Stinson Family in Brazil

Our mission here in Brazil is to reach as many people as we can with the Gospel. Our Lord told us to go into all the world and preach the Gospel and we are trying to do our part. We have the truth and we need to not be selfish with it but share it with others.

Our home church is Juanita Community Church in Kirkland, WA. Our church is a member of F.I.R.E. We work through Berean Baptist Missions in Brazil.

As we are doing this we are careful not to neglect helping them when we can with their physical needs (taking them to the doctor, buying medicine, buying food). How we can expect them to listen to our message if we ignore the fact that they need help? (Matthew 25:31-46)

I started this blog so that people would be able to see where we are ministering and also the people we are ministering to. It is so much easier, for me at least, to pray for someone when I know what they look like. With a picture they are a person and not just a name.

Jamie (for the Stinson family)

In July we started the process for ten couples from Colonia Betel to get married. There is a lot of red tape here so the documents were not ready until October. We informed the couples that they could marry and they asked for some time to get things ready for a party they were planning to celebrate the weddings. Doesn´t it seem like they would already be prepared, you ask? After all they had months. Alas, that is not the Brazilian way. So we finally decided to do the weddings on the 16th of November. Well...the judge couldn´t do it that day so...we picked the 23rd.

The day of the weddings after shuttling the wedding cakes that we had made for the party to Betel and dropping off mom and Jody to watch the cakes. Dad and I started shuttling people in to town. We got to the courtroom at 3:25 (the weddings were scheduled for 4:00pm but we wanted everyone there early). Well, the one couple that we hadn´t brought in (they live in town) wasn´t there. We were told that the wife had gone to the beauty parlor and had been gone for hours. Finally at a quarter till 4:00 they showed up.

Now we ran into our next problem. One of the couples that lived at Betel no longer lived there. She lived in town and he was working at a mill hours away from here. We had told her when the weddings would be and that he needed to be there (to get married and to serve as a witness for some of the other couples). He wasn´t there. He hadn´t heard about when the weddings would be because when he had called her house (he doesn´t have a phone and is only able to call her once a week when he can borrow a phone) she wasn´t home. Her relatives that talked to him neglected to tell him about the wedding. When we told the woman arranging all the documents for the wedding that he wouldn´t be there she was very mad. Without him there to sign the documents 3 of the other couples would not be able to get married. Finally after much anxiety she said that the other couples could get married but he would need to come back at another time to sign the documents. Whew! What a relief. We had one of the women almost crying when she thought that she would not be able to get married.

Then the shuttling of everyone began again. Dad sent quite a few of them (and me) in taxis out to Colonia Betel.

I thought I would tell you how many and where the meetings are that we have each week.

Sunday morning we drive 45 minutes to a colony called Betel (Bethel) and have a meeting in the school building there. There are about 25 to 30 adults and usually close to 40 kids that come to the meeting. I teach the kids along with one of my sisters and dad teaches the adults. After that meeting we drive about 10 minutes to a house where we have another meeting. On Monday evening Dad and Mom go to a nearby house (about a 15 minute drive) and hold a meeting with the family that lives there and anyone else from the area that comes. Tuesday we used to have a meeting at a ranch about an hour and 20 minute drive from our house but squatters invaded the land that we have to go through and they are violent to anyone who tries to go through. So for the time being we are not doing that meeting. Wednesday evening Dad and Mom drop my sister Jody and I at the area, about a 15 minute drive from our house, that we call the dam (there is a dam there that the owner of the ranch built to supply the area with electricity). We have a meeting there with the kids that live in the little colony of people that work on the ranch (it is just a group of houses that are near the dam). Dad and Mom pick up any adults that want to go to the meeting and head for a house about 45 minutes from the dam picking up other people that want to go to the meeting along the way. When Jody and I finish the childrens meeting at the dam, we walk home. It usually takes us 35 minutes to walk home. Two steep hills-one of them very steep- slow us down some. Friday dad goes to the jail in town (about a 45 minute drive) and teaches the prisoners. Saturday Dad and Mom go to another nearby house (about a 15 minute drive) and hold a meeting with the family that lives there and anyone else from the area that comes.

There are so many kids that we are able to teach. Some of them we are able to teach for years and others only maybe once or twice before they move away. They are constantly on our minds and hearts. Some of them are the only members of their household that come to church. A lot of time they come from homes that are not very loving. We try to give them as much love as we can and teach them of their need of a Saviour.

Our life is a work in progress so we will try to update this frequently.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

God bless,
Jamie