciple-Making, LeRoy Eims

Our teams often have frequent turnover, with new staff coming in every year, and staff transitioning off as time goes by. This dynamic led me to create a standard several years ago; important training issues need to be repeated every four years. This is because after four years you have new staff who have not yet had direct contact with specific content, and many who did have direct contact have likely transitioned off the team. 

At our most basic essence, Campus Outreach's content revolves around being a college ministry that focuses on evangelism and discipleship. This semester our leadership team decided it was time for a specific focus on discipleship training for our team. We are reading and discussing a classic on the subject, The Lost Art of Disciple-Making, by LeRoy Eims, who served with the Navigators ministry. This book is both a theoretical manifest for the need of life-on-life discipleship, but also for the biblical basis and full of practical application. There is a lot of content on which to reflect and discuss as a team. 

I have led our team discussions and provided discussion questions for our interaction. I have enjoyed thinking about the specific applications to our context here in urban Brazil on the college campus with a local church. We have come to wholeheartedly agree with many of the author's points. We have, also, disagreed with several points and considered how to adjust in light of what we believe was Jesus' example. It has been great to see how the maxim of "more is caught than taught” can be enriched and potentialized by consuming quality content and working it out through hearty discussion. 

Our plan is to finish reading and discussing all 12 chapters and 3 appendixes by the end of November, and we are right on schedule. This has been a great reminder for me of how I originally was drawn to the opportunity to work in Brazil with Campus Outreach because of the commitment to life-on-life discipleship, and oh how I have been encouraged to see this same vision continue strong 20 years later. 

Prayer Walking on UFMG

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Our primary campus, UFMG, has not had in-person classes since March of 2020. There is limited activity on campus, research and faculty meetings, and the large open campus with lots of green has remained open to the public as a haven for outside activity since the restrictive measures have been in place in Belo Horizonte. 

A few weeks ago, a few people on our team began to talk about taking advantage of this unique opportunity to have a day of prayer walking on the campus. A huge campus, open to the public, with almost no one around to interrupt or ask what we are doing - a perfect situation to spend some time praying specifically for this campus and for God to open doors there!

Today, Monday, June 21st this happened. Two of our campus staff members organized it and it was great to see the younger generation taking the reins of important initiatives. 

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Teammates Prayer Walking on UFMG’s campus

If you have a minute today, would you pray with us? 

1. That God would open doors for the gospel on UFMG.

2. That our team would have access to campus in 2022 (still no concrete plan on how open campus will be in 2022 because of COVID measures.

Lonely BH, Once Again

Empty streets in BH due to COVID-19

Belo Horizonte (BH) is a lonely place, once again.

Our city has retreated back to only essential services as of Friday, March 5th. The COVID-19 scenario in Brazil and BH has worsened, and vaccination has not shaped up to be as organized or wide-spread as needed at this moment.

In the last weeks, we had the first in-person ministry event with students of the year, and our church was weekly increasing the number of people participating in-person. Everything has screeched to a halt for now, and we will be going back to basing our efforts and events via online access and socially-distanced formats.

It is a hard reality to accept, as things were ramping up, new relationships, depth of in-person interaction and studies. Pray for us! Pray for Brazil.

Vitor & Pedro through the Pipeline

We talk about the idea of "pipelines" in terms of staffing for Campus Outreach. A larger number of students and young Christians go into the pipeline at one end, and out the other end comes a smaller number of laborers poised to join our team in full-time ministry. This is NOT the goal of our ministry. The goal is Christ-centered laborers for every walk life in every aspect of society and church. However, we do seek out those who would join us if they desire and if the fit is right.

Vitor (pictured, middle) joined our team this year for a 1-year internship. He came to Christ in college a few years ago, and is excited about the possibility of a life called to ministry. This is a special moment for our team as Vitor is the first male Brazilian staff we have hired specifically for the campus ministry in 9 years. Our pipelines are small and slow moving on the campus here in Brazil, but fruit is being borne!

Another aspect of our pipeline is how we as a ministry develop leaders. Pedro (pictured, right) is fruit of our leadership pipeline. I have spoken to many personally, shared at a few churches and included in updates about Pedro's process the last few years. As of last year, Pedro is the new Regional Director over our team and ministry in Belo Horizonte. It is very fulfilling to see him in this role, not only because he is stepping up and facing the challenge head-on, but because in it I see God's faithfulness. I met Pedro when he was only 15. Today, he is my Director!

A New Friend and Co-Laborer

Rafael and family with our family (my kids have “issues” with group pics).

The year of 2020 has been a strain on most relationships for most people; a dark year concerning depth of friendships. For me, the charge to continue firm in the midst of darkness in Phillipians 2 to "shine like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life," brought me alongside a new friend who has become one of my many "Band of Brothers". Rafael Santos, our local church's new pastor, despite all the challenges, maybe due to all the challenges, is a relationship that has been a blessing to me.

In March, I posted a quick blurb about Rafael officially being confirmed by our church as the new pastor on Instagram and Facebook. He had been serving as our interim pastor since July of 2019, so this was not a brand new relationship. However, beginning with his official calling to our church, Comunidade Horizonte, we began to relate closer and deeper, and even scheduled a weekly meeting to discuss a wide range of subjects from church, strategy, families and personal issues.

Our families took a short trip together in July, and it was great to sit down each night, the two couples, and talk for hours about life, ministry, faith and future! They have let us into their lives with no reservations, and it has been such a breath of fresh air.

I am currently the President of our church's Session of Elders; so our relationship is needed, strategic and purposeful as the Campus ministry and the Church have a direct relationship. But it is much more than that! It has been great to have a new friend, brother-in-Christ, and co-laborer with whom to walk along the challenging road of ministry.