"Its Summer time in the City"

Dear friends,

This last week was super hot and humid, with lots of typical summer thunder storms. Today is back to cool weather and rain all day long. Its Summer Time in Sao Paulo...though not offically summer until the 21st.

Rene and I made a trip to the interior of the country to the state of Minas Gerais. I preached a "Couples Conference" for Brazilian missionary Rodenele. The little town of about 4000 people now has a Baptist Church going strong. The new pastor, Luciano, and his wife Renata were children in the church we started in Cotia in the 90's.

It was a seven hour drive to and from the meetings and on Monday morning we took off early because we had a Pastor-Wife fellowship at our church that night. I grilled the chicken and sausage for everyone. We had 38 present. The fellowship was great and no one seemed to be in a rush to leave.

Rene and the ladies of our team put together a Christmas Tea for the church ladies. There were 34 present for that event. The ladies each brought a small gift and then drew names upon arrival. Each woman got up and made a little speech in which they tell funny or nice things about the person whose name they drew.Then they hug. Its lots of fun for them...I guess its a woman thing.

We've been spending a lot of time at the parsonage lately. Our new pastor Rodrigo and his wife, Driele, will move in as soon as we can get it ready. We've been plastering and sanding walls; making electrical and physical repairs and now, painting. On the outside we're putting in a car port and stair from the car port to the entrance of the house below.

Rene celebrated her birthday on the 21st of November. She enjoyed all the cards and calls she got. We will celebrate our 34th anniversary this Friday, the 17th of December. We will go walk around a new mall then go out to supper.

In addition to the regular preaching and visiting, I also made special trips to conduct a children's meeting, do a teacher seminar,

lead the board meeting at our Bible college in Curitiba,

participate in the ordination of Jorgival one of "our boys" who is in his first pastorate.

Here he is (with tie) and the men who pastor the churches we have started in the Sao Paulo area. From left to right: Barueri, Cotia, Jandira and Carapicuiba. On the far right is John Birch, no I mean, Jeff Traver, our co-worker.

Thanks for your prayers and friendship. May the Lord bless you,

Graham and Rene

Spring forward in October

We are one month into Spring and its been cool enough for sweatshirts and heavy blankets at night. Here are a few pictures from last month.









The three atheletes in orange are part of my favorite soccer team.
I understand that they let children who are not my grandkids play on this team. I am not sure of this however.












Here are some pictures of our kids program in the park.

















Lastly some of the sweet stuff we keep in the nursery.




Lord bless, Graham and Rene Foran

Looking back

On September 7 we commemorated the Brazilian Independence Day with a picnic...but due to pouring rain we ended up having it at the church. About 60 people came (I figued that everyone would stay home!) Some of the kids said, "Why aren't we going to the park?"

I had a meeting with these men from the Sao Jorge church to try and figure our what should be done about a zoning problem. It could result in the relocation of the church.

I preached for the 10th anniversary of the Jandira church. Here is a picture of the auditorium

the choir and

Daniel. He and his family will be headed to the Bible College in Curitiba in January. One other family from our church is doing the same thing.

Pray for growth and maturity at the Carapicuiba church.

Deus vos abençoe,

God bless,

Rene and Graham

short and sweet

Just a couple of pictures that sum up this month.

It doesn't get much better than this!

Isaiah and one of the fish he caught fishing with Grandpa.

Here's our new pastor and wife, Rodrigo and Driele. They started (officially) last Sunday, but have been working in the church all the month of July.

Lord bless,

May Doings

We had several special things going on this month. The annual Mother/Daughter Tea














the youth rally














The church's birthday (no one knows when the congregation first started so I picked a date for our birthday) on May 23.

Here's the crowd and a men's group singing.





















We were able to confirm Rodrigo and Driele as our new pastoral and wifal(? wife of pastoral) candidate. To be voted on by the church in July.

Pray for this sharp couple.



We had a baptism on the 30th. These are the folks we baptized. We also received three new members



Thanks for your prayers and love,


Graham and Rene Foran
Serving with Baptist Mid Missions since 1986

Catchup

Ketchup is great on hotdogs and hamburgers, but I hate to play "Catchup" with all the apologizing and lame excuses that go along. Let it suffice that I didn't get around to blogging due to an overloaded schedule and computer problems. Any way, I have time and the computer is working (mostly) again. I actually started two other blogs, but neither saw the light of day and went into the cyberspace trash. (I couldn't get the pictures uploaded) I 'll just explain the pictures I posted as the simplist way of covering the lost ground.




In February-March we planned (I am on executive commitee) and executed a conference recognizing Baptist Mid Mission's 75th anniversary in Brazil. We had a great week of conference. My daughter and a friend came for the conference and stayed over for about a week. A week later our good friend Fred Wolhuter came for abour 6 days.

I preached two evangelistic conferences and we saw men saved in each meeting (husbands of church members) as well as others. One was in Boituva with our "preacher boy" (grown up) Lucio in his new church plant. We took some of the young people from our Carapicuiba church
and they ran the children's work and went visiting for the church.




We also enjoyed a visit from my daughter-in-law and her mother. (yes they came without our grandkids!) They came to get root canals and crowns done. We enjoyed their company and when the days work was done we got in quite a few hands of Rook. We took no pictures at all of their visit, but here are two of the kids waiting for Becca at the airport and then their reaction with momma arrived! These are great.

We thank you for your prayers and concern for the ministry and our family.

Love, Graham and Rene Foran

Thermal shock!

Thermal shock happens when you get caught between the extremes of heat and cold. We left for the States with summer in full bloom and arrived in a full blown winter storm! It was great though. We were with grandkids and their parents and their great grandparents. (our kids and folks) here you see me reading to an attentive crowd.













Here I am translating for a man, a frog and a dog. It was part of our Family evangelistic outreach with Evangelist Barry Webb. He did a great job with preaching, chalk talk and music.

Here's a young family that dropped in on us last week. The wife was in our youth group and became our first Bible College student and grad. She and her husband serve the Lord in Curitiba, south Brazil.

Here's a link to our son Nathan's video for his deputation ministry:
http://www.tangle.com/view_video?viewkey=8fb197a8fd0e9440e599

Lord bless, Graham and Rene Foran

Serving with Baptist Mid Missions in Brazil since 1986