Água De Vida

Hey everybody!

It has now been a week since the Festival began and the city is just about back to normal. This past week, God's glory was so evident in the city. Thousands of people were able to hear the name of Jesus, many even accepted Him as Lord in their lives. The Festival here in Parintins is such a dark time for the city, but this year, the light of Jesus shone throughout the whole city. On a very basic level, the Festival is sort of like a Mardi Gras celebration with huge floats and everything, but there are very demonic undertones as well as some very heartbreaking and destructive activity that the people indulge in. The church has two options. They can choose to avoid the Festival altogether and hide or they can counter Satan's attack head on by using this time as an opportunity to wins souls for Christ. Praise be to God that the church here in Parintins is choosing to collide with the culture. It was amazing to witness the church like this. I think that this is exactly what Jesus meant when he said, "Be in the world but not of the world". It was a perfect picture of Christians impacting the culture for Christ while still remaining different from the world. The campaign that the church hosts is called Água De Vida or Water of Life. the purpose of the campaign is to take a simple basic necessity, such as water, and use it as a tool to share the Gospel. The church bought 25,000 bottles of water, divided them up over three days, and gave out free water to thousands of people throughout the city. Every person who received a bottle of water heard the Gospel and received a track. There were about 4 water stations strategically placed around the city where water was being distributed. It was so incredible to witness the surprise on people's faces when they were given this free bottle of water, but it was even more incredible to share with them the free gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ. Along with the water, we gave out over 10,000 salvation bracelets. Everyone who received a bracelet heard the Gospel as well.  For me personally, it was very emotional to see young children in the church no more than 8 or 9 years old running up to complete strangers and telling them the sacrifice that Christ made for them. I have never see such courage and maturity as I saw in these children. It was so inspiring for me and I was so blessed by their boldness. I think that if the church was more bold like these children, the church would look so different. The church really stepped out of their comfort zone and proclaimed God's glory even at such a dark and dangerous time. Glory be to God for everything that He did during this past week. We would not for one moment take any of the credit for what God did this past week. It was truly amazing to witness the glory of God. We are now on the last two weeks of our internship here in Brasil and it is sad to think it has gone by so fast. Of course we miss our friends and family, but it has been so great to live here in Brasil for the past month. We really feel like God is stretching and molding us in new and different ways. Of course not all of it is easy, but it is necessary. Whenever we hand our lives over to Christ, it is always going to be uncomfortable, scary, and at some times lonely, but it is important to remember that this is what God has planned for us in our lives. His desire is for every believer to surrender their lives to Him so that we might declare His glory and make Him known among the nations. Please continue to pray for the nations, not just Brasil, but every country too. Since God has a heart for the nations, it is vital for us to have this same heart as well. We love our friends and family so much!! We will continue to keep you posted these last two weeks in Brasil!! Michael is still trying to figure out how to post pictures so this may come soon.

Em Cristo,
Michael and Leah Shell