Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas!















At this special time of year, as we celebrate the birth of our savior the Lord Jesus Christ, we want to send a special thanks to you as well! Thank you for your love and care, your financial support, and your prayers this year! Your partnership this year has allowed us to continue the mission God has called us to for His glory and His renown!

May your hearts be filled with His everlasting goodness and love!

We love you and miss you very much!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Happy 7th Birthday John!


Today we celebrated John's big #7 birthday!
He is growing into a loving young man! He is one of our most affectionate children. He always has hugs and kisses for his moma, papa, brothers & sister! He loves soccer, especially Brazil and Milan! His favorite player is Káka who plays for both teams. He is reading well and doing "real" math as he says!

What a blessing each of our children have been!
Each one teaching us about God and about ourselves all at the same time. God's love is so great!

Whether you're having a good day or a bad one, it makes your day to hear your child say "Good morning Papa" or "I love you Papa". When I watch them studying in school, doing homework, or playing a game I sometimes can't contain myself! I just want to scoop them up and hug them! I am so thankful God has decided to shared them with me! Thank you Jesus!

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Congradulations Leo and Gabi on Your Wedding!

We have been blessed this past month! This is the third wedding among our young couples! Praise God for His mercy and love! May He continue to build his Kingdom and bless us by allowing us to be a part of it!

Friday, December 14, 2007

Preparing for Christmas!

Our kids are serious when it comes to preparing for Christmas! On this day they even put on war paint to help make their point! Well, I think it may have more to do with the history they are studying in school, but they are ready for Christmas!

Happy Holidays!

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Family Outting In The Mountains

Once in a while you just have to get outside the city! That is just what we did this weekend! Several of the families from our small group ministry got together to play, relax, and enjoy one another! I'm not sure who had more fun the kids or the adults, but you can be sure we all had fun!

Thank you Lord for the beauty and vastness of your creation that remind us of how great you are!

Please join us in praying for the continued development of our small group ministry among the adults in our church!

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Congradulations Anselmo & Michelle on Your Wedding!

What a wonderful privilege it was to celebrate with Anselmo and Michelle as they celebrated their love and God's calling for them to live as one! It was a beautiful ceremony and everyone enjoyed celebrating with them!

Michelle came to Brazil many years ago as a single staff girl entrusting her future and her heart to the God who loves her and has called her. She came to invest her heart and life in the development of God's great kingdom! She desired for God to use her life to raise up laborers for His kingdom and glory! I want to share that God has done this and has cared for her every need. And now as I watch her walk down the aisle in response to God's blessing and love through Anselmo I am so thrilled! What a testimony of God's great love for us individually! His love is so personal and intimate!

God bless you Anselmo and Michelle! May His grace and love always shine upon you! We love you guys!

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!

What a special day to remember how faithful our Father in heaven is! He has been so gracious and faithful to us this year! We have so very much to be thankful for!

We wanted to express to you as well our thanks for your friendship and your partnership! We are so blessed that God has brought together a team of people who pray, give, and support us as we serve the lord together!

May God bless you and keep you! The Longs

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Congratulations Zé & Cláudia On Your Wedding!

What a privilege to celebrate Zé and Cláudia's wedding with them! Cláudia is one of the girls that Wendy first met and became not only one of her first diciples here in Brazil, but one of her very best friends! For me it was like my daughter was getting married! Needless to say it was an emotional and powerful time!

Take a moment to watch a few of the pictures from the big event in the slide show below!


May God bless you and keep you Zé and Cláudia as your hearts and lives become one! May your lives be full of His mercy and grace! We love you Zé & Cláudia!

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

I Can Only Imagine!

The past two years have been a tremendous time of growth and stretching. God has done things and led in ways I had never imagined!

When God first called Wendy and I to Brazil we saw the call as very specific. We came to Brazil to see God raise up laborers from the campus for the lost world! By the grace of God that’s exactly what He has done! However as the years have passed we have been plagued by the lingering challenge of seeing them all actually equipped as life long laborers for God’s Kingdom! During the college years we participate with God to reach students for Christ and help them begin a lifelong process of laborer completion as disciples of Christ. However, considering where most of our students in Brazil begin their spiritual journeys with us [what experiences they have had with God, His Word, and His Body] we don’t have enough time with them before they graduate to help them really form as equipped laborers and no local churches with the vision to see this happen.

As a result we have wrestled to understand God’s desire in this and what role He desires us to play in it. We are convinced He desires His disciples to be complete and we know that He promises to do that very thing through the letter of Paul in Philippians 1:6. The question remained for us however, how would this happen for our spiritual children and what role does God intend for us to play in that! This is where God brings my personal pain and stretching to a whole new level! Personally I was very content and excited about the work of making disciples through the university campus and could see myself doing that for years to come. However God had a different plan for Wendy and I. It was really the same call that he made in our hearts many years before, only with a larger expression than I had ever imagined!

