In our most recent mailing we tell the story of the community of Piracãoera de Cima, where a church was recently built in the midst of the worst flooding in the Basin our generation has seen. It’s amazing to see how much God uses a physical building to build his eternal kingdom, as evidenced in the story of Piracãoera de Cima and its overseeing pastor, Reinaldo. Click to open this letter and take a quick trip with us down the Amazon River to see first hand how God is working through your prayers, donations, missions trips and support.

Click to download the recent PAZ letter.

Help us build several more church buildings this year! Eleven teams are on their way down to physically contribute to our building projects. You can contribute to this most excellent work and donate to the Revolving Construction Fund by clicking here.

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3 day National Fast- Feb 4, 5, 6

Today marks the first day of the 3-day national fast for PAZ and our churches. All church leadership and members are encouraged to join in and seek God intensely during this time, especially in the following areas:

• Direction and wisdom for PAZ leadership in how to strengthen our current churches and where to plant new churches.
• For the transportation needs of our workers and pastors (boats, canoes, trucks, bicycles, etc).
• The finances to cover the expenses of our workers and transportation costs.
• For more quality workers, supervisors and local leaders.
• More health trips that open the doors to church planting.
• For leaders to be faithful with their statistics.
• For strenghtening of the hundreades of existing church and planting hundreds more with the goal of 1,000 by 2014.
• For 120,000 disciples in Santarém by 2014.

We have some big kingdom goals! Would you join with us to see God’s favor poured out on us even more as we put together all the details of planting a total of 1,000 churches by 2014?

The new PAZ 2014 goes where no PAZ site has gone before!

Soon, the 4th generation PAZ site PAZ 2014 will go online.  It’s an all new interactive experience, filled with the most recent stories, pictures, and testimonies from the Amazon. You’ll even be able to take it with you in the form of the new PAZ Pack – a package for download including a new photo book The PAZ Picture exPerience, a detailed overview of PAZ called PAZ Facts & Figures, and other great goodies.

The new PAZ 2014 website is part of an even greater effort to keep you up to date with all the God is doing here and how you can help. We (Project AmaZon) have also started our own facebook group, where you can stay even more up-to-date with PAZ’s day-to-day happenings. Many of our missionaries already use facebook to stay connected with friends and family all over the world, so PAZ will harness facebook to empower church planting! Join by clicking here.

And that’s just the beginning, as there are a number of other surprises in store that you’ll just have to wait to see. We look forward to using all the available resources we have to empower the Kingdom work of reaching the estimated 35,000 Basin villages without any evangelical church.

The Christmas Service at Igreja da Paz Central

Last night we here at PAZ headquarters in Santarém ushered in the New Year at the church on our knees, seeking the Lord’s blessing on 2010. During the service we looked back at all the successes of 2009. While we are still waiting for numbers to come in from across our bases, through just our church in Santarém, 3,989 people gave their lives to the Lord at the alter in the church!!! Hallelujah!! And this does not include people who gave their lives to the Lord at this years’ Congresso da Paz.

Each and every number represents a person whose life and eternal destiny was changed forever. Each and every number matters because it speaks a story of forgiveness and redemption that only Jesus can bring. And for each of these people, this is just the start of the journey, not the end! Now they will be strengthened in their cell groups and in a new Bible School EMP that just started this last year. They will be encouraged to grow and become leaders through one-on-one discipleship, of which the church finished out the year with 23,346 disciples (people involved in one-on-one discipleship)!

Health and Water Filter Ministry

This year was also a very busy year for the health and water filter ministries here at PAZ. Quoting from the blog of missionary Ken Orr, who along with his wife Isaura coordinate these ministries:

Our health ministry team (left to right): Ken, Isaura, Rebecca, Luana, Juliana, Silvia, Vanessa, Carla, Adriano

We visited 43 communities, where doctors gave medical attention to 2,210 people, nurses treated 1,460 people of things like worms, cuts, bruises, etc. and dentists improved the smile of 1,612 people. All of this is good, but what made the exercises worth our time and effort was the honor of being used by God to usher some 284 souls into His Kingdom.

Since we joined the Water Filter Project in June, we visted 27 comunities, that together have close to 1,000 filters. Of these, 315 filters needed some work to be done because of the terrible flood season we had this year. We trained 29 local church workers on how to maintain the filters working in top condition.

In July we temporally closed the filter factory so we could concentrate our efforts on the filters compromised by the flood. Consequently we were only able to make 625 new instalations in 2009. This brings the total number of filters installed during the 10 years of the project to 10,065.

I encourage you to visit his blog to see video they produced and look at pictures from their ministry this year.

God is blessing His work as we seek to be in the center of His Will to make disciples and plant churches. It is met by many, many challenges but it is also met by a God who is with us to do His work through us. Your partnership with us is bearing great fruit for God’s Kingdom and we look forward to seeing what God will do this next year!

This Christmas, Project AmaZon director Jeff Hrubik sensed God leading us at PAZ to make a very different type of appeal – one I’ve personally never seen done, even heard of being done before! All I can say is that I believe God has something very special in store for you this Christmas and how God wants to use you! I’m expecting to hear testimonies of how God will use this challenge. If you have a great testimony or story to share with us that happened as a direct result of this letter, please send us that testimony. Either post it here or send it to one of our missionaries. Click the letter below to open and read it. Open your heart to receive what God would have you do this Christmas.

