Slept in today and woke up refreshed and excited for Sunday, a day of worship and rest. No services at church today because we had them yesterday, so we are going to a different church tonight. But most churches only have Sunday School and no morning service because the evening service is when most people attend, opposite of the churches I’ve attended in the US.
I spent most of the day doing my devotions, writing letters, and just resting. Breakfast consisted of cinnamon raisin biscuits, lunch was stir-fried rice with shrimp and vegetables (got to use chopsticks!), and supper was manioc root with sun-dried beef. Man, I love that stuff!
At 6:00pm we attended Igreja Batista Fonte de Luz (Source of Light Baptist Church) in Juazeiro. It is one of about 20 regular Baptist churches in Juazeiro, and the Leonard’s were involved in helping it get started and construct its building.
They have a sanctuary that will seat about 500 people when filled to max capacity, and they have another smaller building used for classrooms and such. They built with the hope that they can grow to an attendance of 500 people rather than building a smaller room and rebuilding as they grew.
You can see pictures from the church’s history at their website:
When I got back I read Acts 7. Man, Stephen knew Israel’s history so well! He knew it so well that he could quote what God said to Israel when he gave commands to them. Imagine the sorrow and consequences that Israel could have avoided in their early days in Canaan if they had the same grasp on their history that Stephen had!
I had never considered it before, but Stephen is a prime example of how the men in our church today should function. You don’t have to be “called” to full-time ministry to do great things in ministry. You don’t have to be a pastor or vocational missionary to study and know Scripture well. Just look at Stephen. Because of his passion for the gospel as a layman in the church, he was put to death. Wow.
