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!

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

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!

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!

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!

CO Brazil Team Update 02-28-2007

Here is our latest team update. We are trying to share what's going on across the whole team here in Brazil.

Celebrate with us as God has added five new national staff to our campus team this year already. We added one national couple last year. We are so thankful for God's faithfulness and grace!

Many of you will recognize Cláudia in the "National Staff Spotlight" at the bottom who was one of Wendy's disciples.

It is a privilege co-laboring with you!

Click On Image on left to see it full size to better read!

Happy Birthday Wendy! 2/22/2007

I am so thankful for God's gift of Wendy to me and our family! This week has been a special time as we have celebrated Wendy's birthday with our family and friends here in Brazil!

Happy Birthday Emmi! 1/25/2007

Emmi had a great time celebrating her birthday with her brothers and friends Karina and Ester! Hard to believe she's already five! We love you Emmi!