ho ho home for the holiday

We had a full month (probably like yours) with the end of year programs. We had a two-night presentation of our cantata and play - O Maior Presente"" (The Greatest Gift by Ron Hamilton) We had about 100 on Saturday night and 139 present for Sunday evening. One lady, Salete, told me she accepted Christ after the play on Sunday night. She has been coming for some weeks now. I'm putting in some pictures of the choir and players. We are about to get on a plane this evening at 10:30 pm local time. We trust that we'll be with our grandchildren and their parents, aunts and uncles by this time (3:30 pm) tomorrow. Lord bless and thanks for your prayers.

Graham and Rene Foran

Katiebug

I just realized that we didn't take a lot of ministry pictures this month, so we're posting some of Katie's. Obviously she has too much time on her hands at BJU. (I mean sitting around on the ground!)

We had our November 15th holiday picnic (Proclamation of the Republic...Brazil was an empire...after it was a colony.) at the church. We used our future auditorium for a gym, with volleyball, relay races and food. Here are some of the men having a individual tug of war game while standing on concrete blocks. You win if you don't fall off! Letting go is often the key to victory.

One apparently contradictory note in the world's economic mess is the rise of the dollar. Looks like, no matter how bad things get in the USA, when there is a crisis the world runs to the dollar for refuge. This has worked to our advantage since the beginning of October. Recently, I paid $632 to buy 1000 reais (the Brazilian currency) This week I paid $420 for the same amount. We don't know if this is long term or short term, but it is a relief after several straight years of decline. We are now back up to where we were in 2000! This rise came at exactly the time we need to buy a pastor's house for the church. Its a good time to invest in ministry. Praise the Lord for his provision.

Lord bless, Graham and Rene

Team work

The big event this month has been the team from Calvary Baptist Church in Winter Garden, Florida, T.J. Klappenrich, pastor. We really enjoyed the team we laughed alot and enjoyed good spiritual fellowship too.






Pastor Brian Fernett lead the team and preached good Bible messages to the church in Carapicuiba and in the Barueri church as well.


Since I am the next best thing to worthless in construction matters, I tended to be the runner: food and coffee being my specialty, but I also went after tools and building supplies.

One funny thing about having a team is that they take pictures that we have never thought of taking. Everyone wanted pictures of a wall painted by local artists. I drive by the wall 20 times a week and never took a picture yet. Well, here it is now.

Sunday following the team visit we celebrated Children's Day. Since the actual holiday fell on Sunday our program was a little smaller than usual. Many potential visitors were out doing what Brazilians do on Children's Day, but we did have a good time with the children and had around 12 visitors.









And last but not least, a picture of my granddaughter. I love the expression.





Lord bless,
Graham and Rene Foran

Curricular Activities

In school you were often involved in "Extra-curricular" activities: things you did that were not directly related to your school work. Well I've included a few "curricular" activities. School work that isn't part of my usual list of "church planting" activities.

I started teaching a course on youth work at the Hope Baptist Bible Institute in Sao Paulo a the beginning of August. I have helped Missionary Marv Fray, founder of the school, from time to time. I'm not exactly a "first string" player, more of a "sub" sent in when the regulars break a leg.

I teach from 7:30 a.m. until 9:15 a.m. each Friday morning. I leave the house at 5:15 so that I won't be late for class! Traffic. I do enjoy the classes, especially the involvement with the students, many of whom are already in the pastorate.

I also am president of the board of our Bible school in Curitiba (about six hours away by car) and traveled there at the first of the month to teach a class and handle an administrative problem. I preached in chapel as well. We have several students there at the present time and it was good to see and try to encourage them. We are grateful for those who train our future leaders.






We also had a teen intern, Jonathan Randazzo, with us for the month. I say, "with us", though we packed him off to various other places in Brazil so that he could see as much of "missions" as possible. He came down with the team from Oak Ridge, Tennessee last month and stayed on.





On the second Saturday of September, I preached at a men's meeting in a nearby city of Sorocaba. Here's a few of the men present.






And finally, we began work on our roof. Its almost ready for us to put up the down spouts. Hopefully this week we'll be done with one more step. Pray for funds for the construction!









