Brazil (03-2009)
The month March I (Steef) spent in Brazil, to teach courses on the Theology of Missions. During the first week I was in Campinas, where a new school started with 10 students (photo 239), of which I was the first teacher, and where I spoke during the inaugural ceremony. The second week I spent in the city of Curitiba with 3 million inhabitants, teaching at Bethany's evening seminary with about 130 students, and at the Foursquare Gospel Seminary, with twice that number of students. I preached in their church on Sunday twice (photos 249, 259, 261, 16, 22, 34). The third week I was in Altonia, 600 km to the west, near the border with Paraguai. There I taught about 40 students for a week (and once a group of 80 schoolkids, aged 10-18 years, photo 76), at the end of which I visited Iguacu Falls, a spectacular experience (photos 42, 66, 68, 70, 102, 109, 124, 143, 147, 171) and the meeting point of the 3 countries (Brazil, Argentina and Paraguai). During the 4th week we had meetings with Bethany colleagues from around the world (whose photos I don't show for security reasons), again in Curitiba in a nice meeting place (photo 187).
Apart from the weeks of teaching, I got some good encouragement during the last week. A genuine interest has been shown by the leadership in Brazil to translate and print my (1st) book in Portuguese and publish it next year, after which I am invited to come back for more teaching. Interest for my teaching materials was also shown by some colleagues who work in Spanish-speaking countries. This may mean that Latin America can become a fruitful field of ministry for me in the years to come, for which I am very grateful, especially because it was such a new, unexpected and blessed experience.
Another huge blessing was seeing an 8 minute videoclip, on which parts of the filming of my course 'Biblical Mission Stories' - that I wrote in 2006/7 for a big country in East Asia - were shown. The course will soon be finished, after not less than 8,000 illustrations were added, and will be used on tens of thousands of mission schools, used for the training of hundreds of thousands of missionaries, and eventually viewed by many millions of Christians as bible study materials. Realizing what a tremendous impact this may have for the Kingdom of God, touched me deeply! Please pray, that the Lord will accomplish all He has in mind with this material.
