Dear Praying Friends and Supporting Churches,

Thank you for remembering us in prayer and for continuing to give, so that we can work together with the Lord here in Bélem.  Your ongoing support is a continual source of encouragement.

I report continued progress in all the areas from last month’s update.  The Bell Family Academy is on summer break, we continue preparing for the August outreach, we planned and executed a new evangelistic campaign, the weekly Bible study continues, and we followed up with new contacts.

My website proficiency grows as I become more familiar with the tools.  This month we used business cards, the website, and an in-person meet-up to try to connect with people interested in learning more about the Bible.  I must report that the response was not great, but we learned and (re-learned 🙂 ) some important lessons.  Several people did follow the QR code on the business card to our website and looked around quite a bit.  One man contacted us on WhatsApp asking spiritual questions.  After giving a brief answer and referring him to the appropriate Scripture, I invited him to meet in order for him to see from the Bible what God says concerning his questions.  He was not interested in meeting, but I am continuing to pray that God will lead him into truth.

The weekly Bible study is ongoing.  We had to take a few weeks off because my friend had a major medical procedure, and he needed time to heal up.  I was encouraged when he contacted me saying that he was missing the Bible study and was ready to restart.  Our families were also able to get together for a picnic by the river last week.  Please continue to pray as the relationship develops.

We met the lady I wrote about last month. Our intention was to discover how we might be able to work to plant a church on her side of town. The situation is slightly more complicated than we had previously understood, but a door remains open, and we are praying for wisdom for the next steps.

Thank you all for praying, may God richly bless your work for Him.  Please let me know if you have prayer requests you would have us remember.

For the Glory of God,

Chris Bell

Brenda’s Bailiwick

I am sitting on the balcony, about 12 inches from an oscillating fan, only mildly sticky, and enjoying the brilliant flowers on my Mother’s Day bougainvillea, which has impressively not died yet! It is almost incredible to me that both June AND 2024 are more than half over.

The Bell Academy is done with school, praise the Lord! Indeed, we have been out for a month now. For those of you who have been on tenterhooks about my summer plans, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and write a book about mopping. Genius, right? Unfortunately, I haven’t covered much ground on it yet. * Sarah and Caleb are enjoying their break; Sarah has taken up crochet, Caleb is perfecting his napping skills, and both are writing energetically with their Mendoza cousins. I imagine their book will come out before mine…

Elijah had a wonderful time on his dive trip. He was also able to serve as a counselor and musician during our home church’s family camp. He may have enjoyed that even more than diving. We are thankful for his service there. He is currently looking for a part-time job and would no doubt appreciate your prayers.

Thank you for continuing to pray for E, the lady who is a Jehovah’s Witness. Like most Belenenses who work for the government, she has vacation time in July. I have invited her to coffee on the 16^th, so please be in prayer about that. I am hoping she will treat it as a friendly visit and not a further opportunity to proselytize me.

Sarah completed her official physical therapy two weeks ago, praise the Lord! She didn’t get much time to celebrate, as she is now lifting weights three times a week to build up protective strength in her legs. On her last day of therapy, I thanked Protásio for her help and gave her a Bible as an expression of our appreciation (we paid her, too, of course 🙂 ). She seemed pleased, and I encouraged her to read the Gospel of John. I don’t know about you, but I rarely walk away from any witnessing interaction thinking, “Nailed it!” Usually the contrary—but I remind myself that the truth is not dependent on my cleverness and that the Lord knew my limitations before He put me here. I share this because it occurs to me that I might not be the only one who needs that reminder.

As always, thanks for reading and for praying!

In Christ,

Brenda

*Full disclosure: I am not really writing a book. **

**Fuller disclosure: I am not really mopping all the floors every week either—pray for me!

Prayer Requests:

– Preparation of hearts in Belém to receive the Gospel – Following up with Contacts

– Language Acquisition – Outreach Efforts – Bell Academy