Proclaiming the Gospel without Fear!

Sunday night our family was able to worship together one more time before Jessica and Steven returned to the States! We worshipped with our brothers and sisters from the Caju church! How wonderful it was to catch up with Auginaldo and Luan! Remember, we had traveled with them to CElivre Pouso Alegre with a Minnesota church last month? How sweet to hear those words again from Luan, our dear brother-in-Christ...."I love to Preach the Gospel"!

What an awesome service it was, including Spirit-lead worship that brought the congregation before the throne of God! A powerful message from Pastor Fabio on where your treasure is, there your heart will be also, from Matthew 6:21 and many people making decisions for Christ! What a wonderful night that ended up with amazing fellowship!

During this fellowship time, Simone assured me she would protect me, should I someday finally go "up on the hill" with the church to evangelize. It's a dangerous area near the church where drugs are sold. In her life before Christ, she was an assassin for a drug lord. The Holy Spirit gently reminded me that my protection comes from Him alone! But I have promised Simone I

will walk by her side up on the hill and together we'll proclaim the Gospel without fear!

Praying that you, too, are proclaiming the Gospel without fear!

Diane

Together At Last!!!

It has been awesome having all three kids and Steven here with us!!! Drew arrived at the beginning of August, and Jessica and Steven arrived a week ago!

What an awesome time we've had, playing, laughing, joking and ministering together!

Drew has been teaching English at Cesar Maia on Saturdays and Jessica and Steven even had their turns at teaching on Thursday!

We've ran together, swam together, enjoyed Brazilian churrasco (BBQ) together, prayed together, enjoyed family devotions together and served together!

Saturday the kids will all be able to attend Youth group together and Sunday we'll enjoy services at both our Recreio church and the Caju church. Jessica and Steven leave on Monday, so only a few days left! Time is passing quickly!!!

In His grip,

The Droogsma Family

Preparing for the Olympics!!! ALREADY?!!!

Next week, we are blessed to be receiving our next "90 Downer" team! Although it is a small team....1 person....we are thrilled! It is amazing how God has orchestrated this team and I'd love to share with you why!

Curt Himmelberger has come several times to serve here in Brazil on short-term teams. He serves with transparency, enthusiasm and with an extreme amount of energy! The last time he was here Jeff and I spent an afternoon with him and he shared with us his interest in serving with us for a longer period of time. But, he needed to return home and finish his studies at Penn State University. He finished....and he is now a certified ESL teacher!!!

Curt didn't know it at the time, but together with Caju church, we have been talking, praying and seeking God's direction of how we can best minister together when we literally will have the whole world right here in Rio, at our doorsteps during the 2016 Olympic Games!!! We'd decided that we have time to teach many brothers- and sisters-in-Christ from Caju to speak English and to broaden the number of people they can reach for Christ!

God has provided an energetic brother-in-Christ to serve with us and the Caju church, who "just happens" to have an education in the area of ESL that we need! God is good---ALL THE TIME!!!

And Drew is looking forward to sharing the "cottage" with his new roomate!!!

Serving together,

Di (for the fam)

"We Love to Preach the Gospel!"

This was the sentence that Luan, our Brazilian brother-in-Christ, serving alongside us, wanted us to teach him in English! And it truly was the theme with our latest short-term team from Minnesota. It's exactly what we did, over and over, to so many people, people of all ages...making the most of every opportunity to make His name known!

We were blessed to receive this team that included Karla, Harvey, Alex and Nathan! Serving with us were Pastor Auginaldo and Luan from Caju church, Diane, our teammate Craig Weyandt, and myself as we boldly proclaimed the gospel!

One of the first days of the trip during our daily team devotions, Nathan shared that he didn't want to say “no” to anything the Lord put before him. This simple statement set the tone for the entire week. Everybody was ready to share the gospel at any time, at any place in any manner!

Our team traveled to a city called Pouso Alegre located 6 hours northwest of Rio de Janeiro. Here an E-Free Church was just being planted and so we went to encourage the new pastor and his people, and of course “to preach the Gospel”. The new church building was a former butcher shop located in the center of town next to a LAN house where many people gathered each night. What an awesome place to get their attention! We went forth bearing the “good news” to all. We performed a different powerful skit each night, we shared our testimonies, we preached messages from the Word and we used the Evang-E-Cube (simple rubix-like cube that shows the gospel in pictures). Mostly, we talked to people of all ages telling them of the hope, peace, joy and love they could have being a follower of Jesus Christ!

This was an amazing mission for 2 reasons. The first being that the neighborhood was in a very conservative rural area where people keep to themselves and so our boldness for Christ brought positive attention. The second reason was the diversity of our team. It included a pilot, pastors, secretaries, businessmen, an artist, full-time missionaries, Brazilians and North Americans---and yet, God united us together with one spirit, with the passion to bring the gospel!

When I think back on the trip and remember the nine of us out on the streets each afternoon and evening bringing the Good News, well, it just doesn’t get any better than that!!!

Declaring His goodness,

Jeff

Ephesians 5:15 &16 "Be very careful, then, how you live---not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil".