Jeff & Rachel
Brawner

We covet your prayers as we prepare to head back out to Brazil in May.

In the past 44 days Rachel and I have served in South Asia, Brazil, and Argentina-We will begin our journey home to the states tomorrow. It’s a good thing too because our clean clothes are getting more and more sparse. Here’s a short summary from the last month: ⁃ We led a volunteer team from Tennessee that shared Christ with 2000 individuals in North Brazil ⁃ We spent a week training 120 ministry students in Argentina that represent over 20 countries ⁃ We trained 220 church planters in South Asia, many of whom have experienced physical persecution for their faith ⁃ We led two church planting clinics in North Argentina ⁃ We spent four days investing in-depth time with leaders in Brazil - We were involved in a car wreck in the Andes with a wild horse. I wish that one was a joke, but God protected everyone involved. It has been a visibly fruitful trip and we are so blessed to have served with so many people. The results however are in the hands of the only one who made this possible and deserves all glory- Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

We are on our way home. We sure appreciated your prayers. Suriname and Guyana are the toughest soils we have, but we were able to train churches in both countries and make plans for the future. S*rin*me is only ready to begin with basic evangelism. Leaders in G*y*n* are looking to plant churches. For the next season, we are going to be “tilling the soil” and just try to do direct evangelism with the M*slim and Hindu populations in both countries.

We head out early tomorrow morning for G*y*n* and S*rin*me. These are tough areas to work in terms of church planting. Really covet your prayers.

Saturday we head out to Brazil for the last time this year. We will be taking a team from Wynne Baptist Church. Like all volunteer teams the purpose is to hopefully start a church. Pray for us as one of our ministries, evangelism in schools, has met some resistance from several local principals. We will be overseas from the 9th through the 16th. As a quick family update, please pray for Anna who is finishing her Masters degree while working in an intercity school in Knoxville, and Lizzy is living in Spain, trying to master her Spanish fluency. Finally, as the travel winds down for the year, we will be around if anyone would like us to come give a report to your church, or if you just want to grab coffee with Rachel or me. Thank you for your prayers and friendship.

We are praising God for more open doors for our Brazilian partners in Venezuela as well as asking for prayer for continued protection for them.

Praise:Several new church plants that have been started in unreached places in Venezuela and Argentina.

Pray for our upcoming trips. We will be in Brazil and India several times before December.

We head out for an 18 day trip to Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina on Thursday. We will train churches, pastors, laypeople and church planters. We are targeting unreached peoples in Brazil and Argentina specifically.   Sure do covet your prayers for:   The Spirit to move in and for the King to get all of the glory!

Thank you for your prayers for our trip to Suriname and Guyana. The Surinamese we're very warm, interested, and ready for gospel training. The key question now is will they apply what they have learned… the people were excited and responsive, now we wait to see what the Lord does in the coming months.Guyana, as always, was a joy!!! It's hard soil, but our friend who works with us in Guyana, has seen more work as of late among believers than he has ever seen in the past 15 years.

Rachel and I will be traveling to Guyana and Suriname the 13th-20th. It’s an exploratory trip to see if Suriname is a viable new country to target. Plus, we will able to do some follow up training with churches in Eastern Guyana.We sure covet your prayers.

Pray for Jeff as he heads to South Asia in February to reach both tribal people and UPG.

Well, we are headed to the Amazon today. Traveling to both ends of the river for 8 days.We will be training two groups that have been showing some potential as new partners in the ministry there, and trying to encourage those faithful partners we already have.Pray for me, Rachel, Anna and Lizzy.In Him,Jeff

We just got back from four South American countries. The purpose of the trip was to see if we could expand to these countries as well as examine one country where we were already working. I’m a big believer in reporting when things go well but also being transparent when they don’t. We think that two of the countries hold great potential and will start working there soon. These two countries represent two of the hardest soil in all of South America so we will have to be patient, but it was very moving to see both their interest and their need. That part of the trip was VERY exciting. Another country has some potential so we will have to evaluate further. However a fourth place, where we have sent Brazilians to work for about a year and a half, looks like it is just stuck.
This is part of missions. Some groups of believers will just never start actively working. It was a great trip, but as I told Rachel, it’s also important to let partners know that while some fields are just ripe for harvest, others don’t work out as well. Thanks for your prayers. Our next stop is the Amazon in three weeks.

We are headed to Guyana with a church in Arkansas and a group from Wisconsin for six days of evangelism. We covet your prayers.

We were able to train 110 potential leaders in two Brazilian states. We were also able to secure one of the best Brazilian trainers I know in the world to come on board and help multiply the ministry across Brazil/South America.

Today, we head to a new state in Brazil as we look to expand the ministry and look for new leaders. We will train, hopefully, 150 leaders. Then Rachel will meet me in another state and help me train with church planters we know in South America. Our Brazilian team trained 600 people which is their largest ever.