March 2023 Update

Greetings, praying friends and family!

We are thankful to the Lord for another month in His service. He is so gracious and faithful.

In early March we said goodbye to Ezra’s mom, as she returned to the States after nearly 3 weeks with us here in the Amazon. We miss her and are so thankful for the precious time we had together.

We’ve been basically continuing our rotation, holding services in Crajari one week and traveling on the river the next. This past month, between mechanical issues on our houseboat and sickness in the family, Ezra has done most of the trips on his own— we are grateful that those issues are currently resolved, and we are able to resume travel all together as a family.

Probably the greatest event of note this month was the opportunity to help a medical missions team from the US hold a 3 day clinic outreach in São José. Some may remember from our last letter, this is a village where there is no Christian church, the village catholic church building is closed up, and we’ve had mixed responses to the gospel preaching we have been doing there. Last week we got a much clearer, and rather negative, response from the village, as the clinic outreach had what seemed to be an intentionally low turn out. While many folks came from the surrounding villages to receive free consultation, medicine and gospel literature, few people from São José showed up. The village president, who previously had been very welcoming to us, was less excited about our presence there, and while the folks are too hospitable to send us away, the village as a whole does not seem interested in us doing gospel work there, using their community building for services, etc.

While that was discouraging, it was very good for us to know how they generally feel about our presence, and we have come to conclude that a work in this village will need to start on a more individual basis, meeting with the few people who actually do want us there and doing Bible studies in homes. One of the few non-Catholics (a professing seventh day Adventist) has opened his home for a Bible study, and told us he would invite others that would be interested. So Lord willing, that’s the next step we will be taking in this village. Do please continue to pray that God will work in the hearts and lives of the people of São José.

Andrew turned 4 last month, and is learning his letters and numbers, in English and Portuguese.  He loves riding on our boat, playing board games with Mommy, and is working on his Portuguese to be able to converse with his little Brazilian friends

Philip (2.5) loves to look at books, especially books about animals. He’s also learning letters and numbers, and can count to 10 in English and Portuguese! He loves to sing, and can sing several songs, from start to finish, on his own. His current favorite would probably be either As The Deer (all three verses and chorus) or “Três Palavrinhas”, a Portuguese chorus.

Henrietta turned 1 on the 9th. She loves to help Mommy (un)fold laundry, and she also loves to put her clean (or dirty) laundry away in her drawers. She is communicating so much, she tries to repeat everything we say. She loves to eat, and growls with excitement as she is served food. 😃

Please pray:

• For the village of São José, for hearts to be softened to the Gospel, and that the Lord would help us know what doors are open in this village
• For the village of Crajari, that the true believers would continue to grow and that the unsaved would be convicted of their sin and turn to Christ
• For us to glorify God in the training and teaching of our children
• For us to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might (Ephesians 6:10)

Thank you once again, dear ones, for your love and prayers. Love you all!

Love, Ezra and Joanna, Andrew, Philip, and Henrietta