James & Elsie Gilbert – 2023 newsletter

Greetings from Brazil! We have been going through some changes, quite a bit of change, even though we continue with the same mission, serving and helping those who work with children, teens and their families. Our major campaigns continue with our network reaching thousands of Christian of educators, along with pastors and volunteers, with the secondary goal of reaching children whose needs are not being met.

Increased Focus on the Incarnational Model in the Local Context.

Viçosa has a growing population of 81,000, shooting up over 100,000 when the Federal University has classes. Jesus’s incarnation means that He saw our needs due to our hate, jealousy, fear, selfishness and self-righteousness. Despite these He taught us to love our neighbor and even our enemy. Instead of just blaming and condemning us He walked among us, healing sinners, curing the ungrateful, distributing donations among the poor. He came in His own words to forgive, heal, cure, and liberate.

Despite showing this love for us, we chased Him out of town, and tried throwing Him off cliffs. We tried to limit and even ban His acts of healing. One of us even stole money from His donations. Jesus could have lived in a mighty fortress, or palace instead he had no place to lay his head. Jesus was meek and humble, but that doesn’t mean he did not call out injustices, help the unclean, touch the untouchables despite the religious fears, prejudices, and protests. In the end those with the closest religious beliefs, used political power, to arrest, torture, and crucify Jesus. The problem with Jesus was that He was politically inconvenient, He did not choose sides with any party, nor any government. Through the love of God, Jesus arose from the dead, conquering sin, death and the devil.

John 3:16 has been helping us to reflect on our ministry. Our love cannot also be exclusionary. Jesus’ power controlled and ruled by Love accomplished victory over sin and death. Some expressions of religion, our responses to God, both in the secular or Christian arenas exemplifies the opposite of Love. Sometimes it is fear of others instead of fear of God that guides us. This Jesus keeps challenging us with our limitedness.

Right now, we have the challenge to walk with those that walk with the least, the invisibles, here in Viçosa. It has been a joy seeing the light of God working in different corners of the city. We have been walking with deeply committed Christians in a prison ministry, Carla who interned with us for 4 years. She was called by the local Assemblies of God, to work in a prison system called APAC. It was started by a Brazilian, deeply committed Catholic, and has spread to many parts of Brazil. They are partnered with Prison Fellowship. We are looking at ways to come alongside them working with the prisoners and their families, especially their children.

We are walking with other beautiful Christians as well:

• Individual Christian teachers working in public schools
• ASPEN, a parent’s association which works with autistic children.
• An outreach to children with hearing loss.
• An outreach called ARCAH in one of the worst neghborhoods of Viçosa
• An outreach to teens who are emotionally impaired as a result of the pandemic.

Soul Courage: A Virtue Nurtured by Resilient People

We published this booklet containing 10 stories of resilience from Christian Educators dedicated to vulnerable children throughout Brasil. We would like to thank especially Northbrook Missions team and church for helping with the funding for this book.

Children Belong in Families

We translated this book from English to help Christian social workers involved in providing family based foster care throughout Brazil. Publishing is still a dream for the near future.

Christian Educator’s Campaign

We ask churches, Christian organizations and Christians in general to recognize the important work servants of the Lord play in the lives of vulnerable children.

56 partner organizations were invited to participate.

Our media platform reached 48,219 people, and of those 6,148 engaged with the campaign.

World Wide Day of Prayer

• 12 organizations and 54 groups participating in the Prayer Exchange, representing different regions of Brazil and other Portuguese-speaking countries, including Portugal, Mozambique, Angola, São Tomé and Príncipe as well as a few Spanish speaking countries.
• The specific prayer requests of 74 children were registered on our prayer website. Every child received a written prayer on their behalf. All of them were children whose lives were directly affected by climate change: floods, drought, landslides.
• We estimate that 80,000 people took time away from their work to pray for vulnerable children, joining our brothers and sisters around the globe on the first weekend in June.

Course “Lighten Your Burden”

The aim of the course is to provide tools for Christian educators to practice healthy balance in their vocational ministry in Christian social work.

The course has 8 chapters in total with the following themes:

Chapter 1 – Understanding the Burdens You Carry in Life. Jesus’s Invitation.

Chapter 2 – How to Identify Unnecessary Loads. Jesus is in charge of this mission.

Chapter 3 – Recognizing the Load that is Yours Only. Jesus assigned co-workers.

Chapter 4 – Finding Balance in Your Work. Balance is what Jesus means by easy yoke.

Chapter 5 – The Super Special Charge of the Social Educator

Chapter 6 – Who Do You Share the Load With?

Chapter 7 – How A Heavy Load Can Become Lighter! Letting the Master guide you.

Chapter 8 – Assess and Balance the Loads You Carry

Hope this was informative, and please continue to pray for the ministry here in Brazil. There is so much out of our control, the powers have pervaded everything. We have been called into this situation to be faithful, in loving God and loving our neighbor. The victory over the powers, authorities, and thrones has been only won by the love of God, powerful enough to effectively conquer sin, death and the devil. My confirmation Bible verse, so many years ago was, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”The power here is not belief, the power that effectively changed the situation of sin and death, was God’s love.

Hollywood plays this theme all the time, the love of a parent, or a couple, which risks all, takes on the worst criminals, to save their loved one. Of course

Hollywood, maintains the worlds idea of power through killing, sometimes lying to survive, or get the car to chase the bad guy… but Jesus didn’t do any of those things, and His love was for the whole world. This love we name as unrealistic, well yes it comes from God Almighty, we name it as not practical in this world, yet it conquered sin, death and the devil! So we ask that you keep praying for the testimony of the Body of Christ to the world, the world which Jesus came to save.

Amen!

Contact: Equip website for donations: https://www.equipinternational.org/give

126 Rockhouse Road | P.O. Box 1126

Marion, NC 28752

(828) 738-3891