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

End of the Year

Here's some last minute pictures for the end of the year. We are in our auditorium full time now and except for discovering that the roof leaks, we're happy as clams.

Also my neice's husband, Geoff Hayward, (husband of Bethany) came to Brazil on a surpise business trip. We had a whirlwind trip to nearby Campinas to show him the delights of "churrascaria", or Brazilian steakhouse.

We hosted the local pastors and wives for our annual fellowship dinner. This year we did it at the church instead of at our home. We had around 34 present.

The cooks!

Love to all, Graham and Rene

Serving with Baptist Mid Missions since 1986

moving up

November apparently brought the hot weather in to stay, but moving upstairs will be a "cool" way to remember this month. Here's some pictures of our first major events in the new auditorium: a wedding, first Sunday services and a baptismal. You may not be able to see that we still have some finishing work to do, namely sanding all the plaster, filling in around the windows, but the work is being done.

The baptism mentioned above took place on the 22nd of November. David, Celso and Edsom were baptized. Amen!

Here are two special events we had this month. The "good-bye" for Brother Eduardo and his family. he is now the assistant pastor of a nearby church. His family has been in our church since the founding.

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Here's Pastor Daniel, our missionary in the interior of the state of Sao Paulo. We had a campaign to raise money for his building. Here are some of the banks we made and used to collect this special offering.

Lord bless, Graham and Rene Foran

Serving with Baptist Mid Missions in greater Sao Paulo since 1986

Fall... Spring...Fall, Err...Summer?

South of the equator the seasons are reversed from those in the Northern Hemisphere. We are entering our Spring season. Its interesting how close the temperatures sound to the ones we're hearing about back home in Tennessee. Some days we have all four seasons.

I took Rene to visit the flower show in the city of Holambra, a Dutch outpost in Brazil. A couple of generations back a group of Dutch moved here. They mostly worked in agriculture, milk and milk products etc., and most famously the production of flowers. Every year they put on a big production with typical dutch folk culture, food and dress. It was fun to see and taste. Definitely, Dutch with a Brazilian accent. No tulips. I guess they won't grow here.

For the last two years I have served as secretary for All Brazil, that is, all the Brazilian areas of service of Baptist Mid Missions. We're divided into three separate regions, South, Northeast and Amazon. Every year each region has a conference for organization and fellowship. Once about every 5 years we have an "All Brazil" conference. 2010 will mark our 75th year in Brazil, so we are having a very special conference. It's been my job and privilege to help organize this event. You see the anniversary symbol that was designed especially for this year.

We are always proud of our kids. These are some of our Brazilian kids. Saved in our ministry and called to serve. The couple on the left are Rudge and Marina. Rudge was the bane of the Jr. High class. He was so full of life he just couldn't sit still. As he got older his restlessness became worldliness. Thank the Lord he got saved and eventually went to the Bible College where he met and married Marina. They serve the Lord in the Amazon region.

The family on the right is Cintia and Yuri and their son Arthur. Cintia was saved in children's church in our Cotia work and her family then moved to Barueri where they got involved in our church there. Yuri came to church because he was interested in Cintia. She wouldn't date him, but invited him to church. Yuri was saved and they both went to the Bible College in Curitiba. They married and are now serving the Lord in Osvaldo Cruz, a small town in the interior of the state of Sao Paulo.

As usual, here's a couple of shots of the auditorium We're offically out of money as of Friday. Thanks for praying for us. Thanks for helping us. Lord bless,

Graham and Rene Foran