As God used many faithful friends and teammates to help me better understand myself, my giftings, and my passions, I began to feel my limited vision of my future splash against the wall of reality and God’s plan. Before, I had always imagined that I would go on to lead a campus team out to pioneer another frontier for the Kingdom of God in Brazil or South America! Little did I know that the pioneering God had in mind for me was directly related to the laborer completion questions that had torn my heart as a shepherd for the last several years!

Last year God began to call me and some of my teammates to play a principle role in responding to the need to see God’s disciples equipped! It was no longer just college students, but the reality is that God had raised up students, graduates, couples, and families all around us who all needed to be equipped. We had tried to answer this through partnering with some local Brazilian churches, but under whelmed by their lack of capacity and vision we began to understand God’s second call for us!

As the year has moved along, working with a local church, we have planted a new church! God has brought a Brazilian pastor and his family to work with our team on this and has raised up Brazilian campus staff who are now leading the three campus teams for our ministry here at UFMG! We have also seen God raise up developing ministries among the children, young professionals, and families within our church as well!

This is where Wendy and I have felt God’s blessings the most this year! We have been working together with Raul and Vivi Pacheco to develop a vibrant community among the families in our church. So far this year we have seen God build caring relationships where each family is really seeking to relate, care for and pray for the needs of one another. We have been studying God’s word and talking a great deal about how the gospel transforms our relationships and marriages. We are now beginning to challenge our first leaders and help them form their first disciple groups from among our community. It has been so amazing to see God expanding His impact out into new parts of the city and developing new leaders and laborers! We are really excited and have been so blessed through them and through God’s grace in them! We are all Growing Together! All praise be to Him!

As I think about what this means for our ongoing campus ministry I get even more excited! The students who now begin to consider and investigate Christ through the campus have real life examples in the church of men and women of all ages living with and serving Christ with their lives, professions, and hearts! They see people relating and loving one another within the body of Christ! They have many examples of what life on life discipleship looks like! They see people living for something bigger than themselves! This is something that we never had in the first ten years of ministry here! Praise God for this new opportunity and privilege! I can only imagine how God intends to use all this to raise up more and more laborers for His Kingdom!

Thursday, November 1, 2007

CO Team Update - 11/01/2007

Thank you for your emails and prayers! We have felt so loved and cared for as we have walked through our recent challenges! It has been clear that God has sustained us and nurtured us!

God has continued to bless our hearts and lives as He has brought together a core group of leaders among the families we are ministering with! Wendy and I have been laboring with Raul and Vivi Pacheco to see God help us develop a "real" process to help equip couple's and families as laborers for God's Kingdom!

At this point we are helping them learn more about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. We desire to help them grow in the three characteristics of a disciple that Jesus shares with us through the Gospel of John 1) Identity - John 8:31-32, 2) Community - John 13:34-35, and 3) Mission - John 15:8. As we grow as disciples we are working to help each one learn how to express their spiritual gift through serving and equipping the body. We hope each person will be equipped and motivated to do this! I will try to share more about our process and plans in the following weeks!

Pray with us as we are preparing our plans for 2008 and hosting a huge family barbecue "Brazilian style" on Nov. 15th. It will be a strategic event for involving new couples and evangelistic contacts! Thanks for laboring through this with us! It is a tremendous privilege!


Please note in the Team Update to the left that Cláudia and Zé Flavio will marry Nov. 17th. (As you may remember Cláudia was one of Wendy's first disciples and dearest friends in Brazil!) Take a moment to click on the image at left to read all the latest news in full size!

It's a great privilege laboring with you!

Thursday, October 18, 2007

CO Brazil Team Update 10-18-2007

The past few weeks have been rather challenging to say the least. Since we could not get our financing worked out yet to buy a house, we had to move into a temporary rental situation. As you may know, moving in any situation is tiresome and stressfull and all the more so when it is done under tight time pressures.

The house is great and seems like it will be a blessing for our family and others, however within the first week of moving in we've already been robbed! For those of you who have never had this experience it is a very violating sensation. Something that is meant to be secure and "sacred" is violated and left felling very vulnerable.

As a family we have been praying and focusing on God as our rock, our shield, and our protector. We can't trust in gates and locks, but in our Lord and savior for our comfort and our security.

I was supposed to travel to the USA this week for a first ever Global Strategy Conference with the US and International Campus Outreach Ministries. However, with the recent move and then robbery I did not feel I could provide the leadership, protection, and care that I feel my family needs at this time and travel the same week. Please pray for us as a family! Pray for God's peace in our hearts and protection. Also pray with us about God's leadership of the strategic global conference that will be going on this next week north of Atlanta, GA.

