MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Liz and I want to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas! Thank you all so much for your willingness to give to the ministry God has called us to!  We look forward to a good and prosperous 2012, and can't wait to see what all God has in store for His ministry in Belem, Brazil! We will be returning December 31st to get things set up for next semester at AVA. All of the Bibles have been purchased! A huge Obrigado (Thank you) to everyone who gave and prayed so that we could get the Bibles! May you be mightily blessed this Christmas season and into the New Year!

SURPRISE!

I am still a little hesitant to put this up because there are a few people we want to still surprise, but I also feel like everyone deserves an update :) Hopefully you remember the post about the visas we put up a couple of weeks ago! If not, the title is: "The Battle is Over, We Have Won The War".... Our appointment with the consulate in Atlanta was scheduled for December 27th. We were pretty excited about the chance to come home for the holidays until we started looking at the cost of tickets. $6000.00 in some cases. Yeah right! Normally, flying into Miami is the cheapest route by thousands of dollars - but that comes with a 10 hour car ride after flying halfway around the world. I was looking for tickets all around the 27th into Miami $2,700 here and $3,600 there and that was just for one person. I was pretty bummed because that meant we were going to have to reschedule our visa appointment, which just put more time in the mix for things to get messed up, again. Four hours in to my ticket search I stopped to pray, "God please show up here, please get us some tickets home for this." Apparently, I should have started praying sooner! I decided to GO BIG, and simply put what I wanted on the ticket search engine. Fly out the 21st stay till the 28th : $6000..... UUUGGGHHH! Sometimes God wants us to go even BIGGER . Fly out the 19th, come back the 31st, skip Miami and fly into Charlotte with a car rental: $1100.00 WHAT! We will take that one! Surprisingly enough, the trip went really well until we got to the car rental place. "Yea we have a reservation for you, but it has not been paid".... I knew that price was too good. Although, I did have a receipt that said it had been paid in full. Apparently they only charged for the reservation fee - I asked the lady if we would be able to get the rental for the same price as we had on the reservation. The answer was a big fat NO.... Actually, it was twice as much and at $800.00, Liz and I were backpacking, hitch hiking, or hanging out at the Charlotte airport for 12 days... I told the lady that. I looked her dead in the eyes and said, you are really going to make us stay at the airport for 12 days over Christmas.... "Let me see what I can do" - The Lady
         Liz and I brought back 4 suitcases of stuff back for other missionaries since we could do it for free. We had our 4 big suitcases and 2 carry on items a piece. The Budget lady looked at all that stuff, figured it wasn't going to fit in the compact car we had checked out, and hooked us up with an SUV for the same price as the compact car. So, God hooked us up with better tickets than we have ever gotten before at Christmas time, messed up our car rental stuff so we could get something better for the same discounted price, and we got to surprise our family for the holidays! You should have seen everyone's faces! My mom actually thought that the rapture had happened and that we were all on our way to heaven! LOL Vicky just busted out into tears! It was certainly an awesome Christmas Gift for Liz and I to see our families for the Christmas holidays! God certainly takes care of those who seek after Him!

BIBLE UPDATE

 The total cost on the Bibles for the students at AVA was $1011.00 and some change. We have currently reached $900.00 of the $1100 goal. Plus, the people at Lifeway were awesome in helping us gather the Bibles - they even gave us a little discount to help out! If you are looking for a Bible, Lifeway is the place to go!





As far as the Bibles for Nigeria go, we are working with the Gideon's to get those Bibles out to them. However, we do still need to get the study Bible for the pastor (which is listed in a previous post). Hopefully, we can get those to them soon, Lord Willing!

Great Christmas Present Idea!

So, I went into all of my Bible classes and asked the students to pull out their Bibles....... Crickets..........  Nothing! Only like one student had a Bible...... the others.... walked to the back of the room and pulled some off the back shelf. At this point, I was a little concerned. We are in a Christian school and only a very few select students had their own Bible. Of course the school makes Bibles available to all students, but I think it is very important for students/youth to have their own. So, Liz and I's goal is to raise the money to get ALL of the high school students their own personal study Bible (or just the Bible itself works too!). A Bible they will treasure for a long time, actually use, and be excited about reading. When Liz and I were involved with the Providence Baptist Youth Group, we made it a point to get all of the youth their own personal study Bible. The results were amazing!

There are 22 students altogether that we need to get Bibles for. For the 11th and 12th grade group we need to get either a Life Application Study Bible or a Thompson Chain Reference Bible. Both of these are sold at LifeWay Christian Stores. There are 6 Guys and 3 Girls in the 11th and 12th Group. The links for those Bibles are: Thompson Chain Reference: (http://www.lifeway.com/Product/thompson-chain-reference-bible-niv-handy-size-brown-P005453549)
Life Application Study Bible For Guys: (http://www.lifeway.com/Product/life-application-study-bible-niv-caramel-dark-caramel-P005452372)
Life Application For Girls: (http://www.lifeway.com/Product/life-application-study-bible-niv-P005452374).

