Angela Ngiam's blog | MissionsHub.org

First week in Brazil

03 Dec 2011

Our first week in Brazil was full of commitments with the youth ministry of the church.

The Youth Pastor Rafael Fogaça brought us to see part of his ministry with the youth in the church and outside the church. Besides the jiu-jitsu classes to the disadvantaged kids in the suburbs, he also teaches jiu-jitsu in the church as a way to connect non-christians to the church. Many people join the classes because of the sport and then end up joining a Bible study group, start attending the youth service and accepting Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

U-Don went to one of their classes to check it out.

The classes are divided by age and levels. Some of the guys even compete in the local competition against other gyms. They learn discipline, respect for others, self-control and discover how valuable there are in Jesus’ eyes. They learn proper jiu-jitsu techniques and how to apply their strength in a sporting context and not in a street fight. Rafael emphasises on the relationship building and bonding between the students.

And even when they participate in local competitions against other jiu-jitsu practicioners, their team is different because they pray at the start as a group and show love and respect for their competitors as they compete.

At the end of each class they pray as a group to thank Jesus for the opportunity to be together at that place and to learn the sport. They ask that they might use this opportunity to show Jesus’ love to the world and to be used by God wherever they go.

Our prayer is that this ministry will continue to reach out to so many kids and adults who do not know Jesus yet. There is a great opportunity to build relationships and encourage each other in their walk with God. We ask God to bless Rafael, Aurinho and other teachers so they will be used by Him to bless others.

But the fun was not finished yet!

The other ministry that we participated in was the youth service that happens every Thursday night. Their service is very exciting, there is dance, music, testimonies, baptisms, the word of God and a lot of prayer.

Rafael invited us to share our testimonies during the service. We spoke a little bit about who we were before knowing Jesus, how we gave our lives to Jesus and then what changed since. We told them about how U-Don and I met and what God has been doing in our lives.

God blessed the church with Rafael and his heart for the youth to know Jesus. We pray that this ministry will grow even more to reach out to many who still do not know Jesus.

It was a blessed night and we enjoyed being part of such a great service.

We also had the privilege of participating in my sister and my brother-in-law’s graduation from a chaplaincy course in the church. They both studied and prepared themselves for 4 months to be able to volunteer in hospital chaplaincy. We were happy to be there to see them receive their certificates and celebrate the end of the course but the beginning of a life of service to our Lord. They are looking forward to visiting patients in hospitals to bring them a Word from God, a prayer, some music, someone to talk to, or whatever else God asks them to do.

We pray for all students who just graduated from this course, that they will be used by God to bring hope and love to the sick that they will be in contact with at the hospitals. For Marina and Gustavo we pray that they will serve the Lord with all their heart and that they will be able to show Jesus’ love to many and be transformed by this experience of wholehearted service to the needy.

At the end of the week we had Marina and Gustavo’s wedding and it was a blessing to all of us. Many guests were non-christians and the word spoken by the pastor touched many hearts. We had a great time together and we pray that they will have a blessed life together and that their marriage will be a testimony of the love of God to others.

This week we are having holidays in Bahia with the whole family and more photos and adventures will be posted in this blog soon!

Project IDE

26 Nov 2011

As you know U-Don and I are in Brazil.
Besides being with family we already got up to a special time with the locals.
The first ministry that we have already participated of is called Project IDE. This is a project for disadvantage children in the city of Campo Grande in the countryside of Brazil.
The founder of the project is a Christian man who once had a dream to build a space where kids can play and learn after school instead of being on the streets.

This is the entrance of the centre

The families register their kids in this project and the idea is that only if the kids are attending school they can participate of the after school activities in the centre.
They offer many activities such as: music (learning all sorts of instruments), drama, computer skills, leadership courses, homework help, recreation time and sports.

Library

Kids in the morning programs waiting for their classes

Computer Lab

After School homework help

Music studio – classes to learn drums, guitar, base guitar, flute, saxophone, etc

What a great place to learn!

They have a program for the kids to learn how to become leaders through a system of becoming a monitor/mentor to other kids in the project. They learn discipline, respect, how to research and improve in their knowledge basis, how to teach others, they participate of workshops to prepare themselves to the workforce and become examples to the other kids who join the program.

the monitor T-Shirt that shows the steps of the program to train leaders – for teenagers from 14 to 17 years old

The activity that we were going to watch and participated of was the jiu-jitsu classes. But when we got there the teacher asked U-Don to teach the kids self defence. And he ended up teaching all 7 classes for the whole day (with translation of course).
It was really nice to see how the kids loved the classes.

U-Don teaching self defence to one of the classes and everyone really interested!

Even the girls got into it!

After the exercise we had a time to talk and pray together when U-Don shared a little bit about how much Jesus is important in his life and how much Jesus protects us more than anything else, even more than some self defense techniques we might know.