Click to open the 2009 PAZ Christmas Letter

Zenilson

Meet Zenilson. He, his wife and family live near Aritapeira on the Amazon River. His home was destroyed by the record flooding and his family was forced to live in the shed behind their house. His wife began to look to God for help. She started attending the local PAZ church and invited Zenilson, who was not a Christian and had no desire to go to church.

Pastor Reinaldo, the overseeing pastor of the churches in that area, visited their house and after seeing the immense damage, he asked PAZ to help. PAZ first visited in late June when the waters had already subsided a full meter (and yet the ground was still covered with water). You could see how high the water rose on the walls. You could see that even though the house was standing, it’s structure had been completely ripped apart by the strong current and left barely standing. Plans were made to come back when it was dry enough to begin rebuilding.

In the meantime, Zenilson’s wife continued to invite him to church, and he finally went. Pastor Reinaldo began to visit them at home, and one day asked Zenilson if he had made his decision to follow Christ yet. After seeing the love of Christ in action, he made his decision to follow Christ!

Months have passed since the worst recorded flood devastated the Amazon Basin and PAZ began a special flood relief initiative to help the victims of the flood. With the help that you gave, we have sent out a number of teams to minister to the worst hit areas around Santarém, and lives like that of Zenilson’s family have been transformed. Houses have been rebuilt. Construction supplies donated. Churches rebuilt. Medical teams sent. Water filter have been installed and maintained. The Gospel has not only preached, but has been lived out in a very powerful and practical way. Hundreds of people have made decisions to follow the Lord as a direct result of the flood relief! These people have been integrated into cell groups, given the opportunity for one-to-one discipleship and have what they need to grow deeply in Christ.

We recently went back to Aritapeira to maintain water filters, hold a medical clinic and fix the church. We also went to deliver new supplies and begin construction on Zenilson’s new house. We helped them square off their new house and get it started. The rest of the work is now up to them. The whole family was filled with joy and thankfulness, praising God and thanking you. Watch this short clip and be blessed: it’s a simple thank you from the heart of the Amazon to you.

Finally, have a look at some of the photo highlights of the last couple of months of river trips to hard hit areas. It really is amazing to see that all things work together for the good of those that love the Lord! Look at the harvest that is being reaped in the midst of difficult situations. Praise be to God! Click any one of these photos to see them larger. Then use your arrow keys to navigate the slideshow.

Santarém, birthplace of Project AmaZon, is becoming recognized throughout Brazil as a city where God is moving in powerful and new ways. As I write this article, pastors and leaders from all over Brazil are on their way back to their homes and churches full of vision and passion to win Brazil for Christ. Over 1,300 participants came from 24 of Brazil’s 27 states and took part in the 9th National MDA Conference. They came to be equipped with the same wonderful vision and discipleship tools that PAZ uses here in Santarém to win many for Christ and see them all transformed into healthy disciples of Christ. Yes – quality and quantity can and should go hand in hand!

Participants encounter God during praise and worship (Click this or any of these pictures to see them full size)

Fruitful pastors such as Abe Huber (Fortaleza), Geraldo Oliveira (Santarém), Leôncio Martins (Santarém), Jeff and Becky Hrubik (Santarém), Aluízio Silva (Goiânia), Odilon Vergara (Curitiba), Sabá Liberal (Boa Vista) and Sandro Oliveira (Fortaleza) shared about the powerful MDA vision. The Word had a huge impact in the lives of all who participated. The conference also included two very special nights with Tommy Tenney.

Over 15,000 people celebrate the multiplication of cell groups

What makes the conference so powerful is the fact that it’s held in Santarém, where the MDA vision was born out of a passionate desire to see the lost won for Christ and every Christian well discipled. Participants not only learn about MDA, but they see it in action. They go to the weekly leadership trainings (TADEL) where over 4,000 leaders pack into the services to be equipped. They visit cell groups that are multiplying all over the city and at the stroke of 8 PM shoot off fireworks (along with all the other cell groups in the city). The whole city erupts in a huge celestial celebration of multiplication! On the last night of the conference they participate in the huge Mulitiplication Celebration, where this year over 15,000 packed into a local soccer center to celebrate the huge harvest we are experimenting. They go to one of the 40 service options each Sunday, perhaps to one of the seven services at Central. They go on a trip to a local river community and see how the vision has had an impact in the little communities all over the Amazon. They drink in the vision and soak in it to be able to take it to their cities and church families.

Geane and the PAZ worship team lead us to God's throne

This year was the first year that Ministério PAZ de Louvor & Adoração, Santarém (PAZ’s Praise & Worship Ministries in Santarém) led the worship and was extremely blessed with God’s favor and Spirit of unity. God’s presence manifested so strongly that lives were changed forever by the powerful encounters with God through praise and worship. Pastors and leaders from all over Brazil were asking for a CD from our worship ministries – a goal now set in motion from God’s amazing outpouring on us.

Our largest building proved too small to hold all the people wanting to learn the MDA vision. But the solution and the miracle is in front of us: the new Cathedral of Love, a 10,000 plus seat church that will stand as a powerful monument to the huge movement happening in the middle of the Amazon jungle, at the very end of the earth. Lord willing, construction will begin by the end of November! And to think, this is just the beginning!

Participants surrender to God's powerful presence

Pastor Abe Huber details healthy discipleship

Great drama performances and dances are part of our celebrations

Pastor Genildo (Belém) delivers a powerful message

The Panterão is packed for our Celebration of Multiplication

PAZ Pastors intercede for their flock and other leaders