Sunday-Part 3

After Auristela's baptism and birthday lunch we had more even more people come to our house.

Why? For another baptism.

Our brother, Rafael, had decided he wanted to show his faith through baptism as well.

So we all went back outside to our big tupperware container.

Flavia, his mother, and I had the privilege of baptizing Rafael but not before we had a time of sharing.

Bronwyn read some verses from Luke for Rafael. The verses of how heaven was having a party for him (and Auristela) on Sunday.

Don't you just love how Giovanni is really taking in God's word?

Benay then shared our family's love for Rafael. We've had the blessing of watching him grow from a young boy to this maturing young man. He's like a son to us.

His aunt shared how proud she was of him. Matt shared how this was a new beginning.  Even his young cousin shared some classic comments that just fit perfectly with our house church and how we like to have a good time. His quote was, "Sometimes you are mean but for a cousin you are really cool!" Lots of sharing.

Flavia then shared what her son meant to her and how proud she was of him.  How she had been praying for his decision for years and how faithful our God is. Very special.

Then Flavia and I had the honor of baptizing Rafael.

I really love the big smile on Flavia's face as Rafael comes out of the water. What an incredible blessing it was for her to spiritually and physically be such a big part of her son's new beginning.

After his baptism, Rafael then shared a little bit and thanked God for his church family.

Then it was time for everyone to love on our brother. Our church family is good at doing that.

Please keep Rafael in your prayers. I think I shared last week that he goes to school in another city. On Sunday he took an hour long bus ride to get here so that he could be baptized and then he took the hour bus ride back home that night.  Please ask God to give him strength to continue growing in his new faith walk. He's not surrounded by very many, if any, Christians where he lives. If you are a Christian then you know how hard that would be to not have a family of faith encouraging you in person. Phone calls are good but they don't match one on one time with God's family.  Now imagine doing that when you are a 17 year old. He will be with our family ever other weekend but he will need lots of prayers as he begins this new part of his life.

Thanks, in advance, for praying for him.  He is a really special young man.

As you can tell from our blogs so far, Sunday was an amazing day. But God isn't done. Tomorrow we'll share more of what He did on Sunday.

O Espirito Santo

The Holy Spirit. That's what the title says in Portuguese. He's really working in our house church.  It's a pretty amazing and humbling experience.  

We wanted to share something He did on Sunday.  

We had a birthday party for Cássia.  Our house was full and it was a real blessing.  Click here to go to my girlfriend's blog and read about the party. 

Before we had the party we had a time of worship together.  This was really good because Daiana's relatives were there.  It gave our house church a chance to be Christ to them.  When I took them home they spoke of how much they enjoyed their worship time with us.  

The Spirit was moving and we hope her family will come back again and worship with our church family. 

He also worked on the heart of Rafael.  He is the son of Flavia and he has been a part of our house church since the beginning.  He's a great young man.  

Flavia is a single mom.  She has two sons.  One lives in a city in another state that's not close to us.  This year Rafael was accepted to a trade school in a neighboring city.  He's still in high school, so he is living with his grandmother and attending this school in the other city.  He comes back to Porto Alegre on the weekends to be with his mom.  

Our worship time on Sunday consisted of people picking out their favorite songs.  Everton led a prayer for the Lord's Supper with Bronwyn, Carys and Anderson serving everyone after the prayer.  

Before Everton's prayer Benay got up and whispered into Rafael's ear.  She asked if he would read Philippians 2:1-18 before Everton's prayer.  You need to understand that Rafael is a pretty shy young man when it comes to speaking during the worship.  That's completely okay.  I don't do much speaking in groups either. It wasn't that Benay was trying to force him into doing something he doesn't like to do so that he could get comfortable doing it. Not at all.  As I type I can't remember more than 1-2 times that we've ever asked Rafael to do something in our worship time.  What was different about this was that Benay was being led by the Spirit to ask him to read for the group. Rafael agreed to read.  He read and it was really special.  I always prefer to listen to people who don't think they can pray, read, etc. over preachers, etc. The humility with which they do these things is very close to God.  Not saying preachers aren't humble, but give me the other person every time.  

Anyway, after Rafael read, his mom ended our service with a prayer.  Flavia has a gift for prayer.  Rafael has always had a good example in his own house of a prayer warrior.  

Right after our worship time together we started the birthday party.  Rafael asked me to come out of the room because he wanted to talk to me.  He then told me he wanted to be baptized.  I turned around and Flavia was standing there with a HUGE smile on her face.  Benay and I hugged and loved on Rafael and then Flavia asked us to announce it to the group. That announcement was met with applause.  It was very cool. 

I asked him when he decided to be baptized and he said it happened when he was reading the words from the verses Benay asked him to read.  It was later affirmed in his heart during his mom's prayer.  

I love how the Spirit used my girlfriend and Rafael's mom at the exact moment to touch Rafael's heart.  

Later I took Rafael to the bus station and then took Flavia to her house.  It was like God was giving me special time with them to physically see the change that had already happened. Very cool. 

Rafael will take a bus back to Porto Alegre on Sunday to celebrate his baptism and then take a bus back later that afternoon. 

Sunday is going to be an awesome day but don't think the Spirit is done.  He has already planned 3 more special things to happen on Sunday as well. I'll save those blogs for next week but know that He is working and blessing our house church in ways we could never have imagined.  

John 3:6  "Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life."

1 Corinthians 6:11 "Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."