Finley Gary Rosemarie 1994 Brazil

7/27/2019 Finley Gary Rosemarie 1994 Brazil

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Chris t fo r Sao Lms:A TEAMMINISTOYTO SAO LUIS, MARANHAO,BRAZIL

NEWSLETTER

March 1994 Volume no . 8. I ssue no. 1

I t r

GREET INGS FROMGARY, ROSIE, IAN & BRITTON FINLEYChrist for Sao Luis

Calumet Street Christ ian Church2240 Eas t Calumet Street

Central ia , IL 62801Church Office: (618) 533-4421

Gary & Rosie FinleyCaixa Posta l 1088

65001-970 Sao Luis, MaranhaoBrazil, South Amer ica

To Cal l Us From the U.S. Dia l: 011-55-98-226-1391

ic


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uncy tlvc/ ^n,QA^^X/As we announced in our November/December newslet ter, we will be in the U.Sand reporting to our supporting churches from July through December of 1995. So farwe have not received any requests from our supporting churches to schedule a genera

presentation (however, several Sunday school classes and other groups have contacteus). We know from experience that it is not possible to schedule 12 presentations fothe month of November, there are just a limited number of Sundays available inmonth .

If your congregation supports this ministry, please decide at this time when yowould like to have us bring a report of what has happened over the last two and a halyears. Notify us in writing at: Christ for Sao Luis / Gary & Rosie Finley / C.P. 108865001-970 Sao Luis MA / Brazil. Or, if you prefer, you may reach us by phone bdialing 011-55-98-226-1391. The-best time to call is between 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm (youtime).

Please include the date you prefer, and at least one alternate. We would like treceive all of these requests by April 15 (that should be an easy one to remember)Failure to file a prompt request could result in substantial fines and interestpenalties (juskidding!).Seriously, we are eager to see you again and share with you the exciting ways tha

God has blessed our work during this term on the field. Please let us know by the 15th

With Much Apprecia t ionSince January 1990 Floyd and Lela Johnson have faithfully served as ouforwarding agents. Over the past five years we greatly appreciated the time and energthey put into this ministry. They are now retiring. We both thank and commend them

for a job well done!This January^t Mike Warden began serving as our new forwarding agent. Alonwith our supervising em^i=&~at Calume^^reet Christian Church, we welcome him to thministry. The address for contributions and correspondencewith Mike remains the sam(see the front page of this newsletter).^

(Note: Newsletter is for March 1995, not 199A)


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We announced in our November newsletter that we were able to rent a secondoom in our office building to be used as an outreach center. The Center For Biblicaloffered its first course in January. The four part series is entitled "How to Studye Bible". By the end of February eleven people will have completed the course.bout 20 others enrolled but failed to show up for the first class (this is a cultural traite have grown to expect, but it is still frustrating).Of the first groupwhocompleted the course in January (6youngadults)5 agreedgo on to study the Good News lessons with us individually (these are the lessons wese in evangelism). We will let you know what results this brings.The Center For Biblical Studies is also hosting an English language Bible study onednesday evenings. After three weeks our group has grown to 10 participants. Were studying the Gospel of John. Three of the participants are members of our Sao

rancisco church, so we view this as an excellent evangelistic opportunity.In addition to our outreach activities, the Sao Francisco congregation is now usingr outreach center for their worship time on Sunday mornings.

On Christmas morning Carlos celebrated the birth of our Lord Jesus byxperiencing his own new birth. Carlos was baptized by John Navis, obeying the sameof our Lord that his wife Anna had heeded a few months earlier. Their eighthildren make up about a third of our youth program at the Pirapora church.

In January we rejoiced as Edvan baptized his friend Lucio. Edvan is only 13 butas already accepted what many of our adult members are still resisting. That being thethat God has called every Christian to tell the Good News to any who will hear.

Later in January another young man, Miguel (16), was baptized by John Navis.Pra i se G od fo r th e victor ies He has won!


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N e w s & No t e sThe Portuguese edition of the NewInternational Version of the New Testament is nwidely available in Brazil. The complete Bible (OT &NT) should be released sometilater this year. Since our work began 5 years ago, we have been using A BibliaLingLiagem de Hoje (the Portuguese equivalent of Today's English Version). Whencomplete NIV Bible is released we plan to switch, believing it to be a supert ranslat ion.