The kids asked him many questions and they were really excited to know that a foreigner cared about them enough to go there and teach them something new and spend time with them.

Time for questions, short testimony and prayer

We really enjoyed ourselves there.We heard about the plan of expansion of the centre that so far cannot be done because they are lacking financial support. We saw the 3D project idea with all facilities that the founder is praying for to be able to build to attend more kids. There are almost 100 kids on the waiting list to get a chance to join this project.

We also heard a little bit about some of the stories of kids in the program that had suffered abuse, violence at home, extreme poverty, broken families and many other unstable home situations. We were happy to see how much can be done to help those kids but sad to hear that so little is done at the moment because of lack of financial support, lack of volunteers, lack of more space to receive more kids, and other issues.

We can say that an experience like this transforms us. We are reminded that God is so powerful that he can use such a small place with no much facilities and only a few workers to transform the kids’ lives forever as hope for a future and for eternity is offered to them.

Praise God:

for the vision,
for the project and its results,
for the many children that have been taken out of the streets,
for the many who accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior,
for the volunteers that work there every day,

Please pray:

for the project to continue even though they are struggling with finances at the moment,
for God to raise supporters and workers,
for the plan to expand to happen so more kids will be able to participate of it,
for the kids who are currently in the project to have their lives changed.

Packing our luggage

18 Nov 2011

Today was my last day at work. I have worked in the same company for the last 5 years and I consider my work colleagues as my little family here in Australia.

Packing for Brazil

It was sad to say goodbye but I know that friendships were made during those years and we will keep in touch no matter where I go. I am very blessed because they all support me and encourage me to go on to the next step of my life as I start with SIM.

A big thank you to my work friends!!!

Now U-Don and I start a new page of the story of our lives and it is very exciting to share all of this with you.

To start with: we are heading off to Brazil tomorrow for an amazing trip.

We will be attending my sister’s wedding and sharing her big day with my whole family. We are really excited to go and spend time with them because it has been 2 years since we last saw them.

We are also looking forward to the amazing ministry opportunities that we are going to experience while in Brazil.

U-Don is going to join a sports ministry that uses martial arts classes to bring hope to disadvantaged children.

I will be joining a few different ministries that will be quite challenging but also very rewarding to participate of:

- ministry to prisoners,

- support to girls that want to leave prostitution,

- evangelism to the deaf community,

- visit to hospitals,

- visit and care for families that live below the poverty line and depend on collecting rubbish from the dumpsters,

- and many others.

The idea is for me to watch and participate of some ministries currently done by Brazilian churches that are in need of missionaries. And, when I am back in Sydney as a SIM mission mobiliser, part of my role will be to facilitate the partnership with SIM Brazil by sending SIM missionaries from Australia to serve in those areas of urgent need. Please pray that God will raise the workers to go.

I will be posting news on my blog about each of the ministries while we are there so you can read about them and pray for the people who we will be in contact with through those programs.

We ask if you could pray:

- for our safety,

- for us to have a good time with family,

- for a lovely wedding day for my sister,

- for God to use us in the ministries we will be participating of,

- for us to be open to what God will do in our lives in the future,

- for us to be servants in God’s hands.

Keep tuned because more news are on the way!

Introduction

16 Nov 2011

I think that the best way to start this blog is by telling you the story on how I decided to join SIM.

My relationship with SIM started in April 2010 while I was on holidays in Brazil. As you might know, Brazil has experienced growth in the number of evangelical Christians and in the number of missionaries sent overseas. But there are still a lot of challenges that the country faces for example leadership, discipleship, training, mentoring, theological teaching and local missions.

So I felt that God was asking me to build a bridge between Brazil and Australia so a partnership would me made and both countries could learn from each other to better contribute to God's mission to the whole world. In my heart I knew that Australia will benefit from the Brazilian experience in being a sending nation that is so excited about missions. Brazil will benefit from the solid Bible teaching that Australians have.

With this in mind, I contacted SIM to ask if they would be interested in this partnership with Brazil and also if they could open opportunities for Australians to go for missions in Brazil to help with areas in need. And SIM answered me! I had meetings with SIM to develop a program for missions in Brazil and it took a year of prayer and obedience to God to put together a project.

In my mind my task was finished: God asked me to connect the 2 countries and I did. Now SIM would encourage and facilitate the way for people to follow God's call to missions, including Brazil as a mission field.

But God had a bigger plan, He was not finished with me, and SIM invited me to join their team as a mission mobiliser, to be one of the people who encourage others to go and to facilitate the journey from God's call to the field.

So I accepted the challenge and obeyed God's call one more time. I am now a member of SIM and in February 2012 I start my role of mission mobiliser. I like to say that not only I chose SIM, but SIM chose me, and most importantly: God chose both SIM and I to work together in his mission, for his glory.

Praise God:

Please pray:

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