Upcoming Seminary Graduation
September 4, 2022
Dear friends and family,
AWESOME is the Lord we serve. I am starting this letter a little different, because He is the One who is in charge, and He will carry us through. We will have the first graduation on schedule, and it will be on September 17th. How AWESOME is the God we serve. After so many attempts, it is really happening; however, not without some difficulty, but God is in charge. Some of the students are not able to attend this graduation because of conflicting schedules. Please pray for them as we go forward.
As for now, those who will attend stands as follows: nine (9) for the Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministries and eleven (11) for the Master of Arts in Biblical Studies. The difference between these two is that the Pastors who choose the Pastoral Ministries have an additional three (3) classes: Greek, Hebrew, and Thesis Writing. This course is only offered to Pastors. In addition, there are seventy others who will receive certificates for the classes completed until now. We are hopeful that these students will be able to complete the studies they have started. Many of them are very close to completion. Everyone seems to be excited, especially the Professors and I.
Barbara and I will be traveling on September 6th and will arrive in Brazil on September 7th. Pray for our trip. After the graduation, Pastor Derek, Pastor Marcos, and I will be visiting with the Pastors and students and future students to get them enthusiastic about the upcoming classes in 2022 and 2023. This will be lots of traveling and we will need prayers for safety.
COVID has set us back and rearranged our focus. So now we will begin to see how we can help the students with different aids. We are hopeful for the new semester and the new students. We are planning new ways the students can participate by rearranging the classes and offering more classes on Zoom. So, prayers for the students are greatly appreciated.
As we are waiting to make this next trip, we have been participating in the congregation at the First Baptist Church here in Florida. We help with their feeding the hungry program. Barbara took her haircutting equipment and cut one head of hair, and that started a line for haircuts. So, we see that no matter where we are, we serve the Lord.
Thank you for your continued prayers for our family and our seminary work.
In His Service,
Aj and Barbara
CONTACT INFO
AJ & Barbara Hensley
30524 Mimi St
Sebring, FL 33870-0530
AJ: 859-539-2302 | Barbara: 859-539-1424
ajcaragua@gmail.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
Transforming the Outreach Strategy
Dear Friends,
October 29, 2020
We are finishing up a great month of ministries! Our in-person attendance at our worship services has reached 95% pre-COVID numbers and our youth ministry is actually larger than it was before.
As I mentioned in my last report, our traveling evangelistic team has had to completely transform its strategy of outreach. Our public schools continue to remain closed to in-person classes, which was/is our principal venue for taking the gospel to the unreached. Brazil’s school year begins in February and ends in December, so most likely, there will be no return to classes until next year. We did discover other means and locations to minister, though.
This month we worked in partnership with a ministry that feeds the homeless. Because of the virus quarantine, many people lost their jobs. Some of those were people who were already struggling to make ends meet and, especially, to pay their rent. Many of those were forced to move out of their homes and ended up on the streets or under bypasses. Through the homeless population grapevine, these folks hear of where they can get a hot meal and some shoes, clothing and blankets. We have been going out regularly to some strategic points to meet, speak with and help as many of these people as we can. In every situation, our teams seek to share the love of Christ and the message of the gospel. The Lord has blessed by bringing many to Christ as Lord and Savior. Also, those members of our teams who minister the word are greatly blessed to see God use them and they come away even more grateful for the blessings that the Lord has poured out on them.
For many years we have had teams come from churches in the USA to partner with us in evangelism. In all of these opportunities I have sought to locate local English speakers to assist in translating for these non-Portuguese speaking volunteers. Two former volunteers had moved to the state of São Paulo, about a 6 hours’ drive from our city. They had asked their pastor if he would allow them to begin a worship service in English at their church following their regular Portuguese speaking service. He agreed and they began right around the beginning of the COVID outbreak. They continued the services, but were required to do everything through a live-feed video and not with a congregation present. The two volunteers who had met with and worked with me a few years back contacted me to invite me to go to their town and preach in English for one of their live broadcasts. It has been quite some time since I last preached in English, but I am always open to the opportunity to preach God’s word, whatever the occasion. Charlene and I drove there on a Saturday, spent the night, I preached on Sunday around noon and we immediately returned to our own church in time for the evening service. It was a neat adventure and we heard that that broadcast service reaches an audience of over 1000 people in several different countries. We are thankful to the Lord for this privilege to preach His word and share His love.
We pray that He’ll continue to use us for His glory and to give us wisdom and insight on ways to be faithful despite the strange times we are living in. We thank you for your faithful prayers and support for us.
In Christ’s love,
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Contact Info:
Bobby & Charlene Wacaser
Rua Laudelino Ferreira Lopes, 279
Sobrado 1, Novo Mundo
81050-310 Curitiba, PR. Brasil
Phone: 55-41-99899-2333
bobbymichael_1@hotmail.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online
Read more
Good News about the Good News!
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser have served the Lord as church planters in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil, since 1985.
Dear Friends,
Good news about the Good News! I truly love when someone under my leadership calls or writes to share with me that the Lord used them to win a lost friend or relative to Christ. I got that privilege again this week from Priscilla, one of the young ladies from my church. She told me that for several weeks she had been seeking to demonstrate the love of Christ to a coworker of hers who did not know the Lord. She wanted me to know that she had listened to the teaching from the pulpit about letting our light shine to those around us in order to open a door for sharing the message of the gospel. She had been seeking to do that with her friend from work and that friend finally asked what she must do to be saved. Priscilla showed her from the Bible how to surrender her life to Christ as Lord and Savior and her friend did just that. She brought her friend to the very next appointed church meeting and they both were overjoyed by God’s mercy and grace. God’s good news is still good news and He is still transforming lives through it.
Because of the COVID restrictions since early in the year, we had not attempted any of our special yearly church events that involve close proximity one to another. Finally, in September, those restrictions were somewhat lifted and we were able to put on our first married couples’ meetings of the year. It was a wonderful success. Many of our church members were so excited about being able to get involved in planning and executing a special event that they went over and above in the quality of the preparations. As a result, some of our couples were motivated to work on improving their marriage relationships. Some wives shared with Charlene that their husbands took the teachings to heart and made some clear efforts to be more romantic and considerate. I am grateful that we are getting the privilege of being able to meet and fellowship more freely, as well.
Our outreach team, Projeto Vida, has used the pause in public school classes to find other ways of getting the gospel out to people who don’t go to church, even by invitation. We discovered that many people who lost their jobs during the pandemic have also lost their homes. Our homeless population has increased exponentially this year. The majority of them struggle to find enough to eat, so our team prepares hot meals and takes them to strategic locations where many homeless people gather. While serving their food, and afterward, we offer to pray for their needs and to sit down and talk about the issues that they want to share. We know that we can’t “fix” all their problems, but we do share the message of the grace and mercy of Christ and the power of God to change even the direst of situations. Almost all of them accept the food graciously. My hope is that our efforts have a double (or more) impact: 1) That those who receive our gift of a hot meal can see the love of Christ in us and behind our efforts and, 2) That our own members will be touched by the plight of those whose situations are worse than their own and will be grateful for God’s blessings and share them for the increase of His glory.
Thank you so much for your faithful prayers and support of our ministry here in southern Brazil.
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
In Christ’s love,
Bobby and Charlene Wacaser
Contact Info:
Bobby & Charlene Wacaser
Rua Laudelino Ferreira Lopes, 279
Sobrado 1, Novo Mundo
81050-310 Curitiba, PR. Brasil
Phone: 55-41-99899-2333
bobbymichael_1@hotmail.com
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online
Read more