OIn January we traveled to the town of Araguaina in the state of Tocantins forannual Northern Brazil Christian Missionary Conference. Our Speaker this year wGlen Liston from Owasso, Oklahoma. Glen spoke on the subject of leadersdevelopment. Shirley Liston (Glen's wife) led an afternoon session for the ladies.always the conference was truly enjoyable. We came away encouraged and challengOWe have translated the Wiat the Bible Says filmstrip series from Good NProductions into portuguese, and have begun using it as a pre-evangelism tool. Oneour member families invites their friends and neighbors into their home to seefilmstrips. Those who want to know more are invited to study the series of lessonsuse for evangelism. We will let you know more about the results in the months to co

Prayer / H a t te r sWhile we are in the U.S. later this year it is likely that Gary will have surgercorrect a hiatal (esophageal) hernia and related complications.The economic situation in Brazil has changed significantly since the Real (Branew currency) was released last July. Previous to that time the monthly inflationwas on average 40%. However, the exchange rate between the old currency andU.S. dollar generally kept pace with inflation. Translation: our living/working expe

remained about the same from one month to the next.

Since the Real was released inflation has slowed to around 3% a moHowever, the dollar has declined in value by about 20%. Translation: Since July ofyear our living/working expenses have increased in dollar terms bymore than 50%.probably noticed our budget for 1995 increased by less than 8%. Please pray that Gwill give us wisdom for these financially difficult times.


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Chr is t fo r Sao Lms:A TEAM MINISTRY TO SAO LUIS, MARANHAO, BRAZIL

NEWSLETTER

April 1994 Volume DO. 7, Issue no. 1

GREETINGS FROMGARY, ROSIE, IAN & BRITTON FINLEY

Christ for Sao LuisCalumet Street Christian Church

2240 East Ca lumet S tr ee tCentral ia. IL 62801

Church Office: (618) 533-4421Forwarding Agents Floyd & Ixla Johnson: (618) 532-4476


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MccdSomclLinq 1o Be ExciteJ Alxjut?-During the first three months of 1994 the Lord added eight newbelievers to His church in Sao Luis. This equals the number odecisions to follow Jesus that were made in all of 1993. In themonth of February, Gorette, Evan, Djaniro, Ligia, Lucellia andFrancisca were baptized into Christ. In March, Benedito andRivaldo were also baptized in obedience to our Lord's instruction(Matthew 28:19,20). Theyare nowbeing taught to obey the Lord'commands and are being equipped to make other disciples for ouLord .

-We currently have21 people studying The GoodNews lessons (thname of the series we use to present the gospel message).-Our Saturday evening Bible talk continues to attract newparticipants.

rieed Somciliincj io Ppaij /\lx>ui?-Tliank the Lord for the victories mentioned above.

-Intercede on behalf of all the new believers: 1) that they will growin their faith daily, 2) that they will be active and bold witnesses3) that they will resist the evil one.-Pray especially for Benedito that he doesn't become like the seedthat fell on the rocky ground (see Mark 4:5,6&16,17)-Pray for Elias that the Lord will convince him of the necessity foregular fellowship with the local church.


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HELP IS OX THIi: M AY!Jamerson is a young man in his early twenties. He came toow the Lord through the ministiy of the Cidade Nova Church ofhrist in Belem', Para, Brazil.During the last three years David & Carol Bayless have beenorking with the elders of the Cidade Nova church (a 14 year oldngregation which David helped establish) to train as many as are

illing to be evangelists/disciple makers.Jamerson was one of the first young people to get excitedthe idea and to become involved in the discipleship training.In Belem he led several of his friends to Christ. They areow evangelizing others as they share in the ministry of the Cidade

ova church. JamersoQ has completed his classroom training as aetallurgist, and will conclude his required apprenticeship in July.that time he will be moving to Sao Luis, hoping to find a job

so that he can work with us in the Sao Luis chu rch.Please pray for the Lord's continued guidance in all of this:

) That Jamerson will be able to find a job here) Tliat we will ha\'e a successful ministry working together inSao Luis) That the Cidade Nova church will continue to send outt ra in ed workers in to th e L ord 's harvest field.

By the way, the Mauriti Church of Christ in Belem iseparing workers using the same approach!


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A Great Start to a VearJanuary 17-22 of this year we once again participated inannualmissions conference sponsored bythe non-instrumental Chuof Christ missionaries working in Brazil. The conference was heldPirenopolis, Goias. Pirenopolis is an historic village set inmountains about two and a half hours from Brazil's capital, BrasilThe speakers for this years conference were Royce and P

Money. Dr. Royce Money is the president of Abilene ChristUniversity (Texas). He holds a doctorate in the field of clinpsychology. Pam Money has her masters degree in the same area ais a licensed marriage and family therapist. Among other importsubjects, the Moneys spoke repeatedly about building and maintainstrong marriages and parent/child relationships. They emphasizedimportance of strengthening these ties within the missionary familywell as equipping our church members to do the same for thfamilies .

