"Like every human organization the Church is constantly in danger of corruption. As soon as power and wealth come to the Church, manipulation, exploitation, misuse of influence, and outright corruption are not far away.

How do we prevent corruption in the Church? The answer is clear: by focusing on the poor. The poor make the Church faithful to its vocation. When the Church is no longer a church for the poor, it loses its spiritual identity. It gets caught up in disagreements, jealousy, power games, and pettiness. Paul says, "God has composed the body so that greater dignity is given to the parts which were without it, and so that there may not be disagreements inside the body but each part may be equally concerned for all the others" (1 Corinthians 12:24-25). This is the true vision. The poor are given to the Church so that the Church as the body of Christ can be and remain a place of mutual concern, love, and peace."

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

As 2006 draws to a close, we have so much to be thankful for! We have had an excellent year of learning about leadership, to say the least. Consequently, are so very grateful for the Lord’s patience! We are excited to be on our way to a new city, Monte Dourado, in step with our plans from February. There, our family will be able to spend much more time together and benefit from better schools and a better neighborhood. Our church members in Almeirim will benefit by being adopted into the local family of a ministry with which we have had a trusting camaraderie for more than 7 years. Amazingly, the new church plant is just a few doors down from ours and values the same ministry priorities!

Amaster Internet, our tentmaking business, is at a key moment. In the heat of unexpected obstacles this year, we looked to selling the business twice, and later attempted a merger with another ISP, but the Lord firmly closed those options. More recently, we have received words of encouragement and have had several divine appointments which confirm to our spirits that we are indeed to forge ahead with amplification.

One of the biggest blessings the business provides is access into clients’ homes (this, through the installation of roof-top antennas and the configuration of clients’ computers). As you may have guessed, this is a huge avenue for the development of relationships with many of the prominent people in town. Since our clients are generally businessmen (those who can afford the "luxury" of internet), we find ourselves serving airlines’ offices, store owners, doctors, lawyers, educators and politicians. We cover this service in prayer daily asking the Lord to send us strategic clients! As we look ahead to our future church plant we are excited at the groundwork the Lord is now laying.

In closing, we leave you with a few photos from the 2-month pilot project we conducted with mostly unchurched children in Almeirim. We hope to do more such work in the future, if the Lord allows Read more details about the project on our Web Log (see left).