Please CLICK on the image at left to read our team update in full size scale!

Thanks for your prayers and continued support! We truly count it a privilege to co-labor with each one of you!

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

CO Brazil Team Update 10-03-2007

Today was a really big day! We moved the last of our "stuff" into the house that God has provided for us. It is a rental, but I know it will be a great blessing for us as well as many others. We hope to continue our search for just the right deal at just the right time as God provides! Thanks for walking and praying with us in all this!

Also today Raul and Vivi Pacheco, the most recent additions to our staff team in Brazil, received their first born, Daniel, at 3 pm. He weighed in just over seven pounds and just over 18 inches! In the words of Raul, "God is so good, he takes after his mother!" Please celebrate with us as we receive our newest team member! Click on the picture of Raul & Daniel to see more photos.
2007_10_03 Nascimento do Daniel Pacheco

Thanks as well for your prayers for our annual Staff Stimulus! It was incredible to see God work in our hearts and relationships! You could see the love grow and the vision crystallize as we sought His face! Thanks again for your prayers! Click on the image of our staff team below to see more pictures from that event!
2007_09_20-22 CO Brazil Staff Stimulus

Please CLICK ON THE IMAGE AT RIGHT to read our latest team update in full size!

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Please Pray!

Tuesday, my cousin Mike York died. Please be in prayer for his family, especially my Aunt Mae and Uncle Buddy! This has been a difficult time for them all!

The fianl arrangements for Mike are as follows: Family visitation will be Wed. (9/19) 4-8 at Davis-Struempf Funeral Home, 1975 East-West Connector, Austell, GA 770-944-2900. The funeral will be at the funeral home chapel Thurs. (9/20) at 11 am.

Thank you for your prayers!

CO Brazil Team Update 09-19-2007

Please celebrate with us the engagement of Michelle Williams with Anselmo, one of our Brazil national staff. We are so pleased for them and pray God will bless them and lead them as they prepare for their union!

On the housing front - We have been frantically looking for a new home for our family. Our landlord needs his house back for family reasons and we have to be out and return the home by 10-17-2007.

Since rental prices are so high in Belo Horizonte and we foresee our time table here at least five more years, we have been looking into the possibility of purchasing a home here instead of just renting again. However the current Brazilian economic reality here has prevented local mortgage financing from being a current reality for us. We have begun investigating possible opportunities back in the USA for financing and some supporters have already donated some funds to help us develop a better down payment. Thank you all so much!

Please let us know if you would like more information about how you can practically help with our house!

Due to our time crunch we will seek a rental situation that will give us additional time to look for a house to buy and financing to afford it! Please continue to remember us in your prayers! We have found a rental house that could serve us in the short term. We have made a proposal to the owners and hope to have a response by the end of the week! Mean while, we will continue to pray and seek God's will to be able to invest in a purchase!

This week is also our annual Staff Stimulus! We are very pleased to have an opportunity to all come together, seek God, unite our hearts, and reflect and give thanks for all that God has done! Out of the 37 adults participating in this year's Staff Stimulus 14 will be participating for the first time, or on staff for their first year with Campus Outreach Brazil! Wow! That's quite a bit of growth! Praise God!

Thank you for your prayers and support!

Please CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE to read our latest team update in its original size!

Monday, September 3, 2007

CO Brazil Team Update 09-03-2007

Please celebrate with us the engagement of Claudia and Ze Flavio! Claudia and Ze Flavio are two of our national staff on our team. Claudia is one of the girls Wendy started discipling 9 years ago when we first started our ministry here.

We are so thankful and happy for them! Praise God! Please pray for God's guidance and grace as they prepare for their union!

On the housing front - We are still looking diligently for a new home for our family! Please remember us in your prayers! We will have to be out of here soon!

Please CLICK ON IMAGE AT RIGHT to see in original size to read more of our latest team news!

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Happy 9th Birthday Levi! 08-28-2007

We want to say thank you Jesus for such a special boy and special blessing in our lives! We are so proud of Levi and the fine young man that he is becoming! His favorite activities are any sport that has to do with a ball!


He is currently training with a Brazilian soccer team and loves every minute. When he is not at practice he and his brother John are playing in the yard, in the house, or in the street!

Levi invited one of his favorite friends, Junior, to come over and eat cake and celebrate his birthday with him!

We love you Levi!

Friday, August 10, 2007

Urgent Need!

Thank you for allowing us to share with you our lives as well. Friday August 10, the owners of our house informed us that they need it back. They need for us to move out so they can remodel it and give it to one of their married children. We are so thank for our home. Our landlord has been supporting our ministry through renting our home to us for the last seven years at a rate one third of its market value.

