I had the privilege, just a few weeks ago, of attending a Sunday evening church service in Cuiabá, one of PAZ’s newest bases. When Pastor Sabá invited people to come forward to give their lives to Jesus, among those moving from their seats was a young couple, holding hands. We later learned that their marriage was in shambles and that they had been invited to church by members who lived near them.

Many have participated in the great work God has set before us.

By noon on Monday, a cell group leader had already met with them, paired them with strong disciplers, and encouraged them in their new walk. The joy of the Lord was already evident in their faces and their lives. Two days made a difference for that young couple.

It’s faith in action – God in action – and it’s happening all over the Amazon Basin. It’s happening in tiny jungle villages and large cities like Cuiabá. And it happens because God is moving in Brazil and because you support the mission, these church leaders, and their work.

Along with testimonies like this we have had so many things to be thankful for during this year:

• Faithful contributors and dedicated prayer warriors.
• Growing churches and new church plants (more than 60 just from the base in Santarém this year), in big cities and river villages, and thousands coming to the Lord!
• New, thriving bases in Sinop and Cuiabá, preparing leaders to reach out way beyond those cities.
• Life-saving water filters and health services taken to remote areas all throughout the Basin.
• Much-need relief provided in devastated Japan, thanks to the PAZ Brazilian team and your support.
• Individual lives, families, and communities changed forever by the Gospel, brought to them by PAZ missionaries and Brazilian leaders.

We’re now moving ahead into all that we’re called to do in 2012 — build churches, provide reliable transportation for local leaders, develop powerful educational materials for those just coming to faith. And the list goes on.

Your prayers and generosity have been so important during 2011. We’re counting on you as we go forward.

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Dear Friends –
We wanted to take just a moment to thank you for your prayers and update you on our rapidly approaching relief team trip to Japan. While Japan is not often in the news these days, the devastation continues to effect lives of precious people, and even though many relief organizations have left the country, there is still so much to be done. Tim and Christine and the church in Japan continue to give help and encouragement, and our team is so eager to lend our hearts and hands to this important work for two months. We’ll be clearing rubble and rebuilding homes and in the process, sharing the love of Christ.

We have purchased our tickets and just received the visas for the Brazilian members of our team. We were concerned about these visas and are so thankful that it’s all worked out. It was quite a process, but one of the Brazilians went to Belem and personally handed the paperwork for the team members in to the authorities there. He waited a little over a week, going after all the documents that they kept asking for, but praise the Lord, the visas were finally released!

All of the Brazilian Christians in all our churches are so enthusiastic about this trip. To be reaching out to help the Japanese, and to assist Tim and Christine, is a blessing to the church, here, too. We’ve put together a short presentation to remind the churches to pray for the team and the people we will minister to while we are gone. We’ve attached that, hoping that you, too, will be praying with us all throughout the trip.

We’ve been blessed by wonderful financial contributions to make this trip a reality, but are still short of our goal. We have some expenses that we still need to cover and we very much want to have funds available so that we can respond to needs that we may find once in Japan. Would you please pray with us that the gap will be filled quickly? With a departure date of August 29, we are trusting God to meet these needs through our friends and supporters. If the Lord should lead you to give, we’ll put your contribution to such good use. There’s so much to do! We appreciate you so much.

Donate to Japan Relief Trip

If you are able to support this important trip, please click the donate button. God bless you – and please do pray for each team member traveling to Japan and for us (Becky, as team leader in Japan, and Jeff, remaining in Brazil to lead the work here). Thank you!

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Over 30 years ago, Luke and Christine Huber moved their family to Santarém, in the heart of the Amazon Basin, to begin planting churches and making disciples. Santarém soon became the home base of Project AmaZon and expanded to plant more and more churches around Santarém.

Pastor Geraldo talks about the team.

On July 3, 2011, Project AmaZon celebrated another historic milestone. Pastor Sabá and his wife Joanna with their team of 71 people were consecrated and officially sent off to start PAZ’s 15th base in the city of Cuiabá, capital of the Amazon-Basin state of Mato Grosso. Pastor Abe Huber delivered a timeless message that included many stories of his parents Melvin and Katherine Huber, missionaries to Brazil over 50 years ago. All of what is happening in and through PAZ and its churches today is because of their faithfulness to God and His calling.

The Cuiabá team is comprised of fruit-bearing members of the PAZ church in Santarém. The church is taking care of all the expenses of the church-plant. Even so, many of these members are moving by faith alone: without any promised jobs or income in the near future — just like Melvin and Katherine when they moved to Brazil. The last three bases that PAZ planted — Sinop, Fortaleza and Boa Vista — were team plants like this one and have been amazingly fruitful in the short time since their planting.