Lately we had more than our share of "extra" activities. Well, maybe they are not "extra" after all. They are just part of the ministry: building lives, building buildings. Pray that we'll have wisdom in dealing with it all.

Lord bless,

Graham and Rene Foran

"Showers of Pnut butter, Showers of Pnut butter we pray..."

As we ended the month of July and started August we had the joy of hosting the youth mission team of the Oak Ridge Baptist Church from (you guessed it) Oak Ridge, Tennessee. How we looked forward to the team! And how glad we were when they arrived! How relieved we were when they left! (My wife gets on to me for saying that, but it is true.)

First of all, the team was made up of great kids and great leaders. We didn't have one "unhappy" moment the whole week. They behaved themselves wonderfully (had entirely too much fun for a mission trip, I'm sure) and left a good testimony everywhere they went.


They arrived on Friday morning and we had a Friday through Sunday emphasis on youth. We had 55 young people on Friday night (very difficult for us with bus schedules and work) and 56 on Saturday night with many visitors. We had a park outreach and had at least 5 older youth come to the church service as a result.
The youth pastor, Jon Kopp, brought great messages both to the youth and the church. (If he just hadn't torn up the cars every time he drove!!)




What I really appreciated was the way the teens from the states made every effort to mingle with our young people. No one spoke the other's language, but they communicated. They are all Facebook friends now.




We had an all day (7:00 am until 3:00 pm) program in one of the public schools. The teens sang, testified, performed musical numbers with violin, viola and guitar and finished up with an evangelistic drama. The school loved it, all 700+ students. The principal and her staff wrote us a nice letter of appreciation for our visit. The kids at the school were so enthusiastic that we had to retreat to the teacher's lounge and literally bar the door so that we could get away between programs.



We then went to an English school in the evening. The school let us do anything we wanted, as long as it was in English. The director of the school is (at least) a nominal Christian and made no objection to having several testimonies of salvation and then letting the teens get with the students in small groups to talk more.





We also made a quick trip to Rio de Janeiro. They sang, preached, testified etc. at another Baptist-Mid missionary church there and then did the sights. It really was a great time for them and for us.

Oh, the peanut butter? I asked Jon Kopp if he could bring me a couple of jars of Jiffy, Extra Crunchy peanut butter. He had everyone on the team bring a jar! Spoil the missionary - what a great idea!

Great people, those Tennesseans. (It was a relief when everyone was gone though!) Can't wait until they come again.

Lord bless, Graham and Rene

July is the seventh month!

I keep having to remind myself that the year is running out on us. It is July already. We had several big events and have more on the way!

On the first Saturday we had a youth rally with about eight area churches and one from about 60 miles away. (One great thing to note: when we started our first church in Cotia in 1988, only two of the participating churches existed. Now we have these and other good churches on the west side of Sao Paulo!)


Pastor Steve Allen, music minister from First Baptist Church, Troy, Michigan was our speaker and he and his family provided special music.


We had planned on around 150 teens and had 268 present. We ran out of chairs and places to put chairs if we'd had more. It was fun for the teens, who love getting together. We do need our auditorium finished. Now more than ever.



Wednesday through Sunday night, July 16-20 we had Evangelist Lin Croxton with us. We had good attendances and many decisions. This is Lin and Carol's fourth (?) time with us and I'm sure the best ever as far as enthusiasm and outreach.


I am not sure of the exact number of visitors we had, but I had some leftover Bibles on hand and decided to offer them to whoever brought at least three visitors. I had ten Bibles and we gave all of them away. People who brought more than three didn't get extra Bibles, so I know we had many more.

Among the decisions we had two men who told me they received Christ as Savior. We have been praying for Edson, one of the men saved, for a long time. His wife was baptized last February and his son is in the new member's class now.


One of the joys of living and working here is seeing our young people grow up, marry and start their own homes. Sunday night (2oth) we got to visit with Lucidalva and her husband Edson. They were married in December of 2007 at our Barueri church and live in Sorocaba. They are members of the New Life Baptist Church there. I met Lucidalva's family going door-to -door visiting many years ago in Barueri. She and her sister and Mother were saved and have been in the church there for years. Edson and Lucidalva met at one of the youth rallies, like the one this month. The rallies have more than one purpose, you see. They brought Nayara, another of our "girls" from Barueri and Edson's sister as well.