In light of God's leadership we believe we should try and buy a house. We will start our search this week. As we follow God to undertake this endeavor there are several challenging variables: 1)Mortgages here are difficult and rates in Brazil are approximately 4-5% a month. 2)We have a down payment saved up but don't have any "real" financing options here (pray with us that God would use someone to make a way possible!). 3)We need to find the right home in an appropriate neighborhood.

Please pray with us for God's continued guidance and provision. Please let us know if you have any ideas or would like to help in any way with this great adventure!

God Answers Prayers!

Thank you each one for your prayers! It was an amazing time together for the 11 members of our campus, church, and administrative leadership teams this week. I had requested prayer for unity of hearts and vision and God did precisely that!

We went away to a small farm outside town, August 7-9, to pray and seek God together! We asked God to break our strong selfish wills that we might be empty of ourselves and full of Him! God was so gracious with us that He did just that. We experience His faithful love and grace working in each of our hearts bringing repentance, faith, love, and unity! It was a wonderful time.

We also sought God's guidance together as we set out to clarify the broader vision of the ministry here in Belo Horizonte, Brazil for the next phase of growth. He was very faithful as we came to understand 9 commitments that we believe should shape, guide, and direct us as we develop our plans for the next 5-10 years.

I look forward to sharing more about those with you as our plans develop over the next few months! Thanks again for your prayers! God does answer prayer!

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Please Pray With Us!

I would like to share with you about a special opportunity to pray together with us.

August 7-9 I will participate in a series of leadership meetings with our campus, church, and administrative leadership teams combined. We are seeking God's face to find even greater partnership and unity as we work together to see laborers raised up in Brazil. As the ministry has grown and includes more and more pos-university people we want to better understand how to equip and mobilize adult laborers within their spheres of influence. We will also be working on the development of our joint strategy and plans as we seek God for greater alignment and some new methods to help us achieve our objectives.

We believe God desires to do great things in Brazil! Please pray with us that God would unit our hearts and visions as one. Pray that we would come together on a common strategy that will reinforce our values and multiply our leaders' effectiveness both on campus and beyond.

Thank you guys so much! It is a privilege laboring with you!

Celebrating the Arrival of Kelsey James McClure 08-03-2007

We are so thankful to God for the arrival of my great niece Kelsey James McClure to my nephew Rusty McClure, his wife Rebbecca, and their three daughters Kiley, Kinnsey, & Kennedy. She and mom are healthy and already home praise God!

Kelsey was born at 1:50 PM on August 3rd, weighing in at 8 lbs. 12 oz, measuring 20" long with a head circumference of 14". Ouch! Poor Rebbecca!

Photos are courtesy of proud Aunt Jamie (or Mamie as the girls call her)!

No one can out maneuver God. My nephew was out on maneuvers with the US Navy and for "some reason" the ship had to return to port and the captain gave Rusty leave for a few days while they were back and Kelsey was born the day before he had to ship back out. Wow! Go God!

We are so thankful and so proud! Thank you for celebrating with us!

Thursday, August 2, 2007

CO Brazil Team Update 08-02-2007

Thank you guys for your prayers and support! This has been a great season of ministry and growth.

God has continued to stretch us and grow us as we learn new things about Him and ourselves. It's interesting how we can see how selfish we are as we try to focus on and serve others. Weather it is loving and serving my wife, family, kids, or others it requires me to die to myself and that's never easy.

Fortunately God does not call upon us to love or serve out of our own energy or power. He calls us to abide in Him and allow His love and grace to flow through us to others. Wow! What a privilege and relief!

As you can see through the last several updates this has been a busy time for us. Most recently, we received two groups from the USA to assist in the growth and development of our Social Ministry. The high point of this ministry for me is the real life on life discipleship of some 50 kids from under privileged backgrounds, taking place in groups of 3-5 children led by students and staff. Pray with us that God would raise up laborers from among these children who He will use to reach and transform their community and families.

Please Click On The Image At Right
to read in full size more about this and other great news from our team.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Celebrating with Rafael and Fernanda 07/28/2007

What a privilege we have to see God bring together young men and women who desire to see God glorified and honored through their lives and families.

Saturday, July 28, we celebrated with Rafael and Fernanda, one of the young couples from our church, as they came before God, their families and friends to testify of their love, pledge their commitment, and ask God for His blessing.

It was such great fun and everyone looked so beautiful! Especially Emmi who was a flower girl!

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Partnering for Impact 7-24-2007

What a fantastic time we had this past week as a wonderful group of 19 folks came down from Southside Church in Peachtree City, GA. It was a great time of stimulus, vision, and ministry as we worked together to see God reaching out through several key events.

The Southside team led a wonderful program for our children's ministry on Sunday. They helped us pull off an incredible Football Clinic on Wednesday where we had over thirty kids participate. And they put on a Wii event on Thursday for our singles ministry that they will be talking about for months.

