How do you recap a three-week trip to Brazil with just a few paragraphs and pictures?!

Lee with Pr. Gilvan Sobrinho President of Equatorial Baptist Seminary. He loved my backpack—ha!

So many things happened, so many people, so many memories. I even got a new name . . . in the first city we were in, I was dubbed “Pastor Muchila” which in Portuguese means “Pastor Backpack” or the “Backpack Pastor.” My backpack became my trademark wherever I went. God brought together in my heart and mind many of the things that I have experienced on previous foreign trips to Brazil, Nigeria and Argentina.

I traveled with Dr. Darrell Robinson, with Total Church Life ministries and assisted him with Total Church Life (Vida Total de Igreja in Portuguese) and People Sharing Jesus seminars in five cities in four Brazilian states. We traveled over 6,300 miles in Brazil in three weeks, and I stayed in eight different rooms. It was a three-week marathon of meeting people, preaching, teaching, flying, packing, unpacking. It was exhaustingly exhilarating, and I am excited about the future ministry opportunities!

I also preached in area churches, led workshops with the Backpack Evangelism materials and training we’re developing, and preached a Youth Congress for the Alagoas State Baptist Youth Convention. We developed relationships with pastors, youth workers, seminary and university presidents, and churches who want us to finish the Backpack Evangelism resources in English so they can be translated into Portuguese.

I have been invited to use these materials to create a week-long workshop for seminary credit, speak to a Baptist University with 3,500 students in Rio de Janeiro, and lead Backpack Evangelism training and personal evangelism with many churches. The need is so great and the opportunities so many . . . 2004 is to be the year of getting our resources completed and published. These resources are a consummation of what I have been teaching for the past nine years in different ministry settings and now especially in Christian clubs on public school campuses with Christian and non-Christian students.

After I had been in Brazil for two weeks, I was sitting down in a hotel lobby waiting for a computer when I just became overwhelmed and began to marvel at the grace, power, life, and love of God that we experience by knowing Him and being in Christ. If you had told me in May of 1975 that I would be doing what I’m doing—teaching people the Bible, preaching and traveling to different places in the world, and all that goes along with this, I would have cussed and laughed at you. What an incredible God we serve who has done everything for us to experience abundant life and godliness. Being in Christ, forgiven and empowered to live a new life, is absolutely the most incredible relationship . . . and it’s for eternity!! I pray that I will never lose the amazement and awe of the God who took my life, Who takes it daily as I yield it to Him, and does great and marvelous things!! May we ALL surrender ALL that we are and have to Him everyday!!

It’s always cool to see how God uses relationships that we have built over the years. “Out of the blue” yesterday, I received a call from someone that we haven’t been in touch with in almost two years. We’ve helped build up the Christian clubs in four schools in that area of Houston, and now we’re getting calls again to help train the students and strengthen the clubs.

Today was really an awesome day of teaching and sharing with the students at Klein Oak High School. I go there every week to the club and work with the students and leadership. I will be doing a series of lessons this semester on this school campus using the Backpack Evangelism resources. I was contacted two days ago by the students leadership in another high school in the Klein district. I am working with teachers, students, and youth pastors in Tomball, Spring, and Cy-Fair schools. Now that the Christmas break is over, we can concentrate on building momentum this semester and encouraging and equipping the believers to be faithful witnesses on their campuses and with their friends.

I just got off the phone with the Campus Crusade for Christ director at Rice University and we are slowly making progress toward using the Backpack Evangelism teaching with the baseball and basketball teams. Please pray for this endeavor that we can penetrate the lives of these students and encourage and equip them in their faith and help them reach out to their teammates and friends. I am traveling to the University of Mary Hardin Baylor to visit with a guy’s Bible study group with the Baptist Student Ministries and to visit again with some volunteers that are helping with Backpack Evangelism project research.

My vision has been expanded and I have been challenged more by what I experienced in Brazil to be more radically committed to Christ and penetrate as many students lives as possible. But first, we must allow Jesus to penetrate every fiber of our being. We must walk in holiness before Him and allow His life to fill us and live through us.

Leading a Backpack Evangelism workshop with translator Clyde Schulz, IMB Missionary and Field Supervisor

It is time!!!! We must now focus more on finishing the first book entitled “Backpack Evangelism” and the Gospel tracts, Scripture Memory cards, wallets, backpack, and more. We must get it finished in English and then work on getting it translated into Portuguese.

God has laid out quite a task before us, and we need your prayer support and financial support to help make it happen. There are many opportunities for ministry that are waiting now for us to finish the first stages of this project. As we finish the first book, I believe that this will also enable us to pursue many other opportunities for ministry for many years to come.

This project will take more focus than I’ve ever applied to anything in my life. I usually do not tend to sit still for very long. But God has given me a vision and opened up my eyes to what He wants to do through me. I will apply all diligence to the obedience of Christ to do everything I can to work with Him to make this happen.

Sincerely in Christ,