The Hensleys have spent nearly 20 years serving in Brazil. They have established a church in Caraguatatuba and mission points throughout the city. They have also recently started a seminary to train pastors.

August 15, 2017

Friends and family,

I would like to write one letter without having to say that something has gone wrong with one of our vehicles but this month is not going to be that month. This time it is Barb’s car—it is the wheel bearings and it is running hot and leaking oil. The tropical climate could have something to do with the hot problem and the speed bumps are the culprit for the leak. Long story short, we will fix the cooling system, replace the wheel bearings, and repair the leak…just another month (old cars are old cars).

This month we have had a group from Durbin Memorial Baptist Church with Pastor Russell Zik. What a blessing these men were for us. The Indian ministry was greatly blessed by this group. They purchased food baskets for the reservation. This time, instead of putting the food in baskets, we just divided the food into stacks. This way thirty families could receive the same thing.

These Indians do crafts so sustain themselves, so they depend upon visitors to purchase their items. We did not disappoint them, everyone made purchases. This tribe, although they live near other people, they live very primitive. Some live in just simple bamboo huts, one room, with an open pit for cooking in the middle of the room. We were able to visit in two of these homes. Taking the food gave us entrance to the homes where we prayed with these families and personally gave them their food. This is quite an eye-opening experience. This always leaves everyone remembering just how truly blessed we are. This tribe serves many different gods—but over the past five years we have seen seven of them come to know the one and only true God as their personal Savior. AWESOME!!!! The chief is one of those who now knows Christ as his Savior.

Talking about the Chief, he had requested that we bring him a guitar and he specified the colors to be BLUE and YELLOW. With the help from the group from Central Baptist Church in Paris, they were able to get the guitar to this group and we took it to him. He was totally surprised when we presented this guitar to him. Now here is an amazing fact about this Chief: he is 116 years old. He is now moving around slowly and this time he had to sit in a chair while we were presenting the guitar to him, but he is still active in the tribe. He and the others around him loved the guitar. They were excited to receive the guitar as the one they had had only few strings and it could not be tuned for them to make presentations in the city.

This group was an all men group. I especially had a great time as three of this group were firemen and we had worked together for the Lexington Fire Department. We spent many late nights talking about old times.

On Sunday, these men taught all the Sunday school classes except the small children. Then on Sunday night Pastor Zik brought the message. What a blessing!

These men came to work and work they did. They finished laying the floor tiles in the upstairs and it is beautiful. They were able to do some painting also to finish some projects that we had not been able to get to. The church building is really coming alive. How AWESOME is the God we serve!

Thanks Durbin Memorial Baptist Church and especially Pastor Zik, his father Bob Zik, Ron Logan, Charlie Davis and Bob Hendriks.

As always if you are thinking about a mission trip give us a call and come on down.

You will never know just how much Barbara and I appreciate your prayers and financial support. Without you and BFM, we could not do the things that we do here in Caraguatatuba, Brazil.

In His service,
Aj and Barb

Aj and Barbara Hensley
ajcaragua[at]gmail.com
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