Each of these events focused on helping us create environments to invite new contacts to. God blessed each one and opened doors with many new relationships and opportunities! Thank you guys so much for your hard work and fun partnership!

It was a great learning opportunity for us and I believe we will be able to make the most of future visits and partnerships as a result!

Monday, July 9, 2007

Thanks For Praying For My Family & Trip

Thank you so much for your prayers as Wendy, the kids, and I traveled back to the USA to pass a special milestone with my extended family. My father R.E. turned 75 on July 7th and the family all came together to celebrate and enjoy one another!



It was not only a blessing for me, but I believe it was a blessing for the entire family to come together and celebrate all that God has been doing in the lives of all. It was especially great for my children who have grown up so far away from their extended family to have a super special time of fun and interactions with all their aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents! Thanks to all of you who prayed God's blessing on us during this time. God was gracious and gave us many special conversations and opportunities to see Him at work!

Thanks mom and dad for the great trip and making this all possible! We loved the trip and are so thankful for God's blessings on our family! Thanks for those who also helped with the tickets and the other expenses of this trip!

Quick update on Dad's health. His lungs have been stable for the last several months and he seems to be doing fairly well. He says that his greatest difficulty is the pain in his back. Please continue to remember him and his health in your prayers! Thanks!

Monday, July 2, 2007

CO Brazil Team Update 07-02-2007


The Bible tells us that people without vision will perish. This week we had our annual Vision Day rally where we not only remembered our own vision and updated one another from each segment of the ministry, but also heard from other ministries on campus and beyond about how God has been blessing and working around the world! This was definitely one of the highlights during our Cross Cultural Projects.

Please take a moment to click on and read our latest team update at right.

Thank you for your prayers and for your love!

We continue to be blessed as we are enjoying time with my family in the US for a couple of weeks! RGL

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

CO Brazil Team Update 06-19-2007


Please take a moment to click on the image on your right to read some of the latest news from our team in Brazil.

I would especially like to point your attention to the National Staff Update from Junior! His story is power and God is using him in incredible ways!


We would also like to take this moment to thank God for the arrival of two new staff children, Nolan Lutz and Rebeka Arledge! Pray with us that God would strengthen them and give them a heart for Himself!

Thank you for your partnership and prayers! RGL

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Special Request for Prayer - Happy Father's Day!

As you celebrate Father's day this weekend, please join with me to ask God to work miraculously among our dads. I am blessed with a wonderful father who loves God and loves his family. I know that that is a huge blessing and I am so thankful. I know many of you however have fathers who don't know the love and transforming power of the Lord. Let's pray together for God to work even this weekend to draw all fathers to Himself working only as He can.

My father has been fighting with several life threatening illnesses over the past year and I am so eager for my family to get to go and see him and the rest of the family. We had planned to try and come in when the entire family planned to gathered in June, but the cost of the airfare was outrageous, $9,000. So we said, unless God works miraculously, we can't even consider it. I want to share with you today that God does work miracles! Without even sharing our needs, God met them through an aunt and uncle who were able to get passes for the whole family with almost a $6,000 savings. Praise God!

If you would please pray with us that God would continue to work out the flight details for us as we will be flying stand-by with the whole family! We are seeking to fly Sunday night from Rio de Janeiro arriving in Atlanta, GA on Monday.

We hope to spend a couple of weeks with my family including one week of vacation with 35 of my immediate family. Please pray for God's presence, protection, and power! We desire to see His gospel transforming every relationship!

God's Blessings Never Cease

This past week has been a wonderful example of God's faithfulness and care. The past couple of weeks we have sought to walk with many other couples as they seek God in the midst of challenging circumstances and situations. Wendy and I have often felt that we could not stand to bear any other's problems, challenges, or sins. We have felt overwhelmed with the magnitude of the needs that surround us many times. We know God is the only one who can meet these needs, but we have felt so broken over the pain and suffering we've walked in. It has been so sweet to see God answering each situation as only he can with unconditional love and grace! Almost every issue that has been weighing on us is moving forward and transforming!

In the words of Cassiano, one of the men in our couples community, "I have cried out to God for help and he has heard my cries and has answered them with a loud response, 'I am your Lord and God! See what I will do!'"

We have seen God bring renewal, restoration, and even salvation! God is good!

Thank you for your prayres for God's sustenance, strength, and protection! We love you guys!

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

My Bride of Seventeen Years

June 2 Wendy and I celebrated our seventeenth wedding anniversary! Wow! I know you are all saying to yourselves, "but how can that be, they are both so young?" Well, despite how great Wendy looks those years go creeping by. In reality they have flown by.

