January 2011

Dear friends and family,

Happy New Year to all! Hope this letter finds everyone well and looking forward to an AWESOME new year. From what I hear a lot of you are suffering from freezing weather with snow. This may be a good time to leave your cold place and come on down to the heat of the tropics. A mission trip at this time of the year would get you out of that cold weather and put you into a warm climate where you can suffer for the Lord. Here we are suffering from the heat. But God is giving us some respite as almost every afternoon we get lots of rain. Today we will have to take everything out of the Church because yesterday it came a "chicken drowner" (probably about 5 inches of rain in about 5 hours) and it entered the Church. So we will have to do some extensive cleaning. As we sat on the front porch yesterday our street looked like a river. As we look at the changes in the weather--maybe God is telling us something.

The new work is going very well. We have had several services with over 100 people. The Lord is really blessing. We had a special Christmas program with and for the children and it was a success. Many visitors came and now we have the opportunity to visit them and take the gospel to their homes. Also our New Year service was attended by over 40 families that are members and several visitors. We praised the Lord and sang the new year in and then eat to our hearts content.

We are looking at many projects here on the Church property and also on the Vocational property. We are just waiting for the visitors to come and help us. What are your plans for vacation this upcoming year? Could you come on down and help us?

As usual our vehicles are undergoing weekly trips to the mechanic. Our roads are one big hole after the other and this does bad things to the vesicles. Our bigger expense right now is the insurance for these vehicles. We will have 4 to 6 months of payments to pay for the insurance. It is not like there in the States, you cannot make payments over the year. Here you have to either pay in one payment or they give you 4 or 6 months to pay. We have thought about letting it drop but here because we transport church people we have to have insurance. So between the holes in the roads and the insurance it is almost cost prohibitive to have a vehicle. I now understand why most Brasilians ride a bike or walk.

Barbara and I would like to thank each and every one of you who have brought or sent clothes to us here in Brasil. We do several things with the clothes, here is the process, we call each of the members to the house and open the boxes and say "cloth your family". Then when everyone has been clothed we are having a sale of the clothes for the neighborhood. In November we sold enough clothes to buy a new stove for the kitchen at the church. And this month we had another sale and we have enough money to pay half of the price for a new refrigerator. It is such a blessing to first see the church members leaving the house with sacks of clothes knowing that they would not have been able to have bought these clothes but they are receiving them for free. It is such a joy to see someone else using clothing that did not fit you anymore knowing that they are being put to good use. Come down and see if you can recognize something that you have left here in Brasil or have sent by someone else. Again thanks for your generosity.

I have been preparing for a series of classes with the men at Church. In these classes I am going to be teaching service, getting the men ready to serve. Our men have begun to meet monthly and the group is growing wonderfully. Yesterday's group had 14 men present. In the classes that I will be teaching I am including a wide range of subjects and the men are becoming excited about the class. Included will be evangelism, discipleship and deacon training. Please pray for us as we prepare for and start these classes.

Construction right now is at a standstill because we are out of money to do construction. But we are using the time in another area. We are having more time to make visits and other training of the church members.

The house Church is going very well. We average 20-25 on Tuesday nights. We also have a children's club there on the last Saturday of the month. This is good as you reach the parents through the children. From this neighborhood I have been working with 3 boys At the Vocational School. They are showing much progress. The other young man that is doing his training at the key shop is coming along real well. The owner who is training him says that he is a good student.

It seems like every month we have not accomplished nothing but when we begin to write it down we see that God is accomplishing many things through us. Continue to pray for us here in Brasil as we pray for you there in the States.

And Barbara and I would like to say again how grateful we are that people like you send people like us to tell the world about Jesus. Come down and see what your help is doing here in Brasil. The beans are on the stove and the table is set.

