Archive for the 'Pre-Field Updates' Category

Hello everyone! January has been a great month for the Bairs. We traveled to two churches and spent the day speaking and presenting our ministry. Both experiences were great and we left very encouraged. We also had two “brazil parties”. These parties were brazil-themed gatherings of family and friends where our ministry was presented and questions were answered. It was a lot of fun and a great venue to inform individuals how they can get involved with what we are doing.

January also brought in more support. We are now at 48% after 6 months! This puts us on target to reach our goal of leaving for Brazil in January of 2009. I praise God for what He is doing.

I also had the awesome privilege of baptizing a student who trusted in Christ last semester! January was a great month. I do want to share some prayer requests:

• Pray that God continues to lead us to the right churches and individuals to partner with.
• Pray the the Lord will give us wisdom about when to sell our house and that it will sell in this slow market.
• Pray for a student named Kyle that he will come to know the Lord as his Savior. He is a roommate of one of the students who is coming to my small group Bible study.
• Pray for a student named Jessica who doesn’t know the Lord but is really searching and will be meeting with Teresa in the next week.

Thank you again for your prayers they mean much to us.

The Bairs
Acts 20:24

Happy new year everybody! Yesterday (Dec. 31) was my last day on staff at Saylorville Baptist Church. It was filled with lots of mixed emotions. It is exciting, scary, sad, and exhilarating all at the same time. This week I start my new part-time job cleaning carpets. I have never been so excited to work an hourly job doing something like carpet cleaning. It is not that the job in-and-of-itself is exciting, but it is a constant reminder to me that this whole Brazil “thing” is for real. We are continually striving to schedule more presentation dates. Every phone call, every contact, and every presentation gets us one step closer to personally joining the church planting work in South Brazil.

I want to pass along some current prayer requests:

• Pray that the Lord continues to lead us to the right churches and people who we can minister to and potentially partner with.
• We are planning to put our house on the market in April and there is a lot of work to be done. We need to pack all the things we are taking to Brazil into a storage shelter, sell or give away the rest, plus do all the normal fixing up that needs to be done before selling a house. Please pray all of that gets done and that our house sells quickly in this slow market. A huge financial burden will be lifted when our house sells.
• Pray for the bible study I am preparing to start up again in the dorms at the local community college. There is only one more semester for us to impact these students with the gospel and I need the Lord to open many doors in the dorms.

Thank you again for your prayers! May the Lord bless you and use you this year to make an impact for His Church. Your Brother in Christ
Lucas Bair
Acts 20:24

I want to start by thanking those of you who have been praying for Devon. For the past year I have been meeting with him, building a relationship and talking to him about Jesus. Well, a few weeks ago Devon made the decision to believe in Jesus as his Savior! It was exciting to mark in my prayer journal “answered” next to that request. Thank you again for praying.

This past month, I had the opportunity to speak at a youth retreat. That was very enjoyable. I don’t have as many opportunities to teach as I have had in the past, so it was a joy to be “forced” into some study and lesson preparation.

Announcements:
Our website, www.brazilbairs.com, is up and running so I encourage you to check it out.

Prayer requests:

• Spiritual health of myself and family. Pray that we don’t allow the new “uncertainties” of our situation to deter us from spending time with our Lord. Like most believers, spending time with the Lord can be a battle, yet, I believe everything in the Christian life is lived out of the over flow of our walk with Christ. This will be my most important and consistent prayer request.
• Support: Continue to pray that God leads us to the right people and churches to partner with. We have a lot of open Sundays in 2008 that need to filled.
• Evangelistic dorm study. All of the unbelievers in the study (2) have trusted in Christ.. which is exciting.. but we need to continue to reach out. There are close to 150 students in the dorm who need to know Christ. Pray that God will open doors (figuratively and literally) for us to build relationships and share Christ.
• Pray for these new(er) believers who are, and are in need of, being discipled. Ask the Lord to continue to form Christ in them (Col. 1:28), and that they would walk in holiness and live under the Lordship of Jesus: Pat, Devon, Chris, Corey
• Last one: pray that the Lord would help me to stay focused on the task of raising our support. I am finding it easy to be distracted. There is always something exciting happening at my church that vies for my attention.

Thank you in advance for lifting these things up to the Lord. I truly believe that your prayers make a difference. I would like this to be a two way street so please share with me any requests you may have. I will make my best effort to pray for you.

Your Brother in Christ,
Lucas Bair
Acts 20:24