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
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Teaching Pastors in Paraná; Another New Building Project
Mike and Beverly Creiglow have served the Lord in Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil together since 1971. In addition to pastoring First Baptist of Cruzeiro do Sul, Mike builds his own boats and frequently travels up and down rivers to share the Gospel with those who have never heard.
November 21, 2016
Dear Brethren,
Just after the vacation in the States I had a visit to make to some churches in southern Brazil. This had been set up for over a year. One of our guys went to seminary in the state of Paraná. While there he met and married one of the girls from down there. After graduation, he accepted the pastorate in the city of Ponta Grossa (population 400,000) near the capital city of Curitiba. The work is new and the church is small, but already growing at a nice pace. He began with 10 members and now has 48. The history of the work is unique. Another church in town started and actually organized the new church, but then it fell apart and the mother church “downgraded” it to a mission point again! That is where and when Edeilson and Priscilla came in. Anyway, I met with the five pastors and many members of their churches to encourage and teach them about missions and small groups. The building was full all four nights. Their seating capacity is 120 max, but many more showed up and stood inside and out. This is very encouraging as the southern states are well known for their hardness and rejection of the Gospel. All the pastors are eager to grow and reach out. All of them were very welcoming, even the associational missionary….
Since returning from Paraná I have plunged in to another big building project. The church has given the OK to put up a 6,700 square foot metal structure over our present facility. After this is up and under roof we will start modifying the present building to more than double our seating capacity. We have already put up the pillars along the outside and in a few more days the new steel trusses will be in place. Our major gains will be by increasing the total height by over two times and adding balconies all around three sides. We can now seat around 850 people and hope to get at least room for 1700. Yesterday proves, yet again, that we desperately need the added space.
Yesterday morning we had our last baptism service of the year followed by the Lord’s Supper. The building was completely full. The men had to fill the aisles with chairs and the walls along the sides and the vestibules were full of people standing. Our communion trays hold about 700 cups, but the men had to fill a bunch more cups and distribute them before everyone was ready to partake. I baptized 54 more new members. 15 of these were from the home church. All the others were from our 9 chapels here in town and 2 of our congregations up river. In my 50 plus years in Cruzeiro do Sul we had never had a cold front in the month of November. Well one came through on Friday and sent the temps into the mid 60’s. The water was COLD. Easy on the air conditioning though! The building was packed again at night. We have had 2 more saved and a number of other decisions, including more requests for baptism.
Our church has 4 basic courses that are taught 3 or 4 times every year: Discipleship, Membership, Personal Evangelism and One with God. Last week I taught the last round of the Membership course to about 25 new members, giving the 8 lessons over three nights.
This month I have also been making the rounds visiting some of our other works. The last visit was to Cruzeirinho. They are now in their new building although they still don’t have windows, doors or ceilings. Over 200 were present for that visit.
Thanks for all of your prayers and support. God bless you as much as He has us.
In Christ,
Mike Creiglow
Mike and Beverly Creiglow
Caixa Postal 24
Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil 69980
mdcreig [at] hotmail.com
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