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

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!

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!

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!