8 Ramdom facts about me

I was tagged by Len Evans to tell you 8 Random facts about me, the rules are:

1. players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
2. those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
3. players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

Here you have:

1. I learned to play keyboard when I was at my twenties, I even bought an Yamaha PSR and played in an audition in a restaurant; I don't remember how I get rid off this keyboard;

2. I could see Miami Heats defeating Chicago Bulls when I was in Miami, that is why I got their uniform when I had to chose an esportive Christmas gift two years ago.

3.I had some loyal penpals when I was a teenager, Georgia Sarla, from Greece; Lisa ###, from Norway; Helena de Fátima Bento da Conceição, from Portugal and Isabelle ### from France.

4.Yesterday was my second time running karts and, for this time again, I finished a position ahead from the last

5. My preferred superhero were Daredevil

6. We did three contests between folks in my office to loose weight, I won all three, but now I am well above my last goal that gave me close to US$ 200.

7. I received from Ken McCord a hole 2 pounds 8 oz of Skippy Peanut Butter when I was in San Francisco, the bottle is getting empty and I don't know what to do after that!

8. I have four e-mail accounts, I use to read them at least five times a day, great sign of anxiety

Unfortunatelly all my international folks have already answer to this meme, I might invite my eight friends when I import this to my Brazilian Blog.

Day to be champions

Today was a great day to sports in Brazil, first at Volleyball World League, we beated Russia (3 v 1) and we won the World League for our seventh time (fifith year in a row). It is amazing to see that we have been producing generations and generations of very good volleyball players, just to remember, we have been won the World League for the last five years, and we won also the last World cup and the golden medal at Athens Olympic champeonship.

But we had another championship final to watch, it was the Copa America final against Argentina (our biggest sport rival), our team made bad matches in this cup, our best players preferred to be on their vacations (Kaka, Ronaldinho Gaucho and Ronaldo), we started Copa America with a desasterous match when we were defeated by Mexico, but we were keeping a somewhat regular results until we got to final, but Argentina won all their matches, they sent their best players to won this cup. So I thought Argentina would won Brazil easily, but the unexpected happened, Júlio Baptista could score a first goal between the first 5 minutes, we got another goal at first half and another in second half. It is the second Copa America we won Argentina at final in a row! Though I love the Argentinean people and I have very good Argentinean friends, it is just delicious to beat Argentina and even in this kind of situation!
Tag - copa america; Volleyball World League

Great encouragement

I had a good surprise this week finding a very good post on Emergent Village written by Andrew Hamilton "6 reasons not to quit", it is interesting to see how it repercussioned, this post collected so far 25 comments (one from me), it might seem how church planters are thirsty of this kind of encouragement.
Andrew shares a little of his experience ahead a ministry in Perth, where they have been ministried for already 4 years, without a single person signing up to follow Jesus. His feelings about seeing himself as a failure was echoed by many people who commented.
As I have been tried to share here, we have been gathering to plant a church in a North Zone neighborhood in São Paulo, we have been gathering weekly since the beggining of this year with expectations to gather more people around us, we have not succeeded so far, even with all invitations that I have been made, we were unable to bring a friend here yet. My obsession on reaching friends has lots of times turned out to frustration of being unable to gather unchurched friends with us. By the other side, I have been also unable to give up, many frustrated nights has followed some mornings with hope when I weak up expecting a new way to impact some friends with our witness. I have been encouraged thinking that we are just closer to the day we will make it.
It has been difficult, but we reather stick with a small group strategy than appeal to an impersonal one like a stablished church, I think if we are not able to develop a small group right now, we won't do it in the future, so we have to learn now but it takes patience.
This is not to raise pity to me, but to share how Andrew's words gave more power to the hope that have been attached me to this dream.

Tag - church planting; hope

5 things I dig about Jesus

I was tagged by Paul Abspoel from Netherlands to tell you Five things I Dig about Jesus, I was very honored by this invitation. Yesterday I read in Exiles, from Michael Frost that we, in our churchy culture, have seen Jesus as a man to be worshiped instead a man to be followed; it is wierd when you get so block as to ennumerate what dig you about Jesus, makes me thing how far I put him in my life just to be worshiped and not think he was a man like me too:

1. Availability - He was so available, even when he knew that he became a very public person, so demanded and even when he knew that some people searched him because of food and because of status, he attended all.

2.Focus - Though he was very demanded, he never lost his focus, even when we forsaw his death, when he knew that what would happen to him, would happen due his mission here, he accepted.

3. No prejudice - He knew everything about the people who he was talking with, he knew the kind of life everybody was used to live, but he received all that was sincere to present their fragmented life and rejected all important people that pretended was close to God and wanted to promote themselves over him

4.Balanced - He knew when it was time to act, but knew also when was time to retire and rest, or pray. He didn't get overworked even with all demmand he had

5. Great Teacher - He didn't explained all his purpose and all his doctrines, instead, he let people find it for themselves, his teachings was never long talks explaining everything, he liked to use questions and stories to make us think and realize for ourselves.

I will tag all my international buddies that, I thing, would do that: Rick Stilwell, Len Evans, Steve Knight,JR Woodward and Ken McCord

Here are the rules:
(a) Those tagged will share “Five Things They Dig About Jesus”.
(b) Those tagged will tag 5 people.
(c) Those tagged will leave a link to their meme in the comments section of this post so everyone can keep track of what's being posted.