Brazil Trip

I leave tonight for Brazil. I would appreciate you accompanying me with your prayers.

I am going to introduce a broad spectrum of church leaders there to the President of LAM and to two Board Members. We are going to listen and to ask about the role of a 100 year old mission that was born to evangelize Latin America.

What is our role in a Latin America that, increasingly is evangelizing the World?

Brazil is a good place to explore this. I have felt carried along by the Spirit and by the experiences and relations that God has given me since the first time Lake sent me to Brazil in 1970 and then as a new missionary couple in 1977. There is a pay off for having been at this so long.

The reason we are taking this trip is to better see a) the work that God has been doing in Brasil, b) the way the advance of the gospel in Brazil is producing leaders and c) what the mission of evangelicals in Brazil means for the world we live in.

We are motivated by these three purposes:

1. We understand that the Sports events of 2014 and 2016, in Rio de Janeiro, will implicate the gospel in Brasil in several ways–it will give continuity to the process by which Brazilian evangelicals think about (and act) more and more intentionally in relation to the world outside of Brasil. One of the things that the world might possibly learn about Brazil will be how extensive has been the move of God in Brazil and some of the impressive commitments His people have made (or maybe they won’t see it!) for improving the world we live in. As a mission agency, in LAMwe are involved, in a small way, in the initiative of Brazilian evangelicals along these lines. We are participating in a small way by providing personnel to the “Campaign against child and teen sexual tourism in Brazil” project. Our perspective is international and, traditionally, this has meant international from the perspective of the North toward Latin America. Now, it is meaning, increasingly, together with Latin America toward the rest of the world. We want to follow the events related to 2014/16 as they unfold with the participation of Brazilian evangelicals so that we can better understand how God will open the world up to the Brazilian church and the Brazilian church to the world, and come to know whether we have a role to fulfill in that.

2. LAM was born, and has served, for nearly 100 years in a flow from North to South. The gospel was in the North and the need was in the South. Now things are not that way, and part of the development of a new reality is tied up in the developments in Brazil. We are wanting to re-orient ourselves to continue to follow in the Lord’s footsteps as he leads us forward. I am hoping that this trip, with LAM leaders, will help us capture a better idea of what God is doing in Brazil, the place of evangelicals in what He is doing, and take note of the level/quality of leaders that have been produced by this move of God. We want to understand how these new realities will lead LAM to be different in the future.

3. The role of Brazil in Latin America. Brazil has never been a major area of efforts by LAM. But with each day that goes by, the evangelicals of Brazil are participating more in the gospel in the rest of Latin America. At times with the same kind of imperialism as the US, and at other times as companions, some times receiving from Spanish speaking Latin America, sometimes sending, and sometimes working side by side. We understand that Brazil, and the leadership of Brazilians, has something to do with our future, and we are trying to understand what role Brazilians play in it.

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