For the past month, the southernmost state of Brazil – Rio Grande do Sul – has been suffering from the worst flood in the state’s history. Entire cities and neighborhoods were submerged in days, and the waters are only now just starting to recede. NAB missionaries Lyndell Campbell-Réquia and Brandon & Marci Jones, who serve at the Baptist seminary in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, have been at the forefront of relief efforts from the very beginning.
Recently, Lyndell shared the following update:
First off, while we have had a lot of rain (44% of this year’s worth of rain just in May), water levels are slowly going down in some parts. They actually rise a bit, but then fall more, so it’s almost a “two steps ahead, one step back” process. In some places, the government officials are also using pumps to clear the water out. That means some people are able to reach their homes and start the cleaning process. You will see one of the ways we are using the offerings coming in from the NAB Brazil Flood disaster relief in this video.
Our church has become a distribution centre, offering drinking water, food baskets, mattresses and bedding, cleaning and hygiene supplies, and used clothing – all for free. Many people affected by the flooding visit on a daily basis.
Paulo’s and my access to get to church in Canoas (the city next to us) and to other cities close by is now much better. Just this week, the humanitarian corridor, which was originally built for emergency vehicles to come in and out of Porto Alegre, is now open to all vehicles. The lines are still long and slow, but it is still much better than before. . . .
In the past three weeks, more than $46,000 has been donated to these relief efforts. Thank you for giving. Please continue to keep the nation of Brazil and its people in your prayers. You can click on the links below to give.
If you are attending Triennial and planning to register as a delegate for the business meeting, or you are a church looking to add more delegates, the deadline is June 1.
Each Triennial, every church and association-approved church plant are eligible to send delegates to attend and vote during the Triennial business meeting. Every NAB pastor is automatically a delegate, but churches are also allowed to send additional delegates – one person for every 50 members (or fraction thereof).
Every NAB church has already been sent a letter from Dana Goodnough, the moderator of the NAB Governing Board, with instructions for registering delegates. (You can read the letter here.)
If you have already been in communication with your church about serving as a delegate, please register at the link below if you have not already. (Don’t forget to also register for Triennial if you have not already done so; every delegate will also need to be registered to attend Triennial to be a part of the business meeting.) If you are interested in serving as a delegate, contact your pastor to see if you can fill that need.
Even if you aren’t planning to be a delegate, we still want you at Triennial 2024, July 11–14, 2024. There are only 6 weeks until we all gather together in St. Paul, Minnesota, for fellowship, worship, instruction, and connection. Don’t delay; register today!
We look forward to seeing you there!
Tomorrow is the last day we will be accepting applications for the Year of Equipping cohort. This new cohort is uniquely designed to reach emerging leaders – twenty- and thirty-something women and men who are active leaders of our churches and who will continue to serve NAB churches for the decades to come.
This cohort will entail three, three-month modules, each reflecting the three modules in Blue Ocean. The goal of this experience is to develop and enrich the relationships of our emerging leaders, to provide instruction and conversation about the movement of God in the world and how we participate, and to deepen the preparation of our emerging leaders for the future of the NAB.
If you are interested in this new cohort, move quickly! Time is running out to submit your application.
This month, the Missional Initiatives newsletter is written by Cam Roxburgh, VP of Missional Initiatives. In it, he writes about three foundation building blocks of what the Missional Initiatives team has been learning in a post-Covid world; he tells a few stories of Capstone Community Bible Church in Toronto, Ontario, and how they are serving their community and following where God is leading them; and he shares a few resources to help us better engage with the 75-year story.
Don’t know what the 75-year story is? Check out the May newsletter to find out!