Jon at his folks NOV. 30 TH for their 50th wedding ANIVERSARY
Besides the things we mentioned in the email and the year end report below we have seen God do some cool things in the kid's lives here.
COOL STORY NUMBER ONE:
One of our youth, Kevin who had backslidden and we had been challenging to return to God had a serious wake up call. A guy he used to rob people with showed up wanting the cell phone back that Kevin had stolen and sold. He pulled a gun on Kevin, threatening to shoot him. Kevin shut his eyes and said a quick prayer "God I need a miracle now!" He felt the gun against the side of his head and heard it click twice but no shot. The kid with the gun just freaked and took off running. When Kevin told our Urban Missions leader Pastor Marcello about it. Pastor told him to pray for the guy. A few nights later Kevin had a dream so incredible that he decided to tell no one until it came to pass. The dream was that this same guy who hated evangelicals and church would give his life to the LORD and go to an encounter weekend. A few weeks later he saw the guy again and in fear was thinking of hiding. The guy called out him, "don't run". He told him right after their last encounter it frightened him badly and some youth came and talked to him about Christ and the gospel. He committed his life to Christ and he went and did an encounter weekend. It turned out to be the SAME WEEKEND KEVIN HAD HIS DREAM.... How COOL IS THAT. Needless to say Kevin doesn't need anyone to drag him to church by the ear any more.
COOL STORY NUMBER TWO:
While I was in the states Dulce decided to take youth group to the beach. As the kids were worshipping unashamedly on the public beach along the river a young man from Belgium came up asking what they were doing. He was speaking English. Israel talked to him first, then Dulce. He said he felt such "positive vibes" from them and he felt compelled to join them. When they explained we were worshiping and having fun just praising God. He told us he was kind of a nominal Catholic. He beleived in it but didn't practice much. He enjoyed them so much that Sunday he came to church. They had folks coming back from encounter weekend and as they were celebrating the life transformation that took place in so many lives, they began to spray water on the youth who were dancing to symbolize the rain of the Spirit in their lives. (I know it sounds crazy but you just gotta know Brazilians.) Any way the guy just kept taking pictures and laughing. HE LOVED IT! he asked Dulce if it was always like that there. She answered truthfully no- it is different most every Sunday and ya never know what might happen on any given Sunday. (Kinda like the NFL- ONLY WAY COOLER). He had to do some more traveling in Brazil but said when he is back in Manaus he's coming to our church.
Check out our year end report if ya like below.
THANKS FOR PRAYING FOR US AND FOR TAKING AN INTEREST!
A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO MY FOLKS FOR BEING SUCH EXAMPLES FOR US AND FOR BEING AN INSPIRATION AND SUPPORT IN EVERY WAY. THANK YOU PASTOR WADE FOR YOUR ENDORSEMENT AND TO THE FIELD'S FOR HOSTING ME, AND GETTING ME TO AND FROM ATLANTA. THANK YOU CLYDE AND PATTI FOR MIDNIGHT RUNS AND THE AWESOME RIDE THEY GAVE ME TO USE, AND THANKS GREG AND KATHY FOR EVERYTHING AND THANKS TO ALL THE FOLKS AT NEW COVENANT, CROSSROADS, GRACE FELLOWSHIP, THE FOLKS AT HARDACRE'S CARE GROUP, ALL OF YOU WHO GAVE SPECIAL OFFERINGS, OUR REGULAR SUPPORTERS, EASTGATE FOLKS, THE WISCONSIN SUBMISSION WRESTLERS, CHUNG AND DAVE ALL OF YOU WHO JUST SHOW THE LOVE AND ENCOURAGE US SO MUCH!!!
GOD BLESS YOU!!!!
Eastlick’s 2007 Year end Report:
In 2007 in general, as staff at Igreja Allianca Dulce and Jon participated in more than 145 church services. They worked as assistants, taking offerings, praying for people, ministering in the word or in song. Talita finished High School in the states and began studies at U.W. Platteville. Lucinda participated in a weekly cell group and a children’s dance team as well as helped in the nursery all year. Israel assisted in the youth ministry often played guitar for these events. He will also begin to teach drums for beginners 8-10 years old next year. As a family the Eastlick’s made one trip to the states where Jon had 22 speaking engagements and traveled over 2000 miles by car and bus ministering in 3 states. Jon also went to the states for a 2 week trip alone where he spoke at New Covenant Galena and Crossroads Freeport as well as a Mission Freeport Concert of Prayer. He also did training in Georgia for a short term mission team that is coming to Brazil in Jan. 08. He ministered in Georgia to a youth group, 2 adult services and spoke twice in a Christian school as well.
· Dulce projected, planned for, trained 15 workers for, prepared a room for and began a ministry to care for toddlers in the church during worship services (Israel and Lulu assist with this).
· She also taught bi-weekly English classes for an average of 10 students, and trained up a youth praise band.
· We facilitated Friday night meetings for junior high that grew from about 40 to often times 80 or more in attendance with an average of 65 youth per week.
· We consolidated our 4 cell groups into 3 and passed them off to Brazilian leaders to lead.
· We started a leadership team for the youth ministry that meets weekly to pray, plan for and assist youth ministry events and weekly meetings. (There are currently more than 12 people working consistently with this team.)
· Jon started an evangelism team in February that does weekly training and weekly or bi-weekly outreach to the community. The team varies in numbers from 8 to 24 according to the availability of the students and their schedules.
· We started “Project Power of Presence” and trained and mobilized a dozen youth and young adults to adopt their streets, schools and work places and to be a “presence” there through prayer, their example and witness. (This is ongoing through the evangelism team and the youth meetings.)