The Final Frontier

Now that the base in Cuiabá is being started, there is only one capital city left to reach of the Brazilian states that make up the Amazon Basin: the city of São Luís (Saint Louis, anyone?) in the state of Maranhão (not Missouri). Each base is responsible for church-planting in their respective capitals and states — reaching the whole Amazon Basin for Christ! But PAZ is already looking further down the road: All of Brazil. Her neighboring countries. Africa. A world-wide movement of church-planting in the MDA vision of cell groups and one-on-one disciple-making.

The Cuiabá Team being commissioned.

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Our missionaries Tim and Christine Huber have lived and served in Japan for years. They have planted several churches in Japan and have recently shared with us what life has been like in Japan since the earthquake. This article comes straight from their blog.

Tim and Christine Huber

We were all shaken up by the biggest earthquake we have ever felt here in Japan. Things were falling out of the cupboard and shelves and smashing on the floor. We didn’t know if the whole building was going to collapse or not. Since then we have felt many aftershocks, and other earthquakes. Not long after the first quake, we learned that there was a huge tsunami in Sendai, only about 5 hours’ drive from where we live in Tokyo. The pictures were sickening. You can see some of them here — I’m sure you have seen plenty yourself. I copied them from the internet. We ourselves are well, in spite of all the continuing aftershocks, lack of food in the stores, gasoline being rationed and very hard to find, and the radiation scare from the nuclear power plants only 150 miles away.

HOWEVER, that is nothing compared to what others are experiencing. Our mission and churches are now collecting relief supplies and donations to be taken to the stricken areas. Tim and assistant pastor Yasu, are planning to take the first relief trip by van on Monday, the 21st. We hope to be taking many trips, because one trip is like a “drop in the bucket.” We hope to be working together with other churches here in Japan, to not only take supplies for physical needs, but emotional help for the many who are completely traumatized.

Today marks one week that their lives were completely turned up-side-down, in one short moment. We need you to help us reach out to them with the love of Jesus — that people who have never heard of His love and power might experience it right now. Let’s join together to show these precious people that they are not forgotten. God loves them and answers prayer.

Donate to PAZ Earthquake Relief

To stay up to date with updates from Japan, visit PAZ’s facebook page.

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Missions Pastor, Nilton Cordeiro, introduces the supervisors of the different regions.

God is on the move in the Amazon basin, as evidenced by all the lives being impacted through the Gospel! This last weekend, the PAZ base in Santarém held its annual 3-day missions conference and packed the house with thousands of people each night! The local PAZ church honors the men and women serving on the front lines of church-planting by gathering them together and blessing them with free dental work and health consulting, material for children’s ministry and leadership training, as well as a powerful weekend program. Many are rural people who have been won for Christ and now serve as church-planters and disciple-makers. Some have grown up here in Santarém and been sent out to new areas. They serve because they love Christ and His Kingdom, and through their efforts they opened 46 new works this year — all while overseeing and strenghtening their existing works! Many live simple lives, so it is a great opportunity for the church to bless them for all they do.

In previous years, the church collected donations of clothes, toys, food, bikes, motorcycles — anything and everything thought useful — and distributed to the workers during the conference. This year, the church put individual cell groups in charge of collecting donations for the missionaries. The response was tremendous as the act of giving became much more personal and meaningful. Missionary after missionary said they were overwhelmed by the tremendous outpouring of love and affection shown through the generous giving.

Pastor Geraldo introduces Missionaries Tim and Christine Huber.

The missions conference speakers were none other than PAZ missionaries to Japan, Tim and Christine Huber. Speaking from lives full of experience and fruit, they encouraged everyone to be passionate about Jesus and for reaching the lost — not just here in the lost places of the Amazon but also in the lost places of the world. The 10-40 window holds the majority of the unreached people groups of the world (“unreached” defined as less than 2% Christian). He shared that the Japanese people are the second largest unreached people group in the world (0.04% Christian) and challenged us to dream big and be willing to go to these hard to reach areas.

After so many years away from Santarém, Tim and Christine were amazed — in fact, we all are amazed — to see how God is responding to years of sacrifice, dedication, donation, prayer and discipleship to raise up His workers for the white harvest in Brazil. Truly the sacrifices made here have not been in vain, and now God is calling more and more people to give their lives for Him. Are you one of them? Do you feel the Spirit calling you deeper — to live your life with purpose and passion — just like these workers in the Amazon Basin? The joy they’ve found cannot be found with money or possessions, but through whole-hearted service to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords! Will you invest in God’s kingdom by continuing to give more, serve more, pray more, share more and do more? Perhaps you started well, but you slowly grew cold. There is no better time than now to recommit your life to things that matter eternally!

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