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."