· We did two youth retreats, (one in the Spring and one in the Fall) a Summer festival, and a leadership retreat.
· We started a weekly youth prayer and intercession team in July that meets every Thursday to pray for the youth, youth meetings and youth ministry; average attendance is 10-12.
· Jon visited, trained with and witnessed to wrestlers and Jiu Jistu athletes from 5 different academies and including the University of Amazonas for a total of approximately 35 meetings.
· Because of high incidences of abuse; sexual, verbal and physical, we began in October, one on one counseling appointments with youth. We are trying address these issues in their lives on a personal level as well as provide support for them and their families for restoration.
· We oversaw “THE Ministry of Urban Missions”: (M.M.U. is the acronym in Portuguese)
-M.M.U. prepared a major production called “The Victory of the Cross”. The presentation is a musical allegory of the victory of the death and resurrection of Christ. It involves special effects, lighting, smoke machines, music, dance, drama and costumes which MMU raised the resources for produced and presented 5 times for the public for more than 2000 people and at least 130 decisions for Christ.
- M.M.U. went to the downtown areas and served soup to street people 3 times, visited 2 different orphanages, assisted in 4 open air meetings in the neighborhood parks and several youth meetings at church.
- The M.M.U. youth also assist the church 2 times per week during the Weekly Sunday Celebration Service and the weekly Tuesday Impact Service cleaning and caring for the 8 bathrooms, they serve water for the congregants and serve parking and watching cars of the congregants during service, and they assist in the bi-monthly overall cleaning of the 70 by 100ft 2 story church facility.
SUMMARY: All in all 2007 was an encouraging year as our kids got over their culture shock (Mom and Dad too). We were able to finally delegate our cell groups which involved a LOT of pastoral care. We did lose about 12 people out of the original cell groups through the transitioning out of our direct leadership but through 2007 the groups have continued and now are growing once again. Fabio, Darlan and his wife have not only taken over but have started other cells of their own and are caring for 50 or more people among them. As we got out of the cell groups care we were able to specialize and disciple people in the areas of worship and evangelism as well as help the church in general areas of need like the childcare for toddlers with a numbered check- in system like the one we use at Crossroads.
We also have been able to deepen relationships with our youth workers and youth even getting to know intimate details of their lives and help them work through serious issues in some cases. We feel we have a strong base to build on, yet there are many who still are in such difficult circumstances and unstructured home environments that they are definitely “at risk”. We are looking forward to 2008 as a year that we will receive more teams and interns. We have 4 young adults scheduled to intern with us form the USA for 2-4 week periods. We have a team of 13 coming in January to work with us on a youth camp. We have a team of submission wrestlers in the works hopefully to come in July as well as a probable team from Fulton IL. We are hoping for a Crossroads team this year as well. We have hopes of putting together a couple leadership conferences, one for business leaders and one for church leaders if not a combined event. We have planned at least 2 youth retreats and a mission trip here in Brazil. There is the probability of a mission trip to Tanzania as well that I would like to bring my Pastor from Brazil if he is available.
Some of our major challenges are administrative assistance for the different projects and work we are doing, as well as finances for the youth ministry and local and regional missions. Our church is not set up with a budget for these items, nor does it have the resources at present. The income of the church goes merely to utilities and salaries.
We take anything we need for our youth ministry, praise team and missions and evangelism teams out of our own pocket. We provide our own ink cartridges and paper, produce our own printed materials or pay to have it done. If we do an event or outreach we have to fund it as a youth group or as leaders. Typically we provide the “up front money” and we try to raise the money together with the youth. It has a value in training them in being resourceful and responsible as well as developing a work ethic but unskilled labor here typically can only make about $10 a day so the efforts can be labor intensive and counter productive at times. When, we have too many fund raiser projects or the kids have to work menial labor jobs too many hours they suffer in their studies or availability then for training, drama practice and ministry. Administrating various projects, keeping accounts, doing regular updates and quarterly reports with neither back ground in accounting nor any administrative assistance can be challenging at times as well.
If there is material you would recommend for us or some way we can be given tools, templates or consultation to help us with the administration of accounts updates and organizing and training folks to help in these areas, it would be much appreciated. Either way, please pray for us in this area and for us to have creative ideas for how we can develop resources and other means of income for mobilizing teams and mission projects. If there were persons with the skills and interest to come and visit us and make recommendations in these areas or folks with interest and capacity for business ventures either importing to or exporting from the Amazon please let us know. The region is rich in natural resources and is booming economically. If we can help folks make connections that can prosper them and the people of our church and city we would be more than happy to do that.
THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL THE SUPPORT YOU HAVE GIVEN US both AS A CHURCH AND AS INDIVIDUALS! THE PRAYERS, THE MONTLY REGULAR SUPPORT AND THE MONTHLY GIVING OF INDIVIDUALS FROM THE CHURCH IS SO GREATLY APPRECIATED!!! IT HAS REALLY MADE A DIFERENCE IN SO MANY LIVES. THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING US SO FAITHFULLY THAT WE CAN PUT OUR KIDS IN GOOD SCHOOLS AND HAVE THE TOOLS WE NEED FOR MINISTRY LIKE COMPUTERS, PRINTERS, SOUND EQUIPMENT, A VAN, A CAR, PROJECTERS, PHONES AND ALL THE THINGS YOU HAVE HELPED US BE ABLE TO PURCHASE!!! THESE THINGS ARE BEING USED UP IN KINGDOM SERVICE! MAY GOD BLESS YOU AND MAKE YOU GREAT IN 2008!!!
YOURS IN CHRIST,
Jon, Dulce, Israel and Lucinda
THE BRAZIL EASTLICK’S
