Marty and Denise Shaw, WorldVenture
Denise and I enjoyed the privilege of celebrating 70 years of WorldVenture ministry with Brazilians in north Brazil in August. Seventy years is a lot of history and a lot of stories. Unlike the first missionaries back in the 1940s we flew into the city, whereas they arrived by boat. To get to the interior we rode in a car for five plus hours and they, at least in the beginning either took a boat up a river or rode mules. One of the early prayer letters I read before leaving for Brazil told of a 150 mile trip by mule and then added “anyone who wanted to come to northern Brazil as a missionary should know how to take good care of a mule including how to get “on a mule from the right or the left or running.” I can only imagine what experience that pearl of wisdom came from.
Mules or otherwise, the Gospel planted there has grown and churches continue to have a vision for planting new churches. The vision of these churches expands beyond the region as they had a push for giving and going in global missions.
I, Marty, preached in the two main sessions, where my English was translated by our colleague Jim Thorp into Portuguese. It wasn’t the first time my messages had been translated into Portuguese. When we were in Japan I helped a small Japanese church on the first Sunday of each month by preaching and serving communion. Even though this was a small church there were anywhere from 5 to 10 Japanese/Brazilians who were working in the area for two to three years. They didn’t speak Japanese, so my Japanese message was translated into Portuguese. A very unique experience, but a great example of how global God’s Kingdom is.
From Brazil we went south to Uruguay and Argentina to explore new areas, but more about that in our next update.
Prayer Requests
- In October Marty will leave for a week in Panama. Pray for his interaction with many different people and for his visit with WorldVenture’s new work and missionaries who have been there less than two months.
- October is a busy month of travel that will see us in Central America, southern Europe and parts between. Pray for long flights, jet-lag, wisdom in the words we share and the eyes to see what God would have us see so that we can move towards where he would have us build.
- As a praise we continue to stay healthy in spite of the travels and the food and various water we take in along the way.
- Marty preaching with translation by Jim Thorp:
Marty & Denise receiving plaque from Baptist association on behalf of WorldVenture.