The family from São Paulo

This morning we had our first home meeting with the couple from São Paulo. There were ten people present, including me and all are Christians. After 8 weeks, probably only four of this ten will remain and the others will begin a similar work in their neighborhoods. (During these 8 weeks the families will learn together how a home worship service works and each couple will have an opportunity to lead once or twice. After each family feels comfortable with the way meeting in homes works and feels they will begin to reach out primarily to lost people on their street.)

One thing that happened is that as we began, I introduced this family to the others who had come from our church. As we began the prayer time, three families soon realized that they were all involved in taking care of an invalid family member over a period of years. It was the first time they'd been able to talk about the burden and difficulty freely. The Holy Spirit enabled these three families to minister to one another and encourage each other in a way that none of them had experienced before. Our prayer and sharing time lasted 50 minutes!

Each person, at the end of our time together made a specific commitment to obey Jesus this week. These were the statements, as I remember them.

• I watch too much TV and don't pray enough. I will make a commitment to pray for a time before I turn on the TV each day. I will not turn on the TV without spending time in prayer first.
• There is a man that works across from my house. I am going to learn his name and tell him about Jesus before Thursday.
• I am going to pray daily at 4:30 in the afternoon.
• I will begin my day by reading something from God's word. You can ask next week how many mornings I was able to do it. I hope to say seven.
• I will pray for your mother and for you as you take care of her.
• I will tell my neighbor about Jesus tomorrow morning.
• I will pray every night at 10:00pm.
• I am going to tell my friends at school what I learned from the Bible each week.
  

There were a few others, but I can't remember well. The point is, each person wanted to put his faith in practice. I believe this group will produce fruit.