NEWS – JUNE 19
Encouraging news from brazil
“Rachel and I have just spent eight very encouraging days with Rio Vivo Church, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. John Evans joined us from Mexico, and were all absolutely delighted to see how the church is flourishing under the leadership of Michael Rawlins”, writes Trevor Payne.
The church has grown and stabilised over the last year with several significant people having joined the team there since my last visit. One great success has been the development of free English language classes in their premises. They have seen over forty people attend since it opened and it is building a real bridge to the community around them. Many have visited the church on Sunday mornings too.
We visited four of the classes during the week and invited people to come along and hear my message on Sunday – six did and three gave their lives to Christ that morning, with two recommitments. On the Saturday, we held a leadership conference for the church and were delighted when leaders from two other churches attended too. One team had flown in from Belo Horizonte. Both groups have expressed interest in learning more about RB.
Just before we flew home, Rachel took some of the ladies through a seminar on prayer and intimacy with God, which was very well received and quite significant for some present. Please keep praying for Michael and Fernanda Rawlins and their team, especially for those living in the Favelas – it’s a dangerous and dirty place. Luke Simone (from Woking UK) now lives in Providentia Favela. He has built a community centre there and is now building a small school to teach literacy to adults.
For more details of Luke’s work and prayer requests, follow this link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rke7q7exmu6q07q/Prayer%20and%20Thanks%205.19%20%281%29.pdf?dl=0
…and from india
Franco Lonappan, with his wife Sweethin and their three sons, lives in Mumbai, India and is part of the leadership team of One Nation Church. The church is bi-lingual, although they have more than 14 language groups worshipping with them! They also have a fruitful work among the Leprosy sufferers called Karuna, which has been running for the last 20 years.
Franco reports:
Recently we had a camp with the Shikhar Church led by Giji and Binny in Orissa, on the eastern coast of India.
‘Shikhar’ means ‘mountain peak’.
It was their first camp as a church, going away and spending time together for 3 days.
We saw 11 people give their life to the Lord and many were empowered in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. It was a great encouragement for Giji and Binny who have been serving there for the last 13 years.