In His service,
Aj and Barbara

It's December - Newsletter

Dear friends,

Somehow it just does not seem as though it is time for the Christmas season, but it is here and I'm going to just have to go along. At home in the States I hear that it is COLD. Here it is in the 90's and the air is heavy. We have been having rain so with a lot of help --maybe I can see the rain as snow and get into the spirit. Have an AWESOME Christmas season.

This month has just flown by. Barb and I have been taking a "Bible Counseling " course in São Paulo.It has been a year long course and will be well used as the course was totally based on biblical principles for counseling. It was intense but we received our certificate of accomplishment this past Saturday.

Church is going very well with lots of work, both physical and spiritual to be done. We have had several teenagers accept Christ as personal savior---AWESOME. With this we have lots of work to do. That´s what it is all about. Construction is going at a slow pace at Church. Mostly because we have lots of projects that needs to be accomplished but don´t have the financial resources to accomplish them.

Sometimes the needs have to be prioritized ie; we need Sunday School chairs and tables. And these could double in use for breakfast for the children on Sunday morning. We need 12 tables and 50 chairs.We also need 4-6 more Sunday School rooms. We have 3 rooms and the rest of us are sitting outside. This so far has not been a problem even though we have been having lots of rain.

Speaking of rain, tonight during the service it came a "chicken drowner". The noise was so loud we could hardly hear the message. This is because the roof is tin and we need a suspended ceiling which would give some insulation for the sound and also for the heat. This morning service was heal in somewhere around 90 degrees temperature on the outside and on the inside also.(pix included notice everyone fanning). This is just another one of the needs we have for the Church building.

We also need some flannel grafts for the Sunday school teachers. You know what it is like starting from scratch you don´t have anything so you just improvise until you can get the necessary things for you to use. We know that we are on the winning side because with our Lord on our side we cannot fail.

With our Church being in the beginning faze we are being Awesomely blessed. Please pray for us, all the workers and the new members. Your prayers are our key to a successful new Church plant.

If you get tired of the snow and cold, just know that you have an open invitation to come on down and sweat with us. Your bed is turned down and there is a mint on the pillow.

In His service,
Aj and Barbara

Hello Friends,

And the work goes on.......! What on AWESOME God we have. It is just great how things come together. With our new work it seems there is a never ending list of "things-to-do". But it's a wonderful problem to have. We have just about got the interior of our building inhabitable and having the appearance of a Church. We have completed the pulpit and painted the walls, tiled the floor, arranged a sound-control area, put our name on the front of the building, we are fixing a kitchen,and next week we will install our permanent entrance doors. And along with all this you can imagine the mess that goes with "on-going" construction and renovation. Hey, I'm not complaining, I'm rejoicing! Continue to pray with us as the new work progresses.

We have already had our second baptism and are planning a date for our next one. How blessed we have been with growth. We are averaging in the high 70 and low 80. We are praying about buying more chairs s we only have 100 and have space for over 200.

You know I just love bragging on the Lord and how He works in our lives and the life of our Church. Not only is all this work going on in the Church building but we have started a house Church on Tuesday nights. This work is going AWESOMELY. We have met in this neighborhood for 4 weeks and have had in attendance the first week 20+ second week 20+ third week 44 and fourth week 31. And just this past week we started a children's bible study on Saturday afternoon we had around 25 in attendance. It is just great to see the children's interest in learning more about the Bible and hearing Gods word. During the week we have discipleship two nights in our home. Also other members are doing the same in their homes.

I've been talking a lot about the new work but lets not forget our training school. I have been working with 4 young men (boys) in the school.We are doing some woodworking and working in the key shop.The boys working with wood are anxious to have class every day but I can only have class two days per week. The locksmith training is every day of the week for half the day.Lots of young boys here are interested in learning a trade and we are able to make a difference in a few young lives. One of our four boys just was suspended from our school because of behavioral problems in regular school. Not only are we teaching life skills but they are learning other things such as attitudes, Church attendance, to have good grades at regular school, respect for others and other disciplines. These young men need to be a productive member at Church at home and in the community. I am working with two of the young men and they are really opening up about their lives and family problems.