God has blessed me so graciously through Wendy over these special years! Beyond the fact that she is my very best friend and confidant, she is my sole mate. God has used her to draw me closer to Himself, to stimulate me to grow as a father and a man. I am so thankful to God for giving me such a special partner and friend!

Together we want to say thank you to the many of you who have loved us and helped along the way to grow as a couple and a family! What a blessing it has been to have special people like you in our lives demonstrating God's love.

Please pray with us for the protection of our hearts and care of our souls. As we have been living and working in front-line evangelism and discipleship ministry for 16 years we have seen the enemy waging war to stop God's kingdom in many forms. We need your help and prayer to continue to stand firm. Praise God that His Kingdom will prevail!

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

CO Brazil Team Update 06-05-2007

Please celebrate with us as we thank God for all that He is doing! As you can see in our team update at right, it has been an incredibly busy few weeks as we have kicked off three Cross Cultural Project teams and a new series at the church. God is stretching us as we learn to walk with Him as He builds His body. Please take a moment to read the testimony of Alan, one of our newest Brazilian staff. We are so thankful for how God has worked in his life and family!

Click on Image at Right to See in Full Size!

Wendy and I have been very thankful for God's faithfulness and love as He continues to draw couples to Himself, always opening new doors. We are starting a new series of studies on growing in communication. It is a challenge that most couples face and no one, no matter how long you've been married, is an expert. It is an area that we continue to grow in if we desire to have a healthy intimate marriage. Pray with us for God to use these studies to help us know Him & love Him better and know and love our spouse better!

Also please pray for two of our staff families who have lost family this past week. Kent Bailey , our team leader, lost his father on Thursday and Brian Lane lost his grandfather Sunday morning. Please pray God's healing love and sustaining power upon these two families as they seek to walk with their extended families through these difficult circumstances! Pray that God would give them clear opportunities to minister to and love their families as they share their lives and hearts!

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Celebraing with David & Rossana


Sunday was a special time for Wendy and I to see one of our young couples growing and getting married! It was a beautiful day and many family and friends came out to celebrate with David & Rossana as they pledge their love and commitment before God and man, asking God to seal it, bless it, and build it by His power and might!

We had a great time as you can see! It was a family affair!

Here is a link to more wedding pictures!

Reception of New Members

Last Sunday we celebrated the conclusion of our last series with a large worship celebration! It was a wonderful time to include the reception of our newest members for our church during the celebration! There were eight professions of faith and ten baptisms. We also had the privilege of many extended family members of our new members come and celebrate with us. what a blessing to do this together! Thanks for all of you who helped make this possible!

Here's a snap shot of the celebration!

Traveling with a Friend

One of the really cool things that God has been blessing me with this year has been the privilege of getting to meet many really great people and make some really good friends! Last week I took a few days to travel with Cassiano, one of my newest friends to spend some time camping in the wilderness. Cassiano is a partner in a multinational business, and he and his wife asked me to join him for some much needed down time. It was so refreshing and such an adventure!

For me, it was a new destination. We drove over twelve hours and just crossed over into the next state (this country is huge!)! We went to a huge agricultural area where soy beans are king. We hiked, drove, and peered across literally kilometers and kilometers of plantations. At one point we drove 120 km one a dirt road that was only soy bean plantations in every direction for as long as you can see. I mean the horizon! It was a sight to behold!

It was also a new style of camping. I had never camped in Brazil before this week so that was one first. I had never camped using a hammock either, but that was great. I had never eaten Emu before either, but we did that as well on this trip. I also never bathed in a river before, we did that too! (Sorry to drag things on, but it was really refreshing and encouraging!)

We also had great times to talk, read God's word, and share our lives! That is the part that I enjoyed the best! Here are some photos from our trip! I hope you enjoy.



Here are some links to a few short videos I made on the trip. I think you'll like them.

Our Camp with Waterfall and All! Goias, Brazil

Lobo Guará Eating an Emu 1- GO Brasil

Lobo Guará Eating an Emu 2- GO Brasil

360 Horizon of Chapa dos Pillões

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

CO Brazil Team Update 05-15-2007

This is such a wonderful time of year! We are heading into the fall/winter and classes are in full swing! Everyone is focused on life and work. The rains have all but stopped for the year. And the temperature is hovering around 65.

God has prepared just a time as this for the arrival of 40+/- students from the US who will be coming down to Brazil to partner with us in life and ministry for the next couple of months! As you can imagine this brings great enthusiasm and momentum to the movement God has already in motion here.

The students enter in and come along side people who have already come to know Christ and many others who are just starting to investigate Christ for the first time. They seek to love, share, and walk along with each person in their process that Christ might be formed in them through the powerful work of God!

Pray with us for God to work mightily within us and beyond us during this time! We pray that many new people will come to know and experience our Lord over these next few months! We pray that the gospel would transform each of us from the inside out, giving us deep love and fellowship one with another!