For the 9th and 10th Group we would like to be able to get them the NIV Zondervan Bibles. For the guys, the Bible is called "Revolution: The Bible for Teen Guys-NIV" 
The site is:( http://www.lifeway.com/Product/revolution-the-bible-for-teen-guys-niv-P005098288). 
For the girls, it is called "True Images: The Bible for Teen Girls- NIV" The link is:( http://www.lifeway.com/Product/niv-true-images-brown-pink-P005172647) or (http://www.lifeway.com/Product/true-images-the-bible-for-teen-girls-niv-P005098286) There are a couple of different models for the girls and you can choose what you like the best.  There are 5 guys and 8 girls in the 9th and 10th group. 


All of these Bibles are available at the LifeWay Christian Book Store and would be an amazing Christmas present to the High School students of Amazon Valley Academy! Please make sure the translation you get is NIV (New International Version)! (Although we will need a couple KJV's in the 9th and 10th group) Thank you for your willingness to further equip these students to further God's Kingdom!

If you feel led to give a student a Bible you can have it sent to 6051 Columbia Rd. St. Matthews SC 29135 (if you order it off-line). Please be sure to have it there by the 27th of December. If you buy it in person at the store, please make sure you let us know so we can make arrangements to get the Bible by the 27th of December.

If the Lord leads you to get a Bible for one of the students, please email me at: revmlbennett@gmail.com so we can work out the logistics. Thank you for your willingness to support this ministry, and your gift will certainly not return to you void! We love y'all and appreciate everything you do for us and our ministry here in Brazil! Be Blessed!

The Battle Is Over, We Have Won The War

I want to recap momentarily. I want to look back and highlight the events we will call the visa war.

October 2010 marks the date. Liz and I had been praying hard (along with others I am sure) about our calling to Brazil. I have always been a big believer in GOING, as Christ demanded in Matthew 28:16-20. Here was the thing though - we were poor, broke youth pastors at a small church in backwoods SC. We had NOTHING to go on, well, except for our faith.... My father-in-law and I were talking one night. At this point, I was ready to give up and go join the NAVY or something, anything. Our conversation concluded with him saying, "if you have a plane ticket tomorrow, you'll know where God wants you to be." Yeah right, huh?! The next morning we got a call. A missionary from Moldova needed an address to send us the money God had given her to get us to Brazil...... A missionary, who, is in the same financial situation as us is given money for us on the other side of the world to get us to the opposite side of the equator..... Needless to say, Liz and I were ready and equipped to GO. Remember Proverbs 16:9? We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps. We had originally planned to go to Manaus - God had something else in mind.

I left in October eager to see what God had for us - my passport was ready from my trip to Ethiopia back in 09. My Brazilian visa was ready to go back from my trip with Pastor Jimmy and the Strength Team in 09. I landed in Manaus with Matthew 7:7 running a marathon in my head.

While Liz and I had all the intentions in the world to be in Manaus, God had our steps directed in,well, another direction.

While I was seeking, knocking, and asking in Manaus - I took a trip over to Belem to visit a school called AVA. Before leaving though, I called the school from my Skype account and asked them if I could bring anything with me - the director rudely said "some Bibles". I know now that the director wasn't intentionally being rude, but he did forget to pick me up - in a place I had NO CLUE where I was at.... With a backpack full of Bibles, I showed up for the first time at AVA. If you get a chance - read the blog post on the Jamba fruit.... it was the sign I knew God wanted us at AVA.

I got back to the States and we started the visa process. First, we had to get Liz's temporary visa so she could come check it out here. A trip to Atlanta, and it was done and we were both ready to confirm our call to Belem. Before we came though, we had to gather some documents, get them signed by the Secretary of State, get them officiated by the Brazilian Consulate, and bring them down with us. It was crazy, but we got it all done. Right before we left for Brazil, we found out that the local police record was not enough. We had to get an FBI background check done. This is where the miracle came in.

FBI Background checks take an average of 12 weeks to process and be returned - that's 3 months. It was the end of November at this point and we had to have documents that took 12 weeks to process and get it done by January the 1st. While we were in Brazil, less than a week after applying for the background check, they came in. When we landed in Miami, Liz's mom called us and said that we had a little problem. The Fed Ex guy apparently went to leave the documents in the backyard, got scared because of the 10 German Shepherds that were back there, dropped the envelope containing our background check and ran off. All the while, the dogs were playing a fun game of destroy our FBI records - that we had to have and take 12 weeks to get. I called the FBI and explained the situation. A guy named Michael answered the phone and said he was in the business of doing the impossible- He reprocessed our request, over-nighted the documents to us, and we got them by 10 a.m. the next morning! A 24 week governmental process in less than a week....... ponder that one for a moment...... I am pretty sure that dude was the Archangel......

The documents we had to have were complete, translated, and submitted.... By January 19th 2011, we were on our way to Work Visas. Impossible after impossible after impossible - nothing is impossible with our God! Liz and I received the email yesterday that the battle was over! If you have kept up with the blog you will know the events that have occurred since the start of this year. Our visas have been published on the official website. The battle is over! Chalk 1 more on God's score....