With all of this going on what are some of our more urgent prayer request? First off we need a bus!!! Here a good used bus runs about $30,000 dollars. Also we are holding Sunday School classes outside and this means that we need more class rooms. We are trying to keep all of this in prospective as this building is rented. We need property for our future so we can build our own Church building. And as we are looking to that end we have been looking for lots. We have had a petroleum company move into our town so that means that prices have gone up on many things but not the salaries of our people. But that means that the price of land has sky rocketed. So you can see that purchasing land is a dream (a great prayer request) but nothing is impossible for our God.

Well I will hush for now but will just say "U-all come"! Come on dawn and see and experience a new work start, see the love and excitement and how the Lord is working in such an AWESOME manner. Continue to pray for us.And THANKS for your financial support and prayers. Without your help this work would not have this success.

In His service,
Aj and Barbara

Newsletter

Dear friends,

I no sooner turn around and another month is gone. But that's OK because it gives us a chance to look back to see what has happened and lets us plan for the future.

This has been one of our most active months here in Brasil. Between funerals, ministry, discipleship, and construction it is just AWESOME what is getting done here.

Our new mission Church is going AWESOME.For about 3 weeks straight we were averaging in the 80's; however we have slowed somewhat to the mid 70`s. We are planning a baptism on the 24th of this month. We have between 20 to 30 candidates for baptism. How AWESOME He is!!!!!!The discipleship we are doing is really taking from our schedules however the results are worth it all. When your students come and ask how can they better study the Bible it just makes you want to jump for joy. Don't tell anyone --but I can´t remember when I have had so much fun.

We have a couple that we are discipling and their backgrounds are opposite. He was raised in another denomination and she was raised without any Church background. They are growing with leaps and bounds. He is knowledgeable in the Bible and she is not. To watch them grow in the Lord is amazing. He is wanting to work more in the Church, ie driving the Church van and working at the Church when he is not working his own business(He installs air conditioning and works on appliances). And she is like a sponge, the more she learns the more she wants to know. He is in his late 40's and now he is calling me Dad.

When you are starting a new mission there is always many needs and this time is no different. One of our greatest needs is transportation. Our van is doing more than double time work and still we need help with the transportation. This said maybe this helps you understand that one of our primary needs right now is a bus. A dependable buss will run around $35,000 dollars or more. With the exchange of the dollar falling every day it will probably cost more. Pray with us for this need.

About the building that we are renting for our Church services: it is a warehouse and property which includes 3 rooms and one bath.The main structure(the warehouse) opens into the area that is between it and the 3 rooms and one bathroom. We are remodeling the warehouse to be the meeting area and the 3 rooms are serving as Sunday School rooms. We had to take the small kitchen area and make it into a second bathroom. Now we don't have a line at the door of the one bathroom door. Now like all good Baptist we are in need of a kitchen.We are now using a 2 burner gas camp stove and the refrigerator sits alongside it. And it is always cool in the makeshift kitchen as it all sits outside And with the rate of growth we are having we also need more Sunday School rooms.At this time I am looking at how I can meet these needs but building temporarily because we are renting the area and someday will move to a permanent home. At that time we will want to take as much of the things we are building with us as possible. Building temporary will allow us to dismantle and take them with us. I can not put a cost on this construction until I have done some more research.Another need that we have is a sign on the front of the building so that people will know where we are congregating. These are just some more things for youto pray with us about.

Here in Brasil we have Children's Day and it is a holiday that is celebrated greatly as they love their children, as a matter of fact it is celebrated more than Christmas. So Yesterday our Church had Children's Day at Church. We were blessed with 105 children and 55 parents and workers.In town one of the bus services loaned us a buss to pick up the children. This just showed us how much we need a bus of our own. Imagine bringing all those children to Church each Sunday.