Thanks for your prayers, partnership and financial support that continues to make this ministry possible! We are so privileged to represent our King along side of each of you! We are co-laborers in His kingdom through your participation! Thank you!

*Don't forget you can CLICK on any image on this site, including this one here, to see it in full size! Please take a moment to click and read our latest team update!

Monday, May 14, 2007

Happy Mother's Day!

Kid's Mother's Day Presentation at Church
"Mom, I Love You!"

God has blessed us with such wonderful moms! Thank you Jesus!

Click here to see a video of the children's presentation on Mother's Day!

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Steps of Growth

This past weekend we held an orientation for people interested in becoming new members of our church here is Belo Horizonte, Brazil. It was a great time of vision and fellowship!

We met all day Saturday and half the day on Sunday, completing six sessions in all. We covered topics like: 1)Our Vision, Strategy, & Structure, 2)Discipleship, 3)Authentic Worship, 4)The Sacraments, 5)Communities, and 6)Ministries. We normally host one of these orientations each quarter.

Please pray for the continued growth of these people, and many others like them not pictured here, who have come to know Christ and are eagerly seeking to grow as His disciples, serve through His church, and engage the world for His glory!

Thursday, May 3, 2007

New Activities and New Friends!

(Click on the image above to see it in full size!)

As you can see over the last few months we have all started new activities! Emmi is enjoying ballet, John and Levi are doing great in salon soccer (a court style soccer), Luke and Russell are both working on tennis, and Wendy is running and doing pilates. It has been a great addition to our weekly home school schedule!

It has also helped us all develop new friends! I have really enjoyed getting to know my tennis instructor and his wife. Wendy has met several of the moms who's daughters dance with Emmi and all the children have made new friends in their classes.

Before we began our new activities, we talked as a family about the opportunity and decided that we thought God would like for us to not only exercise and learn new sports, but more importantly He would like for us to be examples of His great love and ambassadors of His truth!
Pray for us that we would always remember this and count it a privilege to be Christ's representatives where ever we are.

"So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." - 1 Corinthians 5:16-21 NIV

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Praying Through Growth

Couple's Study at Our House Tuesday Night

We would like to invite you to pray along with us as we continue to seek God's design for the new couple's ministry. There are so many models and ideas out there today. We have been trying to focus on life on life discipleship and God has been blessing us all. But we understand that for more couples to have this same privilege we need to multiply and grow. These couples you see here above, are part of the couples who are praying, working, and seeking God along with Wendy and I to see His simple process become a reality. We desire to help couples live as disciples of Christ and serve the church as we engage the world to help others live as disciples of Christ.

This is a great group of people. The potential for the couples ministry and church is incredible. We are at a unique point in our development. We are seeking to create a lifestyle ministry model for the couples that is simple, scalable, and reproducible. Only one of the couples pictured here was previously involved with our campus ministry, so this is a whole new adventure for them all. Most of our campus fruit are young and unmarried.

Pray God would continue to draw each of these couples to Himself, filling them with His grace and love. Pray God would show us His direction and plans for the development of the couples ministry and leaders for the church. Pray God would continue to help us introduce our friends, family, and business contacts to Jesus as we walk together in Him.

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. I Cor. 12:12-13 NIV

Happy 10th Birthday Luke 04-20-2007

We are so proud of you Luke! Who would believe you are already ten! Wow time flies when you're having fun! Your mom and I pray you will seek God with all your heart that you might know the height, depth, and breadth of His great love.

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Ps. 37:4-6 NIV

We hosted a cook out on Saturday for Luke and Meg, Demps & Kristi Dempsey's daughter, at our house to celebrate their birthdays. It was tons of fun and there were nearly sixty folks there. It was a great time with old and new friends!

Thanks for all the calls, cards, and emails! Click here to see more photos from Luke's party.

CO Brazil Team Update 04-17-2007


As you can see to the left I am including a team update that has some news from our ministry with the couples and families as well as news from Fernando Rodrigues, one of our national staff, who leads one of our campus teams and our outreach within one of the poor communities of our city.

Praise God with us for His faithfulness! Easter weekend we hosted a retreat for our church where the graduates and couples led and served the church! It was a great time of fellowship and celebration as we all joined together to reflect on Christ's precious gift through the cross!

To see photos of the actual retreat click here.

Please be in prayer with us for God to provide a new location for our growing church over the next month. For those of you who live in urban settings you know how difficult it can be to find a place within your target area that has the right characteristics and that you can afford. Please notice as well the other prayer needs included in the update!

Please Click on the Image at Left to see and read it in full size.

What a Welcome Home! 04-03-2007

Among the many things that I love about our Brazilian friends is how they love a party! And party is what we did! The night I arrived in Brazil the couples thru a welcome home and birthday party at our house! It was awesome to see everyone again after my trip and it was fun to share the special day with Arnaldo and Romer! I can't tell you how old they turned. They did not release that info to the general public!

