Prejudice revealed in foreign missionary

Okay, I do admit it. I am very prejudiced! I can't help it though, I am afraid that I think this little girl is the cutest thing I ever saw! I am willing to confess to favoring her brothers too, but this doll is too much for her grandaddy's long distance heart. I just want to scrunch her up in my lap. Notice the "owey"on the knee.

But here are some pictures from our construction. You can see the "before and after" progression as we cover the outside of the building.

Here are some pictures from our formal organization meeting. You see our youngest couple....

the oldest couple...

all the people present...

and Pastor Francisco.

Thanks for your prayers and help, Graham and Rene Foran

Are we having fun yet?

Remember when people would ask, "Are we having fun yet?" Well, this week, Rene and I both, on different occasions made the same remark. "We're having fun now." We both know what the other is trying to say. The first few years of church planting is "work". Pure, simple, no frills, hard work.

Then all of a sudden, things start to gel and the Brazilians take over more and more and you are just preaching and teaching and...well, having fun! This usually means that we are about to leave and start over. We aren't leaving just yet. There is more "work" left to do, but it is definitely a good sign. Thanks for praying for us and keeping us here with your faithful support.

I've attached a few pictures, virtually at random. They are shots from last month. The men's Sunday School Class, the Primary classroom,

Nathan preaching during his visit,



the Traver family singing (notice Emily at the far right under the mike!),




and the construction. (Jeff don't worry, I was just using your car to haul some sand. The back door is practically as good as new, or will be when we get it to shut.)


Also, here's a note about our conference coming in July. Dr. Danny Sweatt of Berean Baptist, metro Atlanta area and Dr. Chuck Phelps, of Maranatha Baptist College will be doing a conference on Church Administration. Anyway they are coming.

Lord bless, Graham and Rene

New Beginnings

New things are going on here. The biggest "new" item is the arrival of Pastor Francisco, wife, Tania and Raquel (9). They have been our friends virtually since we arrived in Brazil. Tania worked with us in Cotia and in Barueri. Then Francisco turned up and married her. They studied at the Bible college in Curitiba and have worked in a variety of ministries since. Now they are with us in Carapicuiba. Big plus, they love to play Rook!

The new year is also full of activities. We had a Carnaval Retreat for the youth of the church.


Along with the regular "camp" stuff...











we always have a dress up (well, for a camp anyway) banquet. You can spot the bachelor table. (they all went with Ariel, Pastor Antonio's daughter)













We had the first member of our present church, graduate from the Bible Institute in Sao Paulo.(Marv Fray, founding Missionary) Eduardo is lookingfor a place to serve the Lord. Pray for him and Fernanda, as well as, children, Daniel and Paula. You notice the Brazilian style graduation robes.





Here are more of the grads. Many of these are students that I have taught over the last few years at the Hope Baptist Institute. Pray for them and for more workers for the field of Brazil and the world.


We baptized 5 people on March 8, 2009. Here's a couple of them and the new members who joined. Lord bless,

Graham and Rene Foran

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