You may be thinking why do they need so much help, do the Church members not help? Yes they are helping but our folks here are just everyday folks and here in Brasil the minimum wage is about $307 dollars a month. So the tithes and offerings is paying the rent and utilities and we need help with the other things. Thanks to you folks we are able to do much more and will continue doing with your help.

Thank you each and every one for reading and listening. What an AWESOME God we serve. And Thanks one more time for your continued financial and prayer support. Also for your support for Baptist Faith Missions because without them we would not be serving here in Brasil

In His service,

Aj and Barbara Hensley

Newsletter

This month has been really fasting passing. I don’t know if this just happens when you start approaching the senior years…… or what.

The ministry has kept us really busy this month. A little over a month ago I was privileged to lead a man (55yrs) to the Lord. The reason I was in their home for this visit was the wife frequents our church and requested a visit to pray for and with her husband. Half way through my presentation he accepted the Lord and said I want this (LIFE ETERNAL) more than anything else. It was one of those times you really felt the Holy Spirit working. Then this month he enters the hospital and after two (2) days he goes to be with the Lord.

I was able to do the funeral for the family and we spent around two (2) days with the family comforting them in their loss, and exhibiting our love, “Christianity” to the family. During this time the church ladies and Barbara really did an awesome ministry-caring for the widow and immediate family. Also during the funeral (IN SÃO PAULO CITY) I was able to witness to his extended family approximately one hundred plus (100+) people, tell them about where he was now, and present Jesus Christ to them also. How AWESOME is the God we serve.

In our Sunday School two (2) weeks ago we had five (5) children, 12-15 years old, accept Christ. Our Lord is really working in a special way, opening doors and making it possible to reach many others. Pray for these young people.

It seems as though we have made lots of “sick visits” this month, but regardless of the circumstances for many visits, people are accepting Christ. Just in our home visits this month, with the Holy Spirit working we have had nine (9) people accept Christ. How AWESOME He is, whom we serve.

Our youth this past Friday and Saturday went to São Paulo for a youth rally. There were sixteen (16) in all and they really came back “changed-up” to do even more for the Lord.

As I am writing this letter I am doing hospital visits for another man with cancer. Before he went into the hospital I visited with him and his family. He already knew Christ but wanted me to talk with his family to make sure they also had what he had in his heart.

Our vehicles have really given us a challenge this month. I had the “bicos” cleaned in my diesel S-10 and was also informed they needed to be replaced. The van’s side door needs the rollers replaced and our list goes on. Lots of our repairs are from everyday use, and our roads are always a challenge for our vehicles.

Construction work has been slower than slow. It has been raining almost every day and makes outside work very hard to accomplish.

Because of this in climate weather “raining”, I have had to change our roof tiles between the rain drops. Barbara finally got tired of the buckets and I had to get to work.

Well, as always our doors are open. Why not come down for a visit and see what the Lord is doing in Caraguá Brazil.

Pray for us as we minister here in Brazil

IN HIS SERVICE

AJ & BARB

August Newsletter

Friends and Family,

Well, here it is a lot like winter. Our temperatures drop into the low 60s at night and I see people out in the mornings with big overcoats. But I must confess as of late I an feeling the chill more. Usually I´m in a short sleeve shirt and others are in winter clothing. We have had an abundance of rain---more than normal, and this contributes a little to the chill. Oh, by the way the rain is helping our roads, the holes are becoming much bigger. Mostly now we have holes with a little asphalt around them. I'm afraid sometimes to enter a watter puddle because you don't know if it has a bottom in it or not.

After our visit to the States in February I replaced the suspension on the pick-up. Well this past week I had to have it replaced again. Our vehicles really get abused here just from regular use. While on the topic of vehicles, the van is now doing triple duty. Wednesday nights route for the church and Sundays are double. Two trips in the morning and two at night. This is a good problem to have. Looks like we are in need of a bus for the new Church. Pray for this need with
us.

