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