Also participating in this year's conference was Karen JonesAlbuquerque, New Mexico. Karen teaches in the continueducation program at the University of New Mexico and is in privpractice as a self-management consultant. She conducts seminaround the country teaching people to better managers of their timmoney, interpersonal relationships, and other resources. Karen shamuch of the material from her seminars with us in the afternosessions.

This year we drove to the conference. To travel by car frSao Luis to Brasilia takes a little more than 30 hours. So, we dividour trip into 3 days, driving about 10 hours each day. The conferenproved to be well worth the effort. Following the conference


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0\' Chris t fo r Sao Luis:A TEAM MINISTRY TO SAO LUIS, MARANHAO, BRAZIL

NEWSLETTER

November 1!>94 Volame no . 7, issue no . 2

GREETINGS FROMGARY, ROSIE, IAN & BRITTON FINLEY

Christfor Sao LuisCalumet Street Christian Church

2240 East Calumet StreetCentralia, IL 62801

Church Office: (618) 533-4421Forwarding Agents Floyd &L^Ia Johnson: (618) 532-4476Gary & Rosie FinleyCa ixa Post al 1088

65001-970 Sao Luis, MaranhaoBrazil, South America

To CaU Us F rom the U.S. Dial: 011-55-98-226-1391


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In JulywecelebratedBritton's firstbirthdaywiththe traditionally large,Braziliparly. It was a success, with around30 people (or more) attending. We generally tto use birthday parties as a way to strengthen friendships with neighbors and neaquaintances. Our party was really quite small by local standards, but ifs hard tomany more people into our apartment! I believe that everyone had a good time, evthe birthday boy - he ate three pieces of chocolate cake!

In September we celebrated lan's fourth birthday. This time we had a musmaller party with a special guest fi-om the States. Grandma Sandy (VanQeve) camto visit with us for around three weeks! We decided to take Grandma on vacat ion wius to a nearby city so she could see more of Brazil than our living room. Now in opart of the country "nearby" is at least a 10 hour drive on bad roads. This little trip wtwo days of driving through terrain that is similar to a desert, in a car without eiconditioning. The city of Fortaleza was beautiful and we had a good time there. Yocan ask grandma for details of the trip! I think that she really enjoyed spending timwith the boys and they talk about "when grandma was here", all of the time. WeBritton doesn't, he doesn't say much of anything yet!

Our ladie's meetings are goingwell. Nowthat we have two congregationswe taturns having the meetings in the homes of the ladies from one congregation one monand from the other the next month. This is the only time they get to see each othsince they live on opposite sides of the city. These ladies have decided to study througthe whole Bible using a game format. Each person studies the assigned book of tBible, or certain chapters during the moDth before the meeting and at each meeting whave a contest to see who can answer the most questions correctly. It 's really becomthe highlight of our time together. We have just finished the book of Exodus. Itreally a great time of learning and everyone has to study because no one, except Ruand I, have prior knowledge of the Bible to draw on. The Bible is truly a new book fthem and they often get very excited when reading the "same old stories" that manyus have heard for years.

When a person makes the decision that they want to become a disciple of JesChrist, the first act of obedience to God's Word is to submit to baptism. We alwaallow the person being baptized to choose the locale where they would like to have


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(Cont.)one. Being an island on the Atlantic ocean gives us lots of water to choose from. Ielieve that so far everyone has chosen the ocean. Even one lady who had never beenn salt water before. I had the priviledge of performing myfirst baptism in the Atlanticcean with a young lady whom with I had studied the gospel. Well, I thought I wasoing to be doing it alone, but when we arrived at the preferred beach with the threeeople who were going to be baptized, the waves were about four feet high. So Garyelped. Baptisms on the beach have a little less ceremony to them, though we do tiyo sing and read a Scripture over the roar of the wind and waves, but they certainly addbit more excitement to an already exciting time!

1995 Budget ApprovedIfyou (as an individual or a congregation) are a regular financia! supporter of thisyou should have already received a copy of our 1995 budget. If not, pleaseact our forwarding agents at the address on the front of this newsletter and they will

et a copy in the mail to you right away.We thank each of you for your continued stewardship. May God continue toyour efforts in His service in your own communities even as he is blessing yourthrough us in Sao Luis.