Here are some shots of our picnic on the 4th of July. Not really warm, as you can see by the sweatshirts!



You'll see some stray MK's attracted by the food and fireworks.



Thanks for praying for us. Keep us informed of your doings, too!




Lord bless,

Graham and Rene Foran

Just because its June, June, June."

Seems like there is a song that goes like that. Maybe only in Oklahoma. Well, its been a regular Brazilian, or Sao Paulo June. We've gone from cool to hot to cold...usually in the same day.

We have a nice little gas heater that keeps our living room toasty, but otherwise we just wear lots of clothes. Layers so that we can take them off as the day warms up or as we go from inside to outside. Its usually colder inside than outside during the day. This morning I finally had to put a towel on my head to keep the draft from going down my neck. It looked funny (no one was up to see it and I took no pictures) but it kept me warm enough to work.

Here are some pictures from the month. We had a Valentines Banquet (yes in June...we're south of the equator and water goes down the drain the opposite way and..., oh well. Yes, June!) That's me on the left and my girl friend on the right.

Then we bought land in Boituva for the church there. Here is a picture of the layout of the land and Pastor Lucio standing in front of the actual property we bought. Pray for him and the new work.









Then we took pictures to send to our former coworkers the Takahashis who are now back in Japan. The first picture was the crowd present on a cold blustery night and the other is the new people who have come since the Takahashis left. I thought they would be encouraged by the new people, many of whom are new converts.











Then we've got some little pirates. These are pictures taken at the Chick-Fil-a restaurant Pirate night. These are my favorits pirates of all. Some don't look too fierce.













Then we have a blue eyed baby Foran. Looks malnourished, I know. But we are hoping that his mother will start feeding him soon. His grandma wants to eat him up.






Thanks for keeping up with us. Lord bless, Graham and Rene Foran

"There and back again"

The title (with apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien) sums up this blog. Rene and I were able to go back to the USA for Preacher Lasley's special day. We thank the church and other friends for making the trip possible.




Here are some of the famous preachers present. I missed getting Preacher Lasley! Good planning, Graham. Nathan Foran, Bruce MacAlister, Ron Comfort and Joel Long (Preacher's son-in-law) and his son.

I think I surprised most of the people and Pastor Lasley too when I walked into the service. I also relieved the stress of the assistant pastors who had expected me 30 minutes earlier. (One of the things I forgot to ask was what time to be present and the service times were changed!)

People I hadn't seen for years had come in for the special day. Two of my former teens came up and tried to haunt me, but they weren't all that scary even in their prime.









The next big plus was seeing my newest grand baby, the incredible hulk, no...Caleb Nathaniel Foran. A big chunky little guy who definitely looks like his brother Isaiah only larger at this age. We had a great time making friends with him and then playing with sister Abby and brothers Ben, Isaiah and Brandon. Here's Becca and Nathan and on the bottom right Katie and Abby.





















Though all the kids came down to visit while we were in Tennessee, we did go up to see Ginny's new digs and take Katie to Washington DC. We could not have asked for better weather. It was pleasant for walking and taking in the sights. Katie was a baby the last time we did DC so she got to see the presidential and war memorials as well as part of the Smithsonian Museums. She can take her own kids some day and see the rest.







Here are my girls, Katie, Rene and Ginny.





I wrote about our "Bring Forth Fruit" campaign. Here's our final "tree"
picture. Each fruit represents a visitor and the leaves verses memorized. We ran out of apples for the tree after about a 125 so we started using pears. Not biologically correct, perhaps, but the tree of life in heaven has 12 different fruits. So two should be okay too. We had a more than 150 visitors. I get mixed up when trying to count the fruit on the tree. Higher math, you know.










The last picture shows part of our Jr High class that came to lunch Sunday. Not all of them came but we had enough for a good time.










Thanks for your prayer and love over they ears. We do appreciate your comments too. Lord bless, Graham and Rene