At this point we know God has an awesome plan for us here in Belem. Liz and I have given up a lot, fought hard, been humbled, but stand here ready and willing to do all the things God has for us to do here in Brazil. I pray that you consider joining us. We need prayer warriors, we need money for food, Bibles and supplies, we need the body of Christ to stand with us and win the city of Belem over for the Kingdom of God! If you explore the tabs at the top of our site you can get all the information on how to stand with us for God's Glory and Kingdom Growth in Belem, Brazil!

The World is Small After All......

So I would like to start off by saying we did make it back to Brazil...... And the potential for ministry this year is better than ever!!! We are currently getting settled in and organizing our life so we can be effective in our ministry.

I want to share a cool story that revolves around God's awesome Providence! As I was putting the final touches on the English service, I decided to check my email. The first email in my inbox was from a Pastor in Nigeria. In his email he sent me his testimony (I took out all information that would give away any identity):

By His grace I am a Believer bought and washed by the Blood of Jesus Christ. I am married with three children. I am a pastor of a small local church non denominational or affiliated to anybody. The church was founded in 2006 and now has about 30 members. I gave my life to Christ in 1987 when I was still in the high school at ____. A campus fellowship student by name ____ was my roommate at school and his life of faithfulness unto Christ and his prayer and teaching me the Bible led me to Christ. This Brother told me then that he sensed that God was going to use me for His cause. I was never ready to hear that because my dream or thought was never in the ministry but to finish my studies and get a nice job. Five years after school and already working I started having the stronger urge and sensing that God was calling me but I kept on putting it off my heart because my job and life was sweet to me and I felt I needed nothing else. One day a guest speaker was ministering in our church and he singled me out in a crowd of over a thousand and told me that God has called me to the ministry and cannot hide. After he left I told my pastor that I have accepted and my pastor and other elders of the church prayed with me. I immediately joined and headed the evangelical outreach of the church and I saw many coming to Christ in the outreach. I let go of my job in 2005 and returned to ______ my State. I joined a small local church and was assisting the pastor as the second pastor. In January 13th 2007 a pastor of a little church of about five families in my area walked up to me telling me that he is leaving the state to his home state where the Lord has asked him to go and start the work. He said he has been praying for over a month that the Lord has asked him to tell me to take over the little church he founded 2006. I have not had relationship with this pastor before now so it amazed me. He asked me to pray to ask the Lord. I did prayed and without wasting time I knew the Lord ask me to hold that little church and that was how I became the pastor of this church called ______. The church is a growing church and we meet at a temporary rented building. We are not earthly rich but rich in Christ, riches that will last for eternity.

What an awesome testimony! The cool part about it was the fact that the English service revolved around being obedient to God no matter what it costs. The Lord certainly works in mysterious ways, because the email went on further to give us an opportunity to be obedient to the Lord's calling and Kingdom work....

2 Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth”. The reason why I am writing is to appeal for your assistance in the area of a Study Bible which will be of help to me in my research and study of the bible as well as lesson preparation as a pastor, and bibles for our aged members. These items are very scarce here. I need The Dakes Annotated Reference Bible. It is a very good study Bible for ministers of the gospel. A pastor friend here got his from www.christianbook.com where it was purchase for him by his cousin abroad. I checked the site and also found it there. Please help me for it. There are many in our local church who do not have bibles and cannot afford to buy. I want to specifically make a request for the elderly ones who cannot work and earn money to buy for themselves. There are 12 of such very old fathers and mothers in our church who read and understand English and they are very devoted. Please on their behalf I request that you send them 12 Bibles the very big letters which is the super giant print 18 point type would be preferable for them because of their sight. They also have this kind of bible at www.christianbook.com. We would also appreciate used bibles provided the pages are complete. Thank you for considering this request. And as you help to meet this kingdom need the Lord will bless you finance abundantly. If you send the bibles through post office a registered postage the bibles will get to us safely. I was told at the post office that _____ postage or insured mail is safer. My home and postal address is __________. Please write when you get my mail. I do not have full access to internet but I can check at least three times weekly. Ecclesiastes 11:1 "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days"

Continue to be obedient and the Lord will honour you in His time. Exodus 19:5, the Lord spoke to the children of Israel through Moses saying:  "Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:..."  The Lord bless you and keep you in His perfect love.

 I feel like we should help this church out! What do you think? If the Lord leads you to be a part of this church in Africa getting the Bibles they need, please contact me at amazonimpact@gmail.com. We have a quote from Fed Ex for around $1000.00 to safely get a box of Bibles to the Church. The Pastors Study Bible cost 30 dollars, the large print Bibles are 20 dollars a piece (need 12), and the other Bibles can be used.... so knock the dust off of them and lets get them to Africa! 


Wow! What an awesome opportunity to do something awesome for the Growth of God's Kingdom! Be Blessed! I look forward to seeing God do some pretty amazing things with our obedience!