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199 (5 rurgcusti PlansNext year we will be in the U.S. and available for speaking engagements from Juthrough December (1995). The primary purposes of a furlough are: 1) to allowa missionarykeep his/her supporters informed of the ^'ork which they underwrite, and 2) to allow tmissionary family time to renew and maintain family ties and friendships. We look forward

doing both during the later half of next year.Some missionaries follow a furlough schedule of three or more years on the fiefollowed by a one year furlough. Others take a short furlough of four to eight weeks every ye

Our current practice is to schedule a 4 to 6 month furlough every 2^ years.During our last furlough (August through November of '92) we discovered that it is npossible to report to all of our supporting churches within the span of four months (scheduliconflicts left some Sundays unbooked while others were requested by three or more churcheThis time we are extending our furlough to six months. This should insure us the opportunto report on a Sunday morning or evening to all of our supporting churches. Of course, ofamilies kind of like the idea of our being home a little longer too.Please help us achieve our goal of reporting to every one of our supporters byschedulia date for our presentation within the next month. The following approach will work best

us :

1) Select the date you prefer, along with two alternates should your first choiceunavailable

2) Decide on which occassions you would like for us to speak (Sunday morning onboth morning and evening, Saturday evening and Sunday morning, etc.)3) Notify us in writing at the following address:

Gary & Rosie FinleyC .P . 1 08865001-970 Sao Luis MABrazi l

Once we receive your request we will confirm the dates and send you a questionnairehelp us tayior our presentation to your needs and interests. It will take your letter about tweeks to reach us, and our reply will take an additional 10 days to travel back to you.We look forward to seeing you next year!


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Clipist Fop Sao LProgress Pepopt^ovml)ep 1994

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New Births Thus far in 1993 we have had 21 baptisms. This brings ourtotal number since the work began to 29. This has been a veiy encouragingyear so far.There are an additional 6 people who have finished the Good Newslessons who have notyet made a decision, butwho are continuing to study the

Bible with us. We are still hopeful that they will become disciples.Help Has Arrived Earlier this yearwe informed you thatwewere awaitingthe arrival of a young man from one of the churches in Belem. Jamersonarrived in Sao Luis at the end of June. Since that time he has become-involved inmany-asperts nfourwork. We have hired him_to work ^ringjh^week with us in our outreach center (the Center for Biblical Studies). OnSundays he is serving as worship leader in both of the congregations we haveestablished in the city (see related item below).

Jamerson is trained as a metalurgist and isseeking a full time job in thatarea. The large aluminum plant here on the island (Alumar) has showninterest in his resume, but insists that he take several computer courses at hisown expense before they can offer him a job. He is currently enrolled in oneof the required courses and will enter a second later this month.Please praythat hewill be hired and thus able to serve the Lord alongside of us for many years to come.

New Congregation Begins We now have two churches in Sao Luisestablished after the New Testament pattern. The last Sunday ofAugust wemet in two separate locations for the first time. The Sao Francisco areachurchis now meeting at awell known hotel. We are renting ameeting room for $28a Sunday. This congregation consists of 13 adult members and 3 children.


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The new church consists of people living in the Santo Antonio area.Theyare meeting ina public school. The rent isnominal (about $20 a month).They are quite happy that they no longer have to spend an hour on the bus toget to our worship assemblies. This congregation has 26 adult and teenagemembers and mo re th an 20 ch ildr en .

Both churches are now in the process of incorporating. Ruth andJamerson put together the paper work (quite a complicated task). We heldprovisional meetings with both congregations on September 11, and officialorganizational meetings on October 30. Now, the churches have to registertheir incorporation with the civil clerk's office and publish an announcementin the official state-government newspaper.This new registration gives the church the right to receive offerings,buy

and hold property in the church'sname, open a bank account,hire employees,e tc .

Outreach Center News We finally have a location for our Center for BiblicalStudies, We were able to rent a room in the fi-ont of the building where wehave our office. We can use it regularly as a place for individual studies, andset it up for 20-25 people when we offer our seminars. The first seminar istentatively scheduled to begin the third week in November.

God has truly blessed our work Evangelism continuesto be our #1 priority.Equal in importance is discipleship (equipping the believers not only to grow intheirfaith, but to evangelize others). Pleasepray that God will continue to opendoors of opportunity, so that His message of love and salvation will increasinglybe heard by the people of Sao Luis,

ServingOur Glorious Lord and Savior,Jjary

Finley Gary Rosemarie 1994 Brazil

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