Arnaldo & Romer (the birthday boys)
Click here to see all the pictures from the party!


CO Brazil Team Update 04-02-2007



At left is a recent team update with news from around the ministry here in Brazil. Each month we try and give an update from one aspect of the ministry here and a personal report from one of our Brazilian staff.

Please praise God with us for how He is moving and working to change and transform lives! There truly is no greater joy than to see God changing the lives around you! Please celebrate with us as well the arrival of Samuel on 3/3/2007 to new staff partners Guilherme and Amber Albergaria. Thanks for your partnership and prayers!

Please Click on the Image at Left to see it and read it in full size.

We hope you will enjoy hearing all that God is doing here! Let us hear from you.

Update on Dad

Thank you all for your prayers during my recent visit with my family back in the US. It was a blessed time of fun, laughter, work, and tears. It was so good to visit with mom and dad and get to see them and talk with them about all that's going on. It is so difficult to be so far away when loved ones are hurting and suffering!

While Dad's illness has been challenging he has maintained a good perspective and has been a fairly good patient. He does not always seem to want to take it easy, even when he was also recently suffering with pneumonia as well. Thankfully he has recovered from the pneumonia and is doing well at the present.

While I was there my oldest brother Tony and his family came down from St. Louis, MO to visit. My niece Blair Allen and her family came in from California to visit. My nephew Rusty and his family came up from King's Bay, GA to visit. And my brother Scott and his family came over frequently to make the time that much more special!

I praise God for my family and how God has used them to nurture and bless me my whole life! I can't say enough about how much I love everyone and how much I miss everyone. thank you God for such a special father and mother! I would not be the man I am today without their love, support, correction, direction, and presence! Thank you mom and dad!

It was hard to leave, but Wendy and the children waiting on me back in Brazil was a sweet consultation and gift! I arrived home to great cheers, hugs, and kisses. What a reception! Thank you family!

Monday, March 26, 2007

CO Brazil Team Update

Dear Friends & Supporters,

We would like to say thank you for all those who continue to support our labor in Brazil, including our latest project: the annual Beach Project (Projeto na Praia).

We have prepared a short video recap to show each of you a bit of our theme, Arms Wide Open. The video is short, loads quickly, and hopefully will fill your heart with joy to see our students living with their arms wide open to God and to one another.

Your prayers and your support are invaluable to our Beach Project, and each year we see the benefit of these intense weeks in fellowship and Bible study. Be encouraged as you watch and hear from students who are growing in Christ because of your support of Campus Outreach Brazil.

To see the video click on the link below. If the link does not work, copy and paste the link in your internet browser’s internet address bar.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3917506572488438076


Thank you!

Visiting My Father

Many of you may not know, but I am in the USA right now visiting my dad who's health is not well. (Sorry to not communicate before, but things came together quickly for the trip and have been crazy ever since I arrived.) He has pulmonary fibrosis which makes getting oxygen into his blood increasingly difficult. As a result of all of this, his other organs (heart, liver, etc...) are having to work harder and are giving him quiet a bit of pain and trouble. Pray with me that God would grant him all the care, treatment, and guidance to know how to move forward in his treatments. May he experience God's healing touch in his body and heart.

I count this time to be with him and the rest of my family a real blessing! It is so good to be with them and walk with them through such a challenging time. My father means so much to me and it has been hard to be so far away not knowing exactly how things are going here with him. Thank you Lord for making this time and this trip possible!

Please remember Wendy and the children as well, who stayed back in Brazil without me so we could save on the immense airfare (over $7,000) it takes to bring our whole family to the USA. I know it was a great sacrifice for them since they all wanted to come and be here with the rest of the family during this time. Please pray for an extra measure of God's grace and care as Wendy is caring for all four children without me for a couple of weeks.

We are praying that God would provide for us the necessary funds for the whole family to come and visit my dad and the rest of the family in June. We had not budgetted for this trip in 2007. Please pray with us about this. I believe that it will mean so much to the kids and Wendy to have this privileged time with the family as well as how much it would mean to my mom and dad.

Thanks for your partnership and prayers! They are so important!

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Salt & Light - March 2007

Coming Soon to a Mailbox Near You!

If you would like to see our most recent newsletter in an electronic form just Click Here!

You should receive your printed copy of our newsletter by snail mail sometime later this week! If you don't or have not signed up to receive it yet, please email me your correct address and information at rlong@campusoutreach.org.

It is a privilege laboring with you!

Happy Birthday Russell! 02-26-2007


Wow, 40 years old! What a blessing! I have so much to be thankful for!
Thank you for celebrating God's goodness with me!