We have been visiting with several families with health problems (cancer patients) all men. Although 2 are terminal we are having wonderful visits. We visited yesterday in a small home and there was 4 generations and several neighbors. It was really wonderful to be able
to share the gospel in so many different areas. It is 2:30 at night and we have just gotten home from the home of the second terminal patient he went home to be with Christ this evening. I had the privilege of leading him to the Lord last month so his home going is not so bad for the family because they have the assurance that he is home with the Lord.Here in Brasil there is no embalming so the funeral will be at 9:00 in the morning and we are making arrangements to make the 3 hour trip to another city for the funeral. Pray for this family as they confront the loss of a husband and father.

One of the students in the Vocational School will begin training in as key shop here in the city this month. He will go to regular school for half of the day then go to the key shop for the other half. After he learns the trade of making keys he will trade places with on of the other students and will enter into another aspect of his training. We are able to continue the construction on the dormitory for the school thanks to the generosity of one of our supporters there in the States. So it looks like we will be able to start housing the students but the first of next year if all goes well. You never make concrete plans here as things change daily. This is one of the aspects of a foreign country that is hard to adapt to but I keep working at it.

With this new Church start there are many prayer request,pray for the construction, the visitation, the meetings, the building needs, the need for a bus, for physical strength and just for the work in general. This past Sunday night we had 83 people in attendance. How Awesome is that!!! This month we are able to lay the tile in the auditorium of the Church. We are going slow on the work as we are paying for the material as the money comes in. I preached on tithing this week and the income has picked up so we will be able to do several more things this month.

As you can see there is lots of ministry to be done and because of this we need lots of prayer. So continue to pray for us and ask God what part He would like for you to play in this ministry.

Start planning your trip down to visit us here in Caraguatatuba because you need to see what God is doing with your donations here and we could use your help in all of the areas mentioned above. Let us know and we will turn the bed down and put out clean towels and a mint on your pillow. Come on down!!!

In His service,
Aj and Barbara

Newsletter - June 2010

Dear Friends,

Well, the Lords clock just keeps on ticking and as I see the signs of the times I just want to do more in His work.

I told you last month about the new work we are helping start. Well I had forgotten about all the HARD WORK that is involved in new starts. It's just AWESOME how needs can and are being met. In the building that we are renting (a big warehouse) we now have a stage area thanks to the group from 1st Baptist in Centerville Georgia. With the help of this group we built the pulpit area and I must truthfully say this was my hardest week of work this year. We accomplished in one week what everyone thought would take three weeks. Cement, blocks and a lot of back-breaking work ---result--- an AWESOME front area in the Church. It's better than I even envisioned. It just goes to show us/me how AWESOME He is. Oh me of such little faith.

Along with all the construction work this group did a vacation Bible School in a neighborhood and had just an AWESOME time and turn out. There were more than 50 children in attendance.

The Centerville Church also brought sever army duffel bags of clothes new and used. We are using these clothes in supplying the families of the new work with clothing. As I have watched several families leaving our home almost in tears with clothing that was necessary for their families and they did not have money to buy. It's hard to put into words the gratitude these families have shown for these simple gifts of clothing. It humbles me when I think of giving
and how much we have and are so blessed. Every day I thank the Lord for allowing me to be here as a missionary. Yes, He can use anyone----and----He does.

While the group was here the cement mixer bit the dust---died in other words. One of the men in the group gave a special gift to purchase a new mixer and when I discovered how much a new one cost I had just enough to purchase the wheels from the new one. But not all is lost. this is the AWESOME part I have dismantled the old mixer, purchased several new parts, sanded and painted and now am ready to reassemble. I hope I have not lost any parts. And my old mixer has turned into a new bright RED mixer.(just another little miracle)

In the services in the new work we have already had 2 people accept Jesus as savior and several re-dedicating their lives to Gods service. Pray for us as we serve in this new work pray for His leadership and guidance.

For me, all I can say is HOW AWESOME is He who we serve.

Come see your work here in Caraguatatuba Brasil. You will receive a blessing and so will we.

In His service,